“Today we have made a fetish of choice; but a chosen death is forbidden. Perhaps what distinguishes humans from other animals is that humans have learnt to cling more abjectly to life.”
― Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
― Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
“If there is anything unique about the human animal, it is that it has the ability to grow knowledge at an accelerating rate while being chronically incapable of learning from experience.”
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“Today, for the mass of humanity, science and technology embody 'miracle, mystery, and authority'. Science promises that the most ancient human fantasies will at last be realized. Sickness and ageing will be abolished; scarcity and poverty will be no more; the species will become immortal. Like Christianity in the past, the modern cult of science lives on the hope of miracles. But to think that science can transform the human lot is to believe in magic. Time retorts to the illusions of humanism with the reality: frail, deranged, undelivered humanity. Even as it enables poverty to be diminished and sickness to be alleviated, science will be used to refine tyranny and perfect the art of war.”
― Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
― Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
“Life becomes easier when you learn to accept an apology you never got.”
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“A German officer visited Picasso in his Paris studio during the Second World War. There he saw Guernica and, shocked at the modernist «chaos» of the painting, asked Picasso: «Did you do this?» Picasso calmly replied: «No, you did this!»”
― Violence: Six Sideways Reflections
― Violence: Six Sideways Reflections
Brendan ’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Brendan ’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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