Immortality Quotes

“The mass media of film, television, radio and internet have enabled a whole new degree of instant, global stardom for those of dubious talent. As a result, our society is drowning in a flood of celebrities, products of a fame industry of lavish scale.”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

“Death is meticulous in collecting every living thing sooner or later.”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

“A civilization of those who face up to their mortality is therefore one worth striving for.”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

“A long, long history of death has made possible the incredible fact that you are alive now.”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

“Heroes are motivated to sacrifice their natural life by the dread of utter oblivion, and their heroic deeds grant them instead a more permanent existence as part of culture.”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

“We cannot all be heroes; most of us accept this fact, but some choose instead to be villains.”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

“At a biological level we are born individuals: we are each a distinct organism. But at the symbolic level, we have to fight to carve out a distinctive identity in a space of shared words and ideas.”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

“The more we know about ourselves, the less surprising it is that we have no souls.”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

“The reality of human psychology means that any community will experience conflict, dissatisfaction, frustration and, given a few billion years, boredom.”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

“...when we moderns now look up to the stars, it is not the firmament of angels looking kindly back, but out -endlessly out- into the lonely void.”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

“Both our immortality and our mortality present themselves to our minds with equal force.”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

“Life is a constant war we are doomed to lose.”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

“Almost all facets of humanity's development can be understood as expressions of the will to live forever.”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

“All living things seek to perpetuate themselves into the future, but humans seek to perpetuate themselves forever.”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

“No matter how great our glory, it could only ever be a postponement of oblivion.”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

“communications”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization

“We are therefore blessed with powerful minds yet at the same time cursed, not only to die, but to know that we must.”
― Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization