{"quotes":[{"text":"Now you see what kind of creatures we are, Hugh. Eating things alive. That's what we do. How can you have much respect for mankind, or any belief in the social struggle?","author":"Malcolm Lowry","tags":["destruction","nature","nature-of-man","power"],"id":6031,"author_id":"Malcolm+Lowry"},{"text":"The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. That wile beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free. The signal was given, the barriers were down. As has so often happened in the history of man, permission was tacitly granted for acts of violence and plunder, even for murder, if they were carried out in the name of higher interests, according to established rules, and against a limited number of men of a particular type and belief....In a few minutes the business quarter, based on centuries of tradition, was wiped out. It is true that there had always been concealed enmities and jealousies and religious intolerance, coarseness and cruelty, but there had also been courage and fellowship and a feeling for measure and order, which restrained all these instincts within the limits of the supportable and, in the end, calmed them down and submitted them to the general interest of life in common. Men who had been leaders in the commercial quarter for forty years vanished overnight as if they had all died suddenly, together with the habits, customs and institutions which they represented.P. 11.","author":"Peter Maass","tags":["balkans","conflict","eastern-europe","ivo-andric","love-thy-neighbor","nature-of-man","peter-maass","war","wild-beast","yugoslavia"],"id":14462,"author_id":"Peter+Maass"},{"text":"There are all degrees of proficiency in the use men make of this instructive world where we are boarded and schooled and apprenticed. It is sufficient to our present purpose to indicate three degrees of progress.One class lives to the utility of the symbol, as the majority of men do, regarding health and wealth as the chief good. Another class live about this mark to the beauty of the symbol; as the poet and artist and the sensual school in philosophy. A third class live above the beauty of the symbol to the beauty of the thing signified and these are wise men. The first class have common sense; the second, taste; and the third spiritual perception.I see in society the neophytes of all these classes, the class especially of young men who in their best knowledge of the sign have a misgiving that there is yet an unattained substance and they grope and sigh and aspire long in dissatisfaction, the sand-blind adorers of the symbol meantime chirping and scoffing and trampling them down. I see moreover that the perfect man - one to a millennium - if so many, traverses the whole scale and sees and enjoys the symbol solidly; then also has a clear eye for its beauty; and lastly wears it lightly as a robe which he can easily throw off, for he sees the reality and divine splendor of the inmost nature bursting through each chink and cranny.","author":"Ralph Waldo Emerson","tags":["common-sense","health-and-wealth","life-lessons","mankind","men","nature","nature-of-man","perception","signified","society","spiritual","spiritual-perception","symbol","taste","the-perfect-man"],"id":16253,"author_id":"Ralph+Waldo+Emerson"},{"text":"And sometimes if I wantTo imagine I’m a lamb(Or a whole flockSpreading out all over the hillsideSo I can be a lot of happy things at the same time),It’s only because I feel what I write at sunset,Or when a cloud passes its hand over the lightAnd silence runs over the grass outside.When I sit and write poemsOr, walking along the roads or pathways,I write poems on the paper in my thoughts,I feel a staff in my handAnd see my silhouetteOn top of a knoll,Looking after my flock and seeing my ideas,Or looking after my ideas and seeing my flock,With a silly smile like someone who doesn’t understand what somebody’s sayingBut tries to pretend they do.","author":"Alberto Caeiro","tags":["at-peace","being","nature","nature-of-man","paganism","sadness"],"id":47937,"author_id":"Alberto+Caeiro"},{"text":"The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. That wild beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free. The signal was given, the barriers were down. As has so often happened in the history of man, permission was tacitly granted for acts of violence and plunder, even for murder, if they were carried out in the name of higher interests, according to established rules, and against a limited number of men of a particular type and belief....In a few minutes the business quarter, based on centuries of tradition, was wiped out. It is true that there had always been concealed enmities and jealousies and religious intolerance, coarseness and cruelty, but there had also been courage and fellowship and a feeling for measure and order, which restrained all these instincts within the limits of the supportable and, in the end, calmed them down and submitted them to the general interest of life in common. Men who had been leaders in the commercial quarter for forty years vanished overnight as if they had all died suddenly, together with the habits, customs and institutions which they represented.P. 11.","author":"Peter Maass","tags":["balkans","conflict","eastern-europe","ivo-andric","love-thy-neighbor","nature-of-man","peter-maass","war","wild-beast","yugoslavia"],"id":56287,"author_id":"Peter+Maass"},{"text":"Morality is totally God’s standard, and his standards and conditions are revealed to us through his written word, the Scriptures (The Bible).","author":"Reid A. Ashbaucher","tags":["metaphysics","nature-of-god","nature-of-man","philosophy-of-religion","reid-ashbaucher"],"id":71158,"author_id":"Reid+A.+Ashbaucher"},{"text":"The evolution of human mentality has put us all in vitro now, behind the glass wall of our own ingenuity.","author":"John Fowles","tags":["deforestation","nature","nature-of-man"],"id":73622,"author_id":"John+Fowles"},{"text":"To understand an issue or someone’s argument about anything,one needs to understand the very nature of the issue, which is thefoundational question concerning anything.","author":"Reid A. Ashbaucher","tags":["metaphysics","nature-of-god","nature-of-man","reid-ashbaucher"],"id":76554,"author_id":"Reid+A.+Ashbaucher"},{"text":"Does mankind truly hate itself? How can one surmount such irreverence?","author":"Brom","tags":["disrespect","mankind","nature","nature-of-man"],"id":90855,"author_id":"Brom"},{"text":"Our obsession for success, recognition and supremacy in all circumstances without ever aware of the gravity of the situation and the subtle intricacies that impact the fabric of the society as a whole has made us more inhuman than humanly possible, as a result we have become more artificial, with not even an iota of LIFE throbbing within Us. Humanity as a whole has come to this juncture, wherein if we don't dare to accept and act on our vulnerabilities, our shortcomings in totality and to embrace failures in same breath as success as an integral part of life, then I fear we are creating a world of zombies!","author":"Ramana Pemmaraju","tags":["acceptance-of-oneself","evolutionary-psychology","existence","live-totally","natural-living","nature-of-man"],"id":116133,"author_id":"Ramana+Pemmaraju"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":48,"pages":5,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}