{"quotes":[{"text":"To eat in a monastery refectory is an exercise in humility; daily, one is reminded to put communal necessity before individual preference. While consumer culture speaks only to preferences, treating even whims as needs to be granted (and the sooner the better), monastics sense that this pandering to delusions of self-importance weakens the true self, and diminishes our ability to distinguish desires from needs. It's a price they're not willing to pay.","author":"Kathleen Norris","tags":["cereal","community","consumerism","humility","options","preference","self-centered"],"id":27457,"author_id":"Kathleen+Norris"},{"text":"For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs—as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.","author":"Charles Darwin","tags":["ape","apes","belief","evolution","great-ape","great-apes","humanity","humans","man","preference","sacrifice","slavery","superstition","torture"],"id":28694,"author_id":"Charles+Darwin"},{"text":"For preference utilitarians, taking the life of a person will normally be worse than taking the life of some other being, because persons are highly future-oriented in their preferences. To kill a person is therefore, normally, to violate not just one but a wide range of the most central and significant preferences a being can have. Very often, it will make nonsense of everything that the victim has been trying to do in the past days, months or even years. In contrast, beings that cannot see themselves as entities with a future do not have any preferences about their own future existence. This is not to deny that such beings might struggle against a situation in which their lives are in danger, as a fish struggles to get free of the barbed hook in its mouth; but this indicates no more than a preference for the cessation of a state of affairs that causes pain or fear. The behaviour of a fish on a hook suggests a reason for not killing fish by that method but does not in itself suggest a preference utilitarian reason against killing fish by a method that brings about death instantly, without first causing pain or distress. Struggles against danger and pain do not suggest that fish are capable of preferring their own future existence to non-existence.","author":"Peter Singer","tags":["death","ethics","preference","utilitarianism"],"id":29351,"author_id":"Peter+Singer"},{"text":"Niggard prefers mistake rather than loss.","author":"Toba Beta","tags":["better","loss","mistake","preference","stingy"],"id":46640,"author_id":"Toba+Beta"},{"text":"Perfect is a Preference, Not! A possibility.","author":"Devin Murphy","tags":["perfection","possibility","preference"],"id":48933,"author_id":"Devin+Murphy"},{"text":"Our souls yearn for connection with all souls. There are people we think we prefer and others we don’t, but half the time that’s a lie: We tell ourselves the fairy tale of our hatreds out of fear, but we revisit that tale as it suits us. Deep down, we’d love to love and be loved by all.","author":"Alexandra Katehakis","tags":["connection","hatred","love","preference"],"id":62731,"author_id":"Alexandra+Katehakis"},{"text":"Every category has its snobs: music, books, movies. There are so many things a man is only pressured into liking or disliking.","author":"Criss Jami","tags":["absolutism","be-yourself","bigotry","books","critics","culture","dislikes","elitism","entertainment","force","inferiority","influence","insincerity","likes","literature","media","movies","music","opinion","peer-pressure","personality","pop-culture","preference","pressure","purists","rebels","sincerity","snobs","superiority","taste"],"id":69841,"author_id":"Criss+Jami"},{"text":"The spoon’s color does not change the soup’s taste.","author":"Matshona Dhliwayo","tags":["guru","matshona-dhliwayo","preference","preferences","sage","spoon","taste","wisdom","wisdom","wisdom","wise","wise","wise-sayings","wise-words"],"id":76111,"author_id":"Matshona+Dhliwayo"},{"text":"There are some who want to get married and others who don't. I have never had an impulse to go to the altar. I am a difficult person to lead.","author":"Greta Garbo","tags":["bachelorhood","empowerment","equality","freedom","independence","marriage","matrimony","preference","self-determination","self-reliance","self-sufficiency","singles","submission","women"],"id":76830,"author_id":"Greta+Garbo"},{"text":"Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.","author":"Elizabeth Gaskell","tags":["folly","preference","wisdom"],"id":140671,"author_id":"Elizabeth+Gaskell"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":21,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}