Man desired concord; but nature knows better what is good for his species; she desires discord. Man wants to live easy and content; but nature compels him to leave ease… and throw himself into roils and labors. – Immanuel Kant, Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose, 1787

Man, when he is merely what he seems to be, is almost nothing. – Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

The true man walks the earth as the stars walk the heavens, grandly obedient to those laws which are implanted in his nature. – Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays, 1911

It would indeed be a tragedy if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump. – David Ormsby Gore