Man talks about everything, and he talks about everything as though the understanding of everything were all inside him. – Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

It is curious to note the old sea-margins of human thought! Each subsiding century reveals some new mystery; we build where monsters used to hide themselves. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kavanagh, 1849

I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character… by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none. – Carl Linnaeus, 1788

It is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing. – Mariane Moore, “A Grave,” Collected Poems, 1951