Man is the only trained animal who expects his reward before he does his trick. – Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

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

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

We are survival machines — robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. – Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene