Max Lerner Quotes

At some time in their careers, most good historians itch to write a history of the world, endeavor to discover what makes humanity the most destructive and creative of species.

I'm still a firm believer that we were definitely put here to use our minds, and that is what makes us different. And that that's the key. If there is anything that is going to stop mankind from being such a beastly, destructive creature, it is reason.

Since I'm essentially optimistic, I can't imagine a world in which man is totally decimated or degraded.

humanity is a cancer on the body of the world

The growing possibility of our destroying ourselves and the world with our own neglect and excess is tragic and very real.

Throughout most of our history, nothing - not flood, famine, plague, or new weapons - has endangered humanity one-tenth as much as the narcissistic ego, with its self-aggrandizing presumptions and its hell-hound spawn of fear and greed.

Many are the wonders of the world, and none so wonderful as man.

We’re destroying the world because we are, in a very literal and deliberate way, at war with it.

Anticipating the end of the world is humanity's oldest passtime

I believe in man. I believe in mankind, as the worst and the best that has happened to this world.

Man himself has become our greatest hazard and our only hope. So that today, St. John the apostle may well be paraphrased: In the end is the Word, and the Word is Man - and the Word is with Men.

Then I have some bad news for you, because humans are going to destroy each other as soon as it becomes easy enough to, which will be very soon.

Discovery is always rape of the natural world. Always.

Science devises ever bloodier means of war until humanity's powers of destruction overcome our powers of creation and our civilisation drives itself to extinction.

What a piece of work is a man

What have we done to the world?....... Look what we've done.

The coming years will prove increasingly cynical and cruel. People will definitely not slip into oblivion while hugging each other. The final stages in the life of humanity will be marked by the monstrous war of all against all: the amount of suffering will be maximal.

The greatest need in the world at this moment is the transformation of human nature.

Humanity adores only those who cause it to perish.

Genocide is not a legitimate option. It's not ok to decide that an entire population has no right to live in the world. No matter whether these relationships are very proximate or very distant, there is no entitlement to expunge a population or to demean its basic humanity.

Were the life of man prolonged, he would become such a proficient in villainy, that it would become necessary again to drown or to burn the world. Earth would become an hell; for future rewards when put off to a great distance, would cease to encourage, and future punishments to alarm.

We are most like beasts when we kill. We are most like men when we judge. We are most like God when we forgive.

People do terrible things all the time, but we don’t regularly disown our humanity. We disavow the terrible things.

I'm like everyone else in this stupid, bloody, amazing world. I'm flawed. Impossibly so. But hopeful. I'm still me.

What will finally destroy us is not communism or fascism, but man acting like God.