John Rawls Quotes

I think the wonderment of seeing my two sons developing makes me incredibly optimistic about human potential. It makes you think: 'My goodness. It's a miracle that's going on here. What could the human race do together?'

If we are to have faith that mankind will survive and thrive on the face of the earth, we must believe that each succeeding generation will be wiser than its progenitors.

Man is a special being, and if left to himself, in an isolated condition, would be one of the weakest creatures; but associated with his kind, he works wonders.

Civilization develops man, and if he is, according to his whole character and destiny, made for development, civilization is his truly natural state …

If we arrive at a saner world in which the maximum human potential is cultivated in every person, our descendants will not understand why our world produced only one Louis Pasteur, one Edison, one Tesla, or one Salk, and why great achievements in our age were the products of a relative few.

I think generationally, as human progress does its thing, we are constantly impressed by the upcoming generation.

Man is the only animal to borrow tools.

A concern with the perfectibility of mankind is always a symptom of thwarted or perverted development.

Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever he wants. God makes the animals, man makes himself.

To be reminded that one is very much like other members of the animal kingdom is often funny...though...I do not too much mind being somewhat like a cat.

Altruism has always been one of biology's deep mysteries. Why should any animal, off on its own, specified and labeled by all sorts of signals as its individual self, choose to give up its life in aid of someone else?

For imitation is natural to man from his infancy. Man differs from other animals particularly in this, that he is imitative, and acquires his rudiments of knowledge in this way; besides, the delight in it is universal.

Humans are the only animal who can have sex over the phone.

Man is the result of slow growth; that is why he occupies the position he does in animal life. What does a pup amount to that has gained its growth in a few days or weeks, beside a man who only attains it in as many years.

We, as humans, have actually developed a sense of social responsibility. We have gone beyond our basic instincts.

Man is developed from an ovule, about 125th of an inch in diameter, which differs in no respect from the ovules of other animals.

We are all blind until we see That in the human plan Nothing is worth the making If it does not make the man. Why build these cities glorious If man unbuilded goes? We build the world in vain Unless the builders also grow.

Man is at the bottom an animal, midway a citizen, and at the top divine. But the climate of this world is such that few ripen at the top.

Education can really transform the insecurities in the world into a bigger vision of what we are as human beings.

The mediocre mind has no capacity for understanding. It is stuck somewhere near thirteen years in its mental age, or even below it. The person may be forty, fifty, seventy years old - that does not matter, that is the physical age. He has been growing old, but he has not been growing up. You should note the distinction. Growing old, every animal does. Growing up, only a few human beings manage.

This is the fundamental idea of culture, insofar as it sets but one task for each of us: to further the production of the philosopher, of the artist, and of the saint within us and outside us, and thereby to work at the consummation of nature.

We slander the hyena; man is the fiercest and cruelest animal.

Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.

Never underestimate people.

Turkeys are peacocks that have really let themselves go.