Michael Pollan Quotes

The trouble is, I just don't know if I'm too human or not human enough.

Nothing is stranger to man than his own image.

Self-awareness is a trait that not only makes us human but also paradoxically makes us want to be more than merely human. As I said in my BBC Reith Lectures, “Science tells us we are merely beasts, but we don’t feel like that. We feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, forever craving transcendence

One is tempted to say that the most human plants, after all, are the weeds.

One has followed the other in an endless circle, for it is certain that as man's insight increases so he finds both wretchedness and greatness within himself. In a word man knows he is wretched. Thus he is wretched because he is so, but he is truly great because he knows it.

I know myself a Man-- Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.

Our thoughts are often worse than we are.

We breathe, we think, we conceive of our lives as narratives.

Man has gone long enough, or even too long, without being man enough to face the simple truth that the trouble with man is man.

The human being is a most curious creature. He thinks he has got one soul, and he has got dozens.

Of course, we're all a mass of contradictions.

We imagine that we want to escape our selfish and commonplace existence, but we cling desperately to our chains.

I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.

I often worry that my idea of personhood is nostalgic, irrational, inaccurate.

People only hate what they see in themselves.

We are not angels, we are merely sophisticated apes. Yet we feel like angels trapped inside the bodies of beasts, craving transcendence and all the time trying to spread our wings and fly off, and it's really a very odd predicament to be in, if you think about it.

Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.

I see pictures of myself and I always knew that what I was feeling didn't look like that guy in the pictures.

Yeah, well my name is Bai Ling. That means white spirit, and I really feel like sometimes I'm not existing.

I love playing ego and insecurity combined.

I can't wish I weren't something that I am.

So when I look in the mirror I'm driven by both vanity and fear.

Successful people tend to feel simultaneously inadequate and superior.

Every good story is about who we are and our struggle to define ourselves.

It's really hard to watch yourself.