Joseph Wood Krutch Quotes

There was nothing humane about humanity. At the end of the day, they were all animals with only survival instincts.

The truth is, if a werewolf behaved like this psychopath it wouldn't be because he was part animal, but because he was still too human. Only humans kill for sport.

Homo sapiens does its best to forget the fact, but it is an animal.

We're animals. We're violent.

I find it valid to understand man as an animal before I am prepared to know him as a man.

People are animals, man.

To animalise is humane, to humanise is animal.

How do you forget that someone else is another person? No matter who they are. I don't think that's an excuse.

I read somewhere, one, that crying defies scientific explanation. Tears are only meant to lubricate the eyes. There is no real reason for tear glands to overproduce tears at the behest of emotion. I think we cry to release the animal parts of us without losing our humanity. Because inside of me is a beast that snarls, and growls, and strains toward freedom, toward Tobias, and, above all, towards life. And as hard as I try, I cannot kill it.

What is human behavior, except trying to prove that we're not animals?

The more experience and insight I obtain into human nature, the more convinced do I become that the greater portion of a man is purely animal.

People are just greedy animals, after all.

Not until man is willing to recognize his animal nature - in the good sense of the word - will he create genuine culture.

When grubbing for necessities man is still an animal. He becomes uniquely human when he reaches out for the superfluous and extravagant.

He didn't care about the others anymore. The chaos around him seemed to siphon away his humanity, turn him into an animal. All he wanted was to survive, make it to that building, get inside. Live. Gain another day.

To postpone unpleasantness is human; to forget it is divine.

When humans act like animals, they become the most dangerous of animals to themselves and other humans, and this is because of another critical difference between humans and animals: Whereas animals are usually restrained by the limits of physical appetites, humans have mental appetites that can be far more gross and capacious than physical ones. Only humans squander and hoard, murder and pillage because of notions.

I did the searching and remembering, she did the disappearing and the forgetting.

A good forgettery is a happier possession than a good memory.

... the irony of life is not that you cannot forget but that you can.

I suppose that we are only young, Chris, so long as we can forget. After that we merely remember!

Like it takes so little not only to change something, but to make you forget the way it once was, as well.

We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things.

We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.