The best things ever uttered by fellow Homo sapiens (if I may say so myself)

Sometimes you've got to hand it to others. No matter how thoughtfully you craft your words to make a salient point, you find someone else has said it before - and said it better. What's more (what's worse?) they said it some time ago, or even a long time ago. And there you were, thinking you were being original and ever so with it and up to the minute.

 

O time, time, you brutal torrent

Today, I hand over the floor to a select few of my fellow Homo sapiens. Not just any common or garden Homo sapiens, but a particular strand of the species. Homo sapiens who are/were actually sapient. Oddly enough, sapient Homo sapiens are rather a rarity. Which just goes to show that when names are chosen to identify things in our world, there's often a certain looseness in the application of accuracy and double-checking-just-to-make-sure.

[For example, he conjectured parenthetically, 'reality TV' is as fantastical a designation as 'humble politician', and the less said about 'music' and 'Robbie Will-i-ams' in the same breath the better. Sigh, he concluded parenthetically.]

So I now bow to my handful of heroes as genially as I bow to the inevitability of my lack of unique thought, and throw down the gauntlet to anyone who wishes to doubt the veracity of the following gems of genius. If you can disprove the eternal truth of any of these utterances, statements and observations, I'll eat my chapeau avec un air d'insouciance.

 

Okay. In no particular order:

 

'...a belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.'

'And what is death? ...it is not a shameful thing like some kinds of life.'

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) in 'Under Western Eyes' (1911), referring in the first quotation to finances among other things. He is one of the finest exponents of the English language, yet he knew not a word before he turned 19 years old.

 

Tralfamadorian visitor: 'Any questions?'  Billy Pilgrim: 'Why me?' Tralfamadorian: 'That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr Pilgrim.  Why you?  Why us for that matter?  Why anything?  Because this moment simply is.  Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?'

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922-2007) in 'Slaughterhouse-Five' (1969). I dare you to read any of his books without laughing and crying and laughing again. You may also wish to become a volunteer fire-fighter.

 

'If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.'

'The very existence of flamethrowers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone said to themselves, "You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done."'

'Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.'

George Carlin (1937-2008) spoke so much truth, these three quotations barely scratch the surface of his inside track on humanity's failure. Try this for a larger dose of reality.

 

'You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.'

Attributed to Jesus (?BC/AD -30/36AD) in the Bible (Mark 10:42-45). Anyone care to comment in the Vatican or among the fundamentalists vying for US political office?

 

'A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.'

'Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.'

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) was just 39 years old when he was extinguished by dark forces but his words have turned out to be arrow-like predictions.

 

'Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.'

Roger Waters (b.1943) of Pink Floyd, in the track Time on 'The Dark Side of the Moon' (1973). There are myriad quotable lines here. The entire album deals with greed, conflict and insanity. Plus ça change.

 

'Facebook…is a joke. Basically, it's a platform in which (founder Mark) Zuckerberg and friends try to sell a bunch of monkeys some shit they don't need while these monkeys groom each other online.'

Dave Cohen (b. ?) on his blog ‘Decline of the Empire’. Prolific sane writing on the 50 States of Degeneration between Mexico and Canada.

 

'When people accept that they are dying and need assistance (if not pain relief) to die in dignity, they turn to hospice care. That is what our species should do – go extinct with dignity.'

George Mobus (b. ?) on his blog ‘Question Everything’. Associate Professor at the University of Washington, George applies deep knowledge of Energy Systems, Evolutionary Biology and Biophysical Economics in understanding where we’re headed as a species. I’d vote him for President.

 

'Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.'

Michael Pritchard (b. ?) stand-up comedian and motivational speaker, who now teaches 'learning by laughter'.

 

'To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.'

'No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer.'

'Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.'

George Orwell (1903-1950) set out everything we need to know about political insanity, corruption and war-mongering in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm and Homage to Catalonia, among his many other books.

 

'We’ll make love ... Hopefully the three of us ... Why not? Life is short, life is dull, life is full of pain.'

Woody Allen (b. 1935) wrote this truism for his umpteenth movie 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' (2008).

 

'If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.'

'No diet will remove all the fat from your body because the brain is entirely fat. Without a brain, you might look good, but all you could do is run for public office.'

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) shows us that know-nothing economists and politicians are nothing new.

 

'We learn from history that we never learn anything from history.'

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was proven right big time when his narcissist compatriot Hitler made the same stupid mistake as Napoleon - attacking Russia in the wintertime.

 

'All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.'

'Wealth is like seawater - the more we drink, the thirstier we become.'

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) pessimistically concluded that emotional, physical and sexual desires can never be fully satisfied, causing the painful human condition.

 

'When a book and a head collide and a hollow sound is heard, must it always have come from the book?'

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799) was a German scientist and philosopher with a gift for satire.

 

'From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.'

Karl Marx (1818–1883) is still maligned by ignoramuses who can't tell the difference between a maestro composer and a ham-fisted orchestra member.

 

'A child of five would understand this. Send somebody to fetch a child of five.'

Groucho Marx (1890-1977) will never be forgotten wherever there are big cigars, bushy eyebrows and killer lines.

 

And finally - for now - sapience in quadruplicate from a very smart dear departed.

 

'A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.'

'The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.'

'Only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe.'

'Insanity - doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.'

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) said a lot more, relatively speaking.

 

I was planning to say that I am now going to sit on a mountain top and cogitate. My challenge was going to be to come up with something wholly new about the state of the world. Something that has not already been presaged or revealed by bigger brains than moi. But I've just had a thought.

 

There's ice cream in the freezer. And it being a cold wet day in June - hello British summer - this is an ideal time to be a contrarian. As I lick, I shall ponder Herr Schopenhauer's principal contention about desire.