#evolutionary

[Speaking to a group of wealthy New Yorkers] A million years ago, the cave man, without tools, with small brain, and with nothing but the strength of his body, managed to feed his wife and children, so that through him the race survived. You on the other hand, armed with all the modern means of production, multiplying the productive capacity of the cave man a million times — you are incompetents and muddlers, you are unable to secure to millions even the paltry amount of bread that would sustain their physical life. You have mismanaged the world, and it shall be taken from you.  ↗

— Jack London

#life

Nothing endures for so long as fear. Everywhere in nature one sees evidence of innate releasing mechanisms literally millions of years old, which have lain dormant through thousands of generations but retained their power undiminished. The field rat’s inherited image of the hawk’s silhouette is the classic example - even a paper silhouette drawn across a cage sends it rushing frantically for cover. And how else can you explain the universal but completely groundless loathing of the spider, only one species of which has ever been known to sting? Or hatred of snakes and reptiles? Simply because we all carry within us a submerged memory of the time when the giant spiders were lethal, and when the reptiles were the planet’s dominant life form. ↗

— J.G. Ballard

#evolutionary-biology #nature

[L]asting love is something a person has to decide to experience. Lifelong monogamous devotion is just not natural—not for women even, and emphatically not for men. It requires what, for lack of a better term, we can call an act of will. . . . This isn't to say that a young man can't hope to be seized by love. . . . But whether the sheer fury of a man's feelings accurately gauges their likely endurance is another question. The ardor will surely fade, sooner or later, and the marriage will then live or die on respect, practical compatibility, simple affection, and (these days, especially) determination. With the help of these things, something worthy of the label 'love' can last until death. But it will be a different kind of love from the kind that began the marriage. Will it be a richer love, a deeper love, a more spiritual love? Opinions vary. But it's certainly a more impressive love. ↗

— Robert Wright

#determination #evolutionary-psychology #feelings #lasting-love #love

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution. ↗

— Hannah Arendt

#become #conservative #day #most #radical

I trust that the president will try, just give it one more shot, some revolutionary way of not doing this, of bringing all those kids back home safely. ↗

— F. Murray Abraham

#bringing #doing #give #home #i

For then only will you be strong, when you cherish the laws, and when the revolutionary attempts of lawless men shall have ceased. ↗

— Aeschines

#be strong #ceased #cherish #lawless #laws

Normal life cannot sustain revolutionary attitudes for long. ↗

— Milovan Djilas

#cannot #life #long #normal #normal life

Postmodernism is among other things a sick joke at the expense of revolutionary avant-gardism. ↗

— Terry Eagleton

#expense #joke #other #postmodernism #revolutionary

When you consider what Tony Blair was saying about liberty, human rights and that sort of thing, it would be terribly revolutionary to sell the speeches he and Jack Straw made in 1994. ↗

— Rory Bremner

#blair #consider #human #human rights #jack

Just as radical heirs apparent are said to lay aside all inconvenient revolutionary opinions when they come to the throne, it was believed that Mr. Mill in Parliament would be an entirely different person from Mr. Mill in his study. ↗

— Millicent Fawcett

#aside #believed #come #different #different person