There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime.
Dead men don’t find things out.
Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time
A commonplace book: an old-fashioned literary diary for recording interesting items from reading you've done. I use mine to record snippets from reading, conversation and life in general. (The early 2003 entries are from a period some years ago -- before the blog age -- when I tried an online commonplace book as a straight web page.)
There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime.
Dead men don’t find things out.
Ideas are not dangerous unless they find seeding place in some earth more profound than the mind…. dangerous only when planted in unease and disquietude. But being so planted, growing in such earth, it ceases to be idea and becomes emotion and then religion.
People without a sense of humor will never forgive you for being funny.
Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club
The human mind is not simply an instrument of conscious cognition that can be detached from its organic base. It is a locus of feeling, conscious and unconscious, flowing directly from a somatic foundation.... Where humans differ most from other animals may be in our capacity and need for illusion.
John Gray, The Mind’s Body Problem (NYRB, December 2, 2021)
It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
Humans were one lucky tribe of apes with just enough intelligence and creativity to build a badly functioning civilization. And being only barely competent, there was no reason to believe that humanity's greatest achievements amounted to anything more than the average anthill lost on the infinitely intriguing savanna.
Robert Reed, "Integral Nothings" (Fantasy & Science Fiction, January/February, 2021)
Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change.
H.G.Wells, The Time Machine