Friday, February 27, 2026

The Measure of Man

The measure of a man is 
what he does with power.

Plato


Human greatness does not lie in wealth
or power but in character and goodness.

Anne Frank


The human being cannot live in a condition
of emptiness for very long: if he is not growing
toward something, he does not merely stagnate;
the pent-up potentialities turn into morbidity
and despair, and eventually into
destructive activities.

Rollo May


No man is more unhappy than he who never
faces adversity. For he is not permitted
to prove himself.

Seneca


The greatness of a man is not in how much
wealth he acquires, but in his integrity
and his ability to affect those
around him positively.

Bob Marley


A life without self-reflection and exploration
is not one worth living.

Socrates


Only a man who knows what it is like to be
defeated can reach down to the bottom of
his soul and come up with the extra
ounce of power it takes to win
when the match is even.

Muhammad Ali


The obedient always thinks of themselves
as virtuous rather than cowardly.

George Carlin


Making the simple complicated is commonplace;
making the complicated simple, awesomely
simple, that's creativity.

Charles Mingus


You are in danger of living a life so comfortable
and soft, that you will die without ever
realizing your true potential.

David Goggins


Excellence in anything increases
your potential in everything.

Joe Rogan


The key to happiness doesn't lay in numbers in a
bank account but in the way we make others feel
and the way they make us feel.

Joe Rogan


The true worth of a man is to be
measured by the objects he pursues.

Marcus Aurelius



The ultimate measure of a man is not
where he stands in moment of comfort
and convenience, but where he stands
at times of challenge and controversy.

Martin Luther King, Jr.


My strength needs no victims.
My strength is my compassion.

Patrik Baboumian


Pursue what's in your heart, and
the universe will conspire to support you.

Rich Roll


We can judge the heart of a man
by his treatment of animals.

Immanuel Kant


Man is an animal with primary instincts
of survival. Consequently his ingenuity
has developed first and his soul afterwards.
The progress of science is far ahead
of man's ethical behavior.

Charlie Chaplin


We should be measured by how we treat
the most vulnerable and powerless
in our society.

Cory Booker



Compassion for animals is intimately associated
with goodness of character, and it may be
confidently asserted that he who is cruel
to animals cannot be a good man.

Arthur Schopenhauer


Man's highest duty is to protect
animals from cruelty.
 
Γ‰mile Zola


The opposite of courage is not cowardice,
it is conformity. Even a dead fish
can go with the flow.

Jim Hightower


Whoever fights monsters should see to it that
in the process he does not become a monster.
And if you gaze long enough into an abyss,
the abyss will gaze back into you.

Friedrich Nietzsche


When evil men plot, good men must plan.
When evil men burn and bomb,
good men must build and bind.
When evil men shout ugly words of hatred,
good men must commit themselves
to the glories of love.

Martin Luther King, Jr.


No people have risen who thought only of rights.
Only those did so who thought of duties.

Mahatma Gandhi


Nature, in her indifference, makes no
distinction between good and evil.

Anatole France


Chaos was the law of nature;
order was the dream of man.

Henry Adams


If you are not liberal when you are young,
you have no heart,
and if you are not conservative when old,
you have no brain.

Winston Churchill


There comes a time when one must choose
between contemplation and action.
This is called becoming a man.

Albert Camus


Competition is the law of the jungle,
but cooperation is the law of civilization.

Peter Kropotkin


When bad men combine, the good must
associate; else they will fall one by one.

Edmund Burke

Consciousness & A.I. πŸ€–

Emotion is the chief source of consciousness.
There is no change from darkness to light or
from inertia to movement without emotion.

Carl Jung


Man is an animal with primary instincts
of survival. Consequently his ingenuity
has developed first and his soul afterwards.
The progress of science is far ahead
of man's ethical behavior.

Charlie Chaplin


Gods always behave like the people
who created them.

Zora Neale Hurston


The femme fatale expresses woman's ancient
and eternal control of the sexual realm.
The specter of the femme fatale stalks
all of men's relationships with women.

Camille Paglia




Computers will overtake humans with AI
within the next 100 years. When that happens,
we need to make sure the computers
have goals aligned with ours.

Stephen Hawking


Humanity's true moral test, its fundamental
test... consists of its attitude towards those
who are at its mercy: animals.

Milan Kundera


True empathy is not self-focused but
other-oriented. Instead of making humanity
the measure of all things, we need to evaluate
other species by what they are.

Frans de Waal



Compassion is the signature
of higher consciousness.

Amit Ray


If a group of beings were to land on Earth -
beings who considered themselves as superior
to you as you feel yourself to be to other animals
would you concede them the rights over you
that you assume over other animals?

George Bernard Shaw


When dealing with people, remember you are
not dealing with creatures of logic,
but creatures of emotion.

Dale Carnegie


The Creature includes animals within its moral
codes, but is thwarted and deeply frustrated
when seeking to be included within the moral
codes of humanity. It learns that regardless
of its own inclusive moral standards, the human
circle is drawn in such a way that both it
and the other animals are excluded from it.

Carol J. Adams



The basis of all animal rights should be
the Golden Rule: we should treat them
as we would wish them to treat us, were
any other species in our dominant position.

Christine Stevens


The question is not, "Can they reason?"
nor "Can they talk?" but, "Can they suffer?"

Jeremy Bentham


The destiny of civilized humanity depends more
than ever on the moral forces it is capable
of generating.

Albert Einstein



Man worships an invisible God and destroys
a visible Nature. Unaware that this Nature
he's destroying is this God he's worshiping.

Hubert Reeves