human condition quotes

I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition.

Innovation is a good thing. The human condition – put aside bioterrorism and a few footnotes – is improving because of innovation.

The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It’s a battle you can’t hope to win – it’s a battle that’s going to go on forever. It’s part of the human condition.

Debt is part of the human condition. Civilization is based on exchanges – on gifts, trades, loans – and the revenges and insults that come when they are not paid back.

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives; who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?

I have been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improving the human condition.

There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention.

Existence precedes and rules essence.

The existentialist says at once that man is anguish.

Writing means sharing. It’s part of the human condition to want to share things – thoughts, ideas, opinions.

He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.