CHIMPANZEES

'It is inconceivable that you would ever see two chimpanzees carrying a log together.' 

Michael Tomasello in Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind, p.237.  

HUMANKIND

'Human beings are the giraffes of altruism. We're one-of-a-kind freaks of nature who occasionally - even if rarely - can be as selfless and team-spirited as bees. If your moral ideal is the person who devotes her life to serving strangers, well then, OK - such people are so rare that we send film crews out to record them for the evening news. But if you focus, as Darwin did, on the behavior in groups of people who know each other and share goals and values, then our ability to work together, divide labor, help each other, and function as a team is so all-pervasive that we don't even notice it.' You'll never see the headline. "Forty-five Unrelated College Students Work Together Cooperatively and for No Pay, to Prepare for Opening Night of Romeo and Juliet."'

Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind, p.230.  

THE PASSION OF UNFULFILLED LOVE

'Reading in bed last night...of Emily Bronte,  was struck by Emily's knowledge of passion without apparently having experienced it. I think after all that those who have never experienced passionate love can very easily imagine it, and having read deeply can know it even better than from actual experience. After all the desires are there, and because not realized become no less poignant, rather more so. It is unfulfilled love that intensifies passion.' 

James Lees-Milne, A Mingled Measure: Diaries, 1953-1972, p.187. 

SHALLOW SOULS

'Shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder.' 

Leon Kass in Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind, p.177. 

THE BRAIN

'The brain is like a book, the first draft of which is written by the genes during fetal development. No chapters are complete at birth, and some are just rough outlines waiting to be filled in during childhood. But not a single chapter - be it on sexuality, language, food preferences, or morality - consists of blank pages on which a society can inscribe any conceivable set of words.'  

Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind, p.152.  

SEARCHING FOR TRUTH

'...each individual reasoner is really good at one thing: finding evidence to support the position she or he already holds, usually for intuitive reasons. We should not expect individuals to produce good, open-minded, truth-seeking reasoning, particularly when self-interest or reputational concerns are in play. But if you put individuals together in the right way, such that some of the individuals can use their reasoning powers to disconfirm the claims of others, and all individuals feel some common bond or shared fate that allows them to interact civilly, you can create a group that ends up producing good reasoning as an emergent property of the social system. This is why it's so important to have intellectual and ideological diversity within any group or institution whose goal is to find truth (such as an intelligence agency or community of scientists) or to produce good public policy (such as a legislature or advisory board).' 

Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, p.105.

MARRIAGE

"'Do you know, Alexandra, that I could pick out exactly the right sort of woman for Frank - now. The trouble is that you almost have to marry a man before you can find out the sort of wife he needs; and usually it's exactly the sort you are not."'

Willa Cather, O Pioneers! p.108.

FREEDOM

"'Freedom so often means that one isn't needed anywhere."'

Willa Cather, O Pioneers! p.68.

STORIES

'"Isn't it queer: there are only two or three hundred human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes for thousands of years."'

Willa Cather, O Pioneers! p.67.

THE HUMAN CONDITION

'...I can reconcile you to the human condition,
The condition to which some who have gone as far as you
Have succeeded in returning. They may remember
The vision they had, but they cease to regret it,
Maintain themselves by the common routine,
Learn to avoid excessive expectation,
Become tolerant of themselves and others,
Giving and talking, in the usual actions
What there is to give and take. They do not repine;
Are contented with the morning that separates
And with the evening that brings together
For casual talk before the fire
Two people who know they do not understand each other,
Breeding children they do not understand
And who will never understand them.'
TS Eliot, The Cocktail Party, p.123.