Fire and Knowledge

Rats and roaches live by competition under the law of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy. It is impossible not to notice how little the proponents of the ideal of competition have to say about honesty, which is the fundamental economic virtue, and how very little they have to say about community, compassion, and mutual help.

—Wendell Berry, “Economy and Pleasure” in What Are People For? (1990), p. 135.

While the growing importance of skills tended to reduce economic inequalities between the sexes, it tended to increase the inequality between those with and without skills. Moreover, rising earnings in general, growing out of a more productive economy with more skilled people, tended to increase the inequality between those who worked regularly and those who did not.

—Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics (3rd Edition, Basic Books, 2007), p. 196.

Our world is fast succumbing to the activities of men and women who would stake the future of our species on beliefs that should not survive an elementary school education. That so many of us are still dying on account of ancient myths is as bewildering as it is horrible, and our own attachment to these myths, whether moderate or extreme, has kept us silent in the face of developments that could ultimately destroy us.

—Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (W. W. Norton, 2004), p. 26.

Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion–several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight.

–Mark Twain

Most stories about miraculous events are probably false: if it comes to that, most stories about natural events are false. Lies, exaggerations, misunderstandings and hearsay make up perhaps more than half of all that is said and written in the world.

–C. S. Lewis, Miracles (1947, revised in 1960), p. 159.

Were the walls of the meat industry to become transparent, literally or even figuratively, we would not long continue to raise, kill, and eat animals the way we do. Tail docking and sow crates and beak clipping would disappear overnight, and the days of slaughtering four hundred head of cattle an hour would promptly come to an end—for who could stand the sight? Yes, meat would get more expensive. We’d probably eat a lot less of it, too, but maybe when we did eat animals we’d eat them with the consciousness, ceremony, and respect they deserve.

–Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), p. 333

“Our ugly little species, weak and ugly, torn with insanities, violent and quarrelsome, sensing evil—the only species that knows evil and practices it—the only one that senses cleanness and is dirty, that knows about cruelty and is unbearably cruel.”

–Joe Saul in John Steinbeck, Burning Bright (1950).

One of the odder ironies of animal rights [is] it asks us to acknowledge all we share with animals, and then act towards them in a most unanimalistic way.

–Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), p. 315