The special virtue of freedom is not that it makes you richer and more powerful but that it gives you more time to understand what it means to be alive.
Adam GopnikRead
The future will be like the past, in the sense that, no matter how amazing or technologically advanced a society becomes, the basic human rhythm of petty malevolence, sordid moneygrubbing, and official violence, illuminated by occasional bursts of loyalty or desire or tenderness, will go on.
Interpretation
What this quote means
No matter how advanced society becomes, basic human flaws and emotions will persist.
This quote reflects on the unchanging nature of humanity despite progress in technology and society. It highlights that while the external world may evolve and improve, the inherent qualities of human behavior—such as selfishness, greed, and violence—will continue to exist, occasionally countered by moments of love and kindness. This juxtaposition suggests a cyclical pattern of human experience that remains constant over time.
Themes
Human NatureSocietyTechnologyBehaviorEmotions
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a discussion about the impact of technology on society.
More from Adam Gopnik
All quotes →The past is so often unknowable not because it is befogged now but because it was befogged then, too, back when it was still the present. If we had been there listening, we still might not have been able to determine exactly what Stanton said. All we know for sure is that everyone was weeping, and the room was full.
Adam GopnikRead
Protein was the most valued ingredient 250 years ago: It was the rarest thing. Now the rarest thing we have is time: time to cook and time to eat.
Adam GopnikRead
Love, like light, is a thing that is enacted better than defined: we know it afterward by the traces it leaves on paper.
Adam GopnikRead
Similar quotes
Bigotry is an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.
William JamesRead
Suffering is by no means a privilege, a sign of nobility, a reminder of God. Suffering is a fierce, bestial thing, commonplace, uncalled for, natural as air. It is intangible; no one can grasp it or fight against it; it dwells in time - is the same thing as time; if it comes in fits and starts, that is only so as to leave the sufferer more defenseless during the moments that follow, those long moments when one relives the last bout of torture and waits for the next.
Cesare PaveseRead
[Buddhism and Christianity] are in one sense parallel and equal; as a mound and a hollow, as a valley and a hill. There is a sense in which that sublime despair is the only alternative to that divine audacity. It is even true that the truly spiritual and intellectual man sees it as sort of dilemma; a very hard and terrible choice. There is little else on earth that can compare with these for completeness. And he who does not climb the mountain of Christ does indeed fall into the abyss of Buddha.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
It seems to me there's this tyranny that's not accidental or incidental, to make women feel compelled to look like somebody they're not. I think the effort is being made to get us to turn our time and attention to this instead of important political issues.
Eve EnslerRead
It's not possible to search for God using the methods of a detective... There is no way. You can only wait till God's axe severs your roots: then you will understand that you are here only through a miracle, and you will remain fixed forever in wonderment and equilibrium.
Karel CapekRead