We should never rush into folly just because other nations are practicing it.
Leon KassRead
Human life without death would be something other than human; consciousness of mortality gives rise to out deepest longings and greatest accomplishments.
Interpretation
Death is a fundamental aspect of life that shapes our desires and achievements.
In this quote, Leon Kass emphasizes the intrinsic connection between life and death, suggesting that our awareness of mortality defines our humanity. This consciousness not only ignites our deepest yearnings but also fuels our most significant accomplishments, as we strive to make meaningful impacts in the limited time we have.
In practice
This quote could be used in a philosophy class to discuss the significance of mortality in human experience.
We should never rush into folly just because other nations are practicing it.
One should proceed with caution. We may simply not be wise enough to do some of the kinds of engineering things that people are talking about doing.
There's an ancient tension between wanting to savor the world as it is and wanting to improve on the world as given.
As bad as it might be to destroy a creature made in God's image, it might be very much worse to be creating them after images of one's own.
It's a short step from the belief that every child should be wanted to the belief that a child exists to satisfy our wants.
Sexuality itself means mortality - equally for both man and woman.
There are people who say, 'Oh this guy is quite thick.' I think the reason is that, increasingly, I don't mind being simple in terms of literary expression. Others say, 'No, no, no. He went to Cambridge. He got a good degree. He must be Einstein.'
Non-African missionaries, responding generously to the Lord's call with ardent apostolic zeal, came to share the joy of revelation. Following in their footsteps, Africans are today missionaries on other continents.
There is no God. But it does not matter. Man is enough.
Whatever you do, good or bad, people will always have something negative to say
Crime is fast destroying the moral fabric of South African cities, and is becoming a major threat to South African democracy as well as the prominent manifestation of a "class war" that is largely a continuation of the "race war" of yesterday.
It never occurred to him to be spiritually won over to the enemy. Many moderns, inured to a weak worship of intellect and force, might have wavered in their allegiance under this oppression of a great personality. . . . But this was a kind of modern meanness to which Syme could not sink even in his extreme morbidity. Like any man, he was coward enough to fear great force; but he was not coward enough to admire it.
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