. . . Moon-Watcher felt the first faint twinges of a new and potent emotion. It was a vague and diffuse sense of envy--of dissatisfaction with his life. He had no idea of its cause, still less of its cure; but discontent had come into his soul, and he had taken one small step toward humanity.
Interpretation
This quote describes the emergence of complex emotions that signal a shift towards self-awareness and humanity.
In this quote, Arthur C. Clarke illustrates a pivotal moment in the evolution of Moon-Watcher, who experiences the nascent feeling of envy that causes him dissatisfaction with his existence. This sense of discontent is portrayed as a crucial step towards attaining a deeper understanding of oneself and the emotional intricacies associated with being human, suggesting that such emotions are foundational to the experience of humanity.
In practice
This quote can inspire a discussion on emotional evolution in a philosophy class.
Nowhere in space will we rest our eyes upon the familiar shapes of trees and plants, or any of the animals that share our world. Whatsoever life we meet will be as strange and alien as the nightmare creatures of the ocean abyss, or of the insect empire whose horrors are normally hidden from us by their microscopic scale.
As our own species is in the process of proving, one cannot have superior science and inferior morals. The combination is unstable and self-destroying.
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand.
My favorite definition of an intellectual: 'Someone who has been educated beyond his/her intelligence'.
To say that 'prayer changes things' is not as close to the truth as saying, 'prayer changes me and then I change things.' God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things.
To understand the power of the priesthood, we must know its limitations.
Every major religion today is a winner in the Darwinian struggle waged among cultures, and none ever flourished by tolerating its rivals.
If September 11th has taught us anything, it's certainly that the world has never been so interdependent. It is impossible now to be an island of prosperity in a sea of despair.
Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?
NOT, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
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