"...out of strangled Utopias is born a clown, a being divided between beauty and ugliness, between light and chaos, a clown who when he looks down and sidelong is Satan himself and when he looks upward sees a buttered angel, a snail with wings." - Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

"We would like to think ourselves necessary, inevitable, ordained from all eternity. All religions, nearly all philosophies, and even a part of science testify to the unwearying, heroic effort of mankind desperately denying its contingency." - Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity

"Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache. They wanted to produce a perfect society by an endless continuation of something that had only been valuable because it was temporary. The wider course would be to say that there are certain lines along which humanity must move, the grand strategy is mapped out, but detailed prophecy is not our business. Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness." - George Orwell, Can Socialists Be Happy

On Perpetuity:

"A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing." - Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

"Only at the ultimate awakening shall we know that this is the ultimate dream." - Chuang-Tzu, The Wandering Dance

Categories: Science, Human, Utopia, Dystopia, Future, Philosophy, History, Reality, Culture, Books, Quotes, Literature, Singularity, Society

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