a piece of work

May 30, 2008 7:14 PM

I'm looking for quotations or video clips which deal with what it means to be human.

The only one I can come up with is:

Hamlet:
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—
nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

Anything, popular or classic, fits the bill, if it's very focused on the nature of humanity. I'd like a variety of perspectives for my project.

TIA!

posted by Pater Aletheias to grab bag (23 comments total)

"You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind." Dune by Frank Herbert.
posted by NucleophilicAttack at 7:25 PM on May 30

This pretty much sums it up.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 7:35 PM on May 30 [3 favorites]

"We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty."

G.K. Chesterson
posted by orange swan at 7:45 PM on May 30

The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.

- Perl S. Buck
posted by furtive at 7:49 PM on May 30 [1 favorite]

Science fiction deals with this theme a lot. You would think there would be hundred of youtube clips of Data struggling with the concept of humanity on Star Trek, but this is the best I could find for you. It was a terrible movie, but I thought Asimov's short story Bicentennial Man did this exquisitely well.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:08 PM on May 30

The film Dark City?
posted by starman at 8:14 PM on May 30

Robert Heinlein: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:17 PM on May 30 [2 favorites]

This short film does a pretty good job of summarizing the human condition.
posted by Alison at 8:21 PM on May 30

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.
~Barry Lopez
posted by dawson at 8:28 PM on May 30

Two Vonnegut quotes:

"Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance."

"A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved."
posted by never used baby shoes at 8:29 PM on May 30

"a man thinks he amounts to a great deal but to a flea or a mosquito a human being is merely something good to eat"
--- archy and mehitabel, Don Marquis
posted by SPrintF at 8:31 PM on May 30

Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire. (You could start with just the "memorable quotes" page.)

Also: No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
-Heraclitus
posted by bah213 at 8:36 PM on May 30

We're all bozos on the bus, so we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride.
-Wavy Gravy

I like this quote a lot. It reminds me that we've all got something in common: We blunder through life trying to do the best job we can, getting it right most of the time, wrong occasionally, and that's okay. Nobody's perfect. Relax. It'll be okay.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 11:03 PM on May 30

There is nothing more classic than:

When several villages are united in a single complete community, large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in existence for the sake of a good life. And therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best, and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best.

Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity; he is like the

"Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one, "

whom Homer denounces- the natural outcast is forthwith a lover of war; he may be compared to an isolated piece at draughts.

Now, that man is more of a political animal than bees or any other gregarious animals is evident. Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal whom she has endowed with the gift of speech. And whereas mere voice is but an indication of pleasure or pain, and is therefore found in other animals (for their nature attains to the perception of pleasure and pain and the intimation of them to one another, and no further), the power of speech is intended to set forth the expedient and inexpedient, and therefore likewise the just and the unjust. And it is a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust, and the like, and the association of living beings who have this sense makes a family and a state.

Further, the state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part; for example, if the whole body be destroyed, there will be no foot or hand, except in an equivocal sense, as we might speak of a stone hand; for when destroyed the hand will be no better than that. But things are defined by their working and power; and we ought not to say that they are the same when they no longer have their proper quality, but only that they have the same name. The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing; and therefore he is like a part in relation to the whole. But he who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god: he is no part of a state. A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature, and yet he who first founded the state was the greatest of benefactors. For man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with arms, meant to be used by intelligence and virtue, which he may use for the worst ends. Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the determination of what is just, is the principle of order in political society.


Aristotle, politics, book 1 ch 2.
posted by paultopia at 2:10 AM on May 31

As Slarty says, non- or quasi-humans have some great insights into humanity. A recent example from Battlestar Galactica (ep Guess what's coming to dinner):

(Natalie speaks to the Quorum)
Natalie: In our civil war, we've seen death. We watched our people die. Gone forever. As terrible as it was, beyond the reach of the Resurrection Ships, something began to change. We could feel a sense of time. As if each moment held its own significance. We began to realize that for our existence to hold any value it must end. To live meaningful lives we must die, and not return. The one human flaw, that you spend your lifetimes distressing over -- mortality -- is the one thing... well, it's the one thing that makes you whole.
posted by Iteki at 3:52 AM on May 31 [1 favorite]

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.

Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

- The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
posted by XMLicious at 5:17 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]

From Sophocles' Antigone:

Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man; the power that crosses the white sea, driven by the stormy south-wind, making a path under surges that threaten to engulf him; and Earth, the eldest of the gods, the immortal, the unwearied, doth he wear, turning the soil with the offspring of horses, as the ploughs go to and fro from year to year.

And the light-hearted race of birds, and the tribes of savage beasts, and the sea-brood of the deep, he snares in the meshes of his woven toils, he leads captive, man excellent in wit. And he masters by his arts the beast whose lair is in the wilds, who roams the hills; he tames the horse of shaggy mane, he puts the yoke upon its neck, he tames the tireless mountain bull.

And speech, and wind-swift thought, and all the moods that mould a state, hath he taught himself; and how to flee the arrows of the frost, when 'tis hard lodging under the clear sky, and the arrows of the rushing rain; yea, he hath resource for all; without resource he meets nothing that must come: only against Death shall he call for aid in vain; but from baffling maladies he hath devised escapes.

Cunning beyond fancy's dream is the fertile skill which brings him, now to evil, now to good. When he honours the laws of the land, and that justice which he hath sworn by the gods to uphold, proudly stands his city: no city hath he who, for his rashness, dwells with sin. Never may he share my hearth, never think my thoughts, who doth these things!

Also, the Duke University Provost's lecture series for this year was "On being human." This lecture series is highly interdisciplinary and the invited speakers are some of the most influential academics in their fields. Most of the lectures are available for video download or streaming.
posted by Maxwell_Smart at 7:23 AM on May 31

- The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

Oh lord, how did I miss that one?
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 10:10 AM on May 31

"Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be."

William Hazlett, 1778-1830
posted by dinger at 3:20 PM on May 31 [2 favorites]

Hope — it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness.

~ The Architect of the Matrix
posted by Iteki at 3:24 PM on May 31

Thanks to everyone!
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:51 PM on May 31

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), "The Devil's Disciple" (1901), act II

On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.
George Orwell (1903 - 1950)
posted by ersatz at 4:26 AM on June 9

<spoken>
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
</spoken>

<sung>
And you feel that you've had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough,

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine thousand miles an hour.
It's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
The sun that is the source of all our power.
Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In the outer spiral arm, at fourteen thousand miles an hour,
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred million stars;
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

<waltz>
Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, that's the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!
</waltz></sung>

160;160;160;160;160;160;— Eric Idle

(sung to persuade a woman to let them harvest her organs)
posted by XMLicious at 11:54 PM on June 9