We should never rush into folly just because other nations are practicing it.
Leon KassRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote warns against the consequences of creating life in our own flawed image rather than respecting the divine creation.
Leon Kass reflects on the moral implications of creation, suggesting that while it is wrong to destroy living beings seen as created in God's image, it may be even more troubling to create beings in our own imperfect likeness. This raises profound questions about the nature of creation, ethics, and the responsibilities of those who have the power to create.
Themes
CreationEthicsDivineResponsibilityImperfect
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate on the ethics of genetic engineering, one might quote Kass to emphasize the importance of considering the nature of what is being created.
More from Leon Kass
All quotes βOne 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.
Leon KassRead
There's an ancient tension between wanting to savor the world as it is and wanting to improve on the world as given.
Leon KassRead
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.
Leon KassRead
Sexuality itself means mortality - equally for both man and woman.
Leon KassRead
Human life without death would be something other than human; consciousness of mortality gives rise to out deepest longings and greatest accomplishments.
Leon KassRead
Similar quotes
The weight of the world is on our shoulders, its vision is through our eyes; if we blink or look aside, or turn back to finger what Plato said or remember Napoleon and his conquests, we inflict on the world the injury of some obliquity. This is life.
Virginia WoolfRead
In every man's mind the good seeds of liberty are planted, and he who brings his fellow down so low, as to make him contented with a condition of slavery, commits the highest crime against God and man.
Henry Highland GarnetRead
The more honest and authentic we are, the more deeply we go into the mystery of our own being.
AdyashantiRead
The state is nothing but an instrument of opression of one class by another - no less so in a democratic republic than in a monarchy.
Friedrich EngelsRead
You wish me to tell you why and how God should be loved. My answer is that God himself is the reason he is to be loved.
Saint BernardRead
There would be no chance at all of getting to know death if it happened only once. But fortunately, life is nothing but a continuing dance of birth and death, a dance of change. Every time I hear the rush of a mountain stream, or the waves crashing on the shore, or my own heartbeat, I hear the sound of impermanence. These changes, these small deaths, are our living links with death. They are death's pulses, death's heartbeat, prompting us to let go of all the things we cling to.
Sogyal RinpocheRead