The American dream is a crock. Stop wanting everything. Everyone should wear jeans and have three T-shirts, eat rice and beans.
Bill HicksRead
Blind nature will nearly always select the most probable, but man can let the most improbable become actual.
Interpretation
Human beings have the ability to achieve the unlikely, unlike nature which tends to favor the most likely outcomes.
This quote by Hans Jonas highlights the unique capability of humans to transcend natural probabilities. While nature operates on the basis of what is most likely to succeed or survive, humans possess the creativity and willpower to pursue and manifest outcomes that are seemingly improbable, thereby shaping their own destinies and influencing the world around them.
In practice
In a motivational speech about pursuing dreams despite challenges.
The American dream is a crock. Stop wanting everything. Everyone should wear jeans and have three T-shirts, eat rice and beans.
My idea of our civilization is that it is a shoddy, poor thing and full of cruelties, vanities, arrogances, meannesses and hypocrisies.
What people see on court is another side of me; it's not me.
I find it most true that the greatest temptation outside of hell is to live without temptations; if water stands, it rots; faith is the better for the sharp winter storm in its face and grace withers without adversity. The devil is but God's master fencer to teach us to handle our weapons.
It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It's not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention.
I have never thought, for my part, that man's freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that he should not, by any human power, be forced to do what is against his will.
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