A man is an angel that has gone deranged.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that the innate goodness of humanity can become distorted or lost over time.
Philip K. Dick's quote presents a thought-provoking perspective on the nature of humanity, implying that people possess an inherent angelic quality but often succumb to madness or moral corruption. It raises questions about the fundamental nature of individuals and the impact of external forces on their psyche, highlighting the fragile balance between virtue and insanity.
In practice
In a philosophical discussion about the duality of human nature.
We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in reality occurs. We have the overwhelming impression that we were reliving the present - deja vu.
Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.
On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components.
"Do you have information that there's an android in the cast? I'd be glad to help you, and if I were an android would I be glad to help you?" "An android," he said, "doesn't care what happens to another android. That's one of the indications we look for." "Then," Miss Luft said, "you must be an android."
The universe is information and we are stationary in it, not three dimensional and not in space or time.
I never liked the idea of doing what a machine says. I hate having to salute something built in a factory.
So great an advantage is given to sin and Satan by your temper and disposition, that without extraordinary watchfulness, care, and diligence, they will prevail against your soul.
In the name of what - except perhaps the coefficient of rarity - does man adorn himself with necklaces of shells and not spider's webs, with fox fur and not fox innards? In the name of what I don't know. Don't dirt, trash and filth, which are man's companions during his whole lifetime, deserve to be dearer to him and isn't it serving him well to remind him of their beauty?
I understand a ship to be made for the carrying and preservation of the cargo, and so long as the ship can be saved, with the cargo, it should never be abandoned. This Union likewise should never be abandoned unless it fails and the possibility of its preservation shall cease to exist, without throwing passengers and cargo overboard.
The holy law of Jesus Christ governs our civilisation, but it does not yet permeate it.
Then, in the next place, we must know that every being which is endowed with reason, and transgresses its statutes and limitations, is undoubtedly involved in sin by swerving from rectitude and justice.
History is a myth that men agree to believe.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.