QuoteProject
In a very real sense, we are shipwrecked passengers on a doomed planet. Yet, even in a shipwreck, human decencies and human values do not necessarily vanish, and we must make the most of them. We shall go down, but let it be in a manner to which we may look forward as worthy of our dignity.
Norbert Wiener
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Even in dire circumstances, human values and dignity remain essential.

This quote by Norbert Wiener suggests that despite our precarious situation on Earth, described metaphorically as a 'doomed planet,' we should not lose sight of our humanity and the values that define us. Even as we face inevitable challenges and potential doom, it is crucial to uphold decency and dignity, emphasizing positivity and purpose in how we conduct our lives and face our fate.

Themes

Human ValuesDignityDecencyShipwreckLife Challenges

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about environmental issues, one might quote this to highlight the importance of maintaining our values in the face of global challenges.

More from Norbert Wiener

The Advantage is that mathematics is a field in which one's blunders tend to show very clearly and can be corrected or erased with a stroke of the pencil. It is a field which has often been compared with chess, but differs from the latter in that it is only one's best moments that count and not one's worst. A single inattention may lose a chess game, whereas a single successful approach to a problem, among many which have been relegated to the wastebasket, will make a mathematician's reputation.
Norbert WienerRead
I have said that the modern man, and especially the modern American, however much 'know-how' he may have, has very little 'know-what'
Norbert WienerRead
Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic conditions of slave labor.
Norbert WienerRead
We have modified our environment so radically that we must now modify ourselves to exist in this new environment.
Norbert WienerRead
We are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowing water. We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves. _x000D_ A pattern is a message, and may be transmitted as a message.
Norbert WienerRead
Let us remember that the automatic machine is the precise economic equivalent of slave labor. Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic consequences of slave labor.
Norbert WienerRead

Similar quotes

We put this 15-year old girl on the cover of a fashion magazine, and tell everyone she is the epitome of sexual perfection, but we jail anyone who touches her for another three years.
Hugh LaurieRead
I am convinced that all our attempts to change the letter of the law and to reeducate people have been, and are, merely band-aid solutions for a fatal hemorrhage. The system will never change because our starting point is flawed. The secular view of man can neither give the grandeur that God alone can give, nor can it see the evil within the human heart that God alone can reveal and cure, for atheism implicitly denudes each individual of the grand image God has imprinted upon His creation.
Ravi ZachariasRead
Sinners in their natural state lie dead, lifeless, and moveless; they can no more believe in Christ, nor repent, than a dead man can speak or walk: but, in virtue of the promise, the Spirit of life from Christ Jesus, at the time appointed, enters into the dead soul, and quickens it; so that it is no more morally dead, but alive, having new spiritual powers put into it, that were lost by Adam's fall.
Thomas BostonRead
The problem that faces us is the problem of awakening. What we lack is not an ideology or doctrine that will save the world. What we lack is mindfulness of what we are, of what our situation really is. We need to wake up in order to rediscover our human sovereignty. We are riding a horse that is running out of control. The way of salvation is a new culture in which human beings are encouraged to rediscover their deepest nature.
Nhat HanhRead
You cannot sift out the poor from the community. The poor are indispensable to the rich.
Henry Ward BeecherRead
What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?' 'I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is.
Stanislaw LemRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Norbert Wiener | QuoteProject