“When we can treat all existing persons as human, it will be time enough to think about having more.”

“The more you think about it, the more amazing the everyday world of human beings becomes: most of it doesn't actually exist at all.”

“When a desire is born in us , we have a choice. When it exists still in its infancy, we have a choice. We can carefully refuse its existence altogether, since it needs our complicity to exist. Or else we can attend to it, think about it, fantasize about it - feed it! The desire itself overpowers us, commanding action, demanding satisfaction.”

“Perhaps I love you. Perhaps I love you very much. But probably just for this reason it would be better if we remain as we are. I think a man and a woman love each other all the more when they don't live together and when they know about each other only that they exist, and when they are grateful to each other for the fact that they exist and that they know they exist. And that alone is enough for their happiness.”

“We can no more justify using nonhumans as human resources than we can justify human slavery. Animal use and slavery have at least one important point in common: both institutions treat sentient beings exclusively as resources of others. That cannot be justified with respect to humans; it cannot be justified with respect to nonhumans—however “humanely” we treat them.”

“Humans do not have enough mental capacity to do all the things that we think we can do. As attentional load increases, attentional capacity gradually diminishes.”

“I don't think human beings were meant to know so much about the world. All this time and all thisexposure to every conceivable aspect of life - wisdom so rarely enters the picture. We barely have enough time to figure out who we are and thenwe become bitter and isolated as we age.”