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I do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer. I can't help thinking that. And this engineer knows exactly what he or she is doing and why, and where evolution is headed. That's why we've got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap.

— Kurt Vonnegut

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Power

More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

Maybe God has let everybody who ever lived be reborn — so he or she can see how it ends.

Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970)

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

Mother Night (1962)

Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.

Mother Night (1962)

Belief is nearly the whole of the Universe, whether based on truth or not.

Bluebeard (1987)

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

Player Piano (1952)

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The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

John Adams A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

When we see a great man desiring power instead of his real goal we soon recognize that he is sick, or more precisely that his attitude to his work is sick.

Martin Buber What is Man? (1938)

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Kurt Vonnegut (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.