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The scientist who considers himself absolutely "objective" and believes that he can free himself from the compulsion of the "merely" subjective should try — only in imagination of course — to kill in succession a lettuce, a fly, a frog, a guineapig, a cat, a dog, and finally a chimpanzee. He will then be aware how increasingly difficult murder becomes as the victim's level of organisation rises. The degree of inhibition against killing each one of these beings is a very precise measure for the considerably different values that we cannot help attributing to lower and higher forms of life. To any man who finds it equally easy to chop up a live dog and a live lettuce I would recommend suicide at his earliest convenience!
--
Ch. XII : On the Virtue of Scientific Humility

 

Konrad Lorenz

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"It is difficult to explain why I cherish a greater imagination for him than any other player live or dead. … And yet Capablanca shoulders them all out of my mind when I am thinking of natural genius. The secret perhaps lies in Euwe's description of him as "the elegant". His easy natural grace of play was extraordinarily pleasant to watch, though very difficult to rival and not so easy to understand." — Harry Golombek "World Champions I have Met."

 

Jose Raul Capablanca

 

A rational anarchist believes that concepts, such as "state" and "society" and "government" have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame ... as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world ... aware that his efforts will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure.

 

Robert A. Heinlein

 

An artist doesn't live in some geographical abstraction,superimposed on a part of this beautiful earth by the nonimagination of unanimals and dedicated to the proposition that massacre is a social virtue because murder is an individual vice. Nor does an artist live in some soi-disant world,nor does he live in some so-called universe,nor does he live in any number of "worlds" or in any number of "universes." As for a few trifling delusions like the "past" and "present" and "future" of quote mankind unquote,they may be big enough for a couple of billion supermechanized submorons but they're much too small for one human being.

 

E. E. Cummings

 

"If you kill me, how are you going to get the bird? If I know you can't afford to kill me till you have it, how are you going to scare me into giving it to you?"
Gutman cocked his head to the left and considered these questions. His eyes twinkled between puckered lids. Presently he gave his genial answer: "Well, sir, there are other means of persuasion besides killing and threatening to kill."
"Sure," Spade agreed, "but they're not much good unless the threat of death is behind them to hold the victim down. See what I mean? If you try anything I don't like I won't stand for it. I'll make it a matter of your having to call it off or kill me, knowing you can't afford to kill me."
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Gutman said fondly: "By Gad, sir, you are a character!"

 

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Being about to pitch his camp in a likely place, and hearing there was no hay to be had for the cattle, "What a life," said he, "is ours, since we must live according to the convenience of asses!"

 

Plutarch