Something For Nothing

"One cannot wonder at this constantly recurring phrase "getting something for nothing," as if it were the peculiar and perverse ambition of disturbers of society.  Except for our animal outfit, practically all we have is handed to us gratis.  Can the most complacent reactionary flatter himself that he invented the art of writing, or the printing press, or discovered his religious, economic and moral convictions, or any of the devices which supply him with meat and raiment or any of the sources of pleasure as he may derive from literature or the fine arts?  In short, civilization is little else than getting something for nothing."
-  James Harvey Robinson

"Language is the indispensable mechanism of human life― of life such as ours that is molded, guided, enriched, and made possible by the accumulation of the past experience of members of our species.  Dogs, cats, or chimpanzees do not, so far as we can tell, increase their wisdom, their information, their control over their environment from one generation to the next.  Human beings do.  The cultural accomplishments of the ages, the invention of cooking, of weapons, of writing, of printing, of methods of building, of games and amusements, of means of transportation, and the discoveries of all the arts and sciences come to us as free gifts from the dead.  These gifts, which none of us has done anything to earn, offer us not only the opportunity for a richer life than any of our forebears enjoyed but also the opportunity to add to the sum total of human achievement by our own contributions, however small."
-  S. I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action, 1990 (1939), p. 8

Gratitude: Quotes, Sayings, Poems