Kauthar Hussain

“The grandiose person is never really free; first because he is excessively dependent on admiration from others, and second, because his self-respect is dependent on qualities, functions, and achievements that can suddenly fail.”
― Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

“We inherit every one of our genes, but we leave the womb without a single microbe. As we pass through our mother's birth canal, we begin to attract entire colonies of bacteria. By the time a child can crawl, he has been blanketed by an enormous, unseen cloud of microorganisms--a hundred trillion or more. They are bacteria, mostly, but also viruses and fungi (including a variety of yeasts), and they come at us from all directions: other people, food, furniture, clothing, cars, buildings, trees, pets, even the air we breathe. They congregate in our digestive systems and our mouths, fill the space between our teeth, cover our skin, and line our throats. We are inhabited by as many as ten thousand bacterial species; those cells outnumber those which we consider our own by ten to one, and weigh, all told, about three pounds--the same as our brain. Together, they are referred to as our microbiome--and they play such a crucial role in our lives that scientists like [Martin J.] Blaser have begun to reconsider what it means to be human.”
― Michael Specter

“Be sceptical, ask questions, demand proof. Demand evidence. Don't take anything for granted. But here's the thing: When you get proof, you need to accept the proof. And we're not that good at doing that.”
― Michael Specter

“We have a tendency to describe the human condition in lofty terms, such as a quest for freedom or striving for a virtuous life, but the life sciences hold a more mundane view: It’s all about security, social companionships, and a full belly. There is obvious tension between both views, which recalls that famous dinner conversation between a Russian literary critic and the writer Ivan Turgenev: 'We haven’t yet solved the problem of God,' the critic yelled, 'and you want to eat!”
― Frans de Waal, The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society