And here, according to Trout, was the reason human beings could not reject ideas because they were bad: "Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity. "The ideas Earthlings held didn't matter for hundreds of thousands of years, since they couldn't do much about them anyway. Ideas might as well be badges as anything." They even had a saying about the futility of ideas: 'If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.' "And then Earthlings discovered tools. Suddenly agreeing with friends could be a form of suicide or worse. But agreements went on, not for the sake of common sense or decency or self-preservation, but for friendliness." Earthlings went on being friendly, when they should have been thinking instead. And even when they built computers to do some thinking for them, they designed them not so much for wisdom as for friendliness. So they were doomed. Homicidal beggars could ride. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
About This Quote

Essentially, this is a poetically beautiful description of the way we think and the way we act in the world. We go through life so concerned with what other people think of us and our ideas and what we do - we give so much attention to this 'badge of friendship' that so often seem to be so unimportant. But if we look deeper, we can see that all of these things are important. The ideas that we hold in our minds, the beliefs that we have about the world, they are badges of friendship or enmity.

And it is not just our friends and enemies; it is everyone in between too who represents some sort of badge of friendship or enmity. Think about it: how many people do you know who you like and respect and who like and respect you? How many people do you know who don't like or respect you? All of these badges - they make up for the vast majority of the world population.

Source: Breakfast Of Champions

Some Similar Quotes
  1. It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. - Friedrich Nietzsche
  2. There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature. - Jane Austen
  3. If I had a flower for every time I thought of you... I could walk through my garden forever. - Alfred Tennyson
  4. You are my best friend as well as my lover, and I do not know which side of you I enjoy the most. I treasure each side, just as I have treasured our life together. - Nicholas Sparks
  5. Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grassthe world is too full to talk about. - Jalaluddin Rumi
More Quotes By Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
  1. A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.
  2. America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact...
  3. Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go around looking for it, and I think it can be poisonous. I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, 'Please...
  4. If somebody says 'I love you' to me, I feel as though I had a pistol pointed at my head. What can anybody reply under such conditions but that which the pistol holder requires? 'I love you, too'.
  5. And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. It's good for you.
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