“Work incessantly for the enhancement of our capabilities.”
Atharva Veda quotes

 

“I don’t advocate drug use – unless it leads to great works of literature.”
Grant Snider

Enhancement and society

“The nation can grow and prosper only if the population is healthy and strong both physically and morally. Enhancement of individual growth and success shall unequivocally lead to national prosperity.”
(29/1, Atharvaveda)

 

“But neither is it possible to accept the alternative claim that individuals will or should be disgusted with transhumanist technological options, and not enhance. One cannot help but note the high demand, among those with high disposable incomes, for plastic surgery, botox treatments, and the like-enhancement technologies that, at some risk, offer better looks but not increased life span, better health, or even, necessarily, enhanced quality of life. And those enhancements are merely cosmetic. The doping arms race between high-performance athletes seeking a competitive edge demonstrates the zeal with which enhancement options are adopted when they offer the potential for improved performance (and glory, and endorsements). Some people may think enhancement is against “human nature,” or immoral, or a violation of religious or natural law, but if real enhancement is within reach, even if legally or medically risky, the data all seem to indicate high demand. If enhancement is to be stopped, it will have to be stopped by society’s actively preventing people from doing what they seem to want to do. The argument against enhancement on these grounds, therefore, does not seem to be an appeal to the public, which appears fairly immune to such sentiments, but to the State, in that it asks for and justifies an authoritarian mandate for reasons that are essentially ideological, even theological.”
The technohuman condition, Braden R. Allenby and Daniel Sarewitz

 

“went to a meeting on genetic enhancement in New York City, and a few of us were for it. The rest were appalled. To just a defensive reaction of people on the top—they’re afraid someone else might be on the top. But what if you were dumb? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a child who would let you get out of the slums? If you could make people with ten-point-higher IQs, we’d probably have fewer wars.”
James Watson

 

“The world contains approximately 4.2 billion people over the age of twenty.  Even a small enhancement of cognitive capacity in these individuals would probably have an impact on the world economy rivaling that of the internet. ”
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/01/armys-age-retar.html#more

Coffee

“Moderately drunk, coffee removes vapours from the brain, occasioned by fumes of wine, or other strong liquors; eases pains in the head, prevents sour belchings, and provokes appetite.”
England’s Happiness Improved (1699)

 

“Coffee is incompatible with anarchy.”
Luis Eduardo Nieto Arteta, El cafe en la sociedad colombiana. Bogota: breviarios de orientacion colombiana, 1958 pp. 34-35

 

“The powers of a man’s mind are directly proportioned to the quantity of coffee he drinks.”
Sir James Mackintosh

 

“If you want to improve your understanding, drink coffee; it is the intelligent beverage.”
Sydney Smith

 

“Coffee makes us severe, and grave, and philosophical.”
Jonathan Swift, 1722

 

“Coffee causes an excessive state of brain-excitation which becomes manifest by a remarkable loquaciousness sometimes accompanied by accelerated association of ideas. It may also be observed in coffee house politicians who drink cup after cup … and by this abuse are inspired to profound wisdom on all earthly events.”
Lewis Lewin, Phantastica: Narcotic and Stimulating Drugs (1931)

 

“Kafka’s writing often instills in the reader a jumpy and jittery feeling of having drank one coffee too many.”
Alex Scofield

 

“If it wasn’t for coffee, I’d have no discernible personality at all.”
David Letterman