Norman Borlaug, 1914-2009

[kandrathe]

I don't. Early death is immensely damaging to a society - and a primary cause of collective stupidity. Nothing discourages people from obtaining everything they need to rise out of ignorance, from education to institutions to proper care for children, quite like the idea that it's all going to go to waste because they're going to starve to death anyway.

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

But...

I am a rock.