"Do we live what we are or do we live what we have, or by what we have ? Our difficulty is that we know so little about the humanity of man. We know what he makes, but we do not know what he is. In the characterizations of man, for example, as a tool-making or thinking animal, reference is made to the functions, not to the being, of man. Is it possible that our entire civilization is built upon a misinterpretation of man ? Or that the tragedy of modern man is due to the fact that he is a being who forgot the question: Who is man ? The failure to identify himself, to know what is authentic human existence, leads him to assume a false identity, to pretend to be what he is unable to be or to fail to  accept what is at the very root of his being. Ignorance about man is not lack of knowledge but false knowledge."

A.J. Heschel, Who is Man ? Stanford U Press, pp 5-6