178 quotes found
"Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds."
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."
"Capable of creating beauty, he yet seems content to dwell mostly in conditions of hopeless ugliness. Of his magnificent body he makes on the whole a travesty. His mind, as an actual potent instrument, he usually ignores altogether."
"People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading."
"It is as one humanity, chastened, disciplined but illumined and fused, that we must emerge into the future."
"Our species is prone to a flattering view of itself. Humans have regarded themselves as the pinnacle of creation, formed by and in the image of an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God, and inhabiting a planet at the center of the universe—a planet around which all others revolve. Science has done much to debunk some of these ideas. We now know that our planet is not at the center of the universe: the earth revolves around the sun rather than vice versa. And we know—or at least some of us do—that we are Johnny-come-lately products of a long, blind evolutionary process."
"Just one among millions of animal species – many on the brink of extinction and numerous yet to be discovered – Homo sapiens has risen from humble mammalian origins millions of years ago to become the most dominant, violent, predatory, and destructive animal on the planet. In a journey without precedent, Homo sapiens evolved from vulnerable prey to apex predator, from threatened species to threatening species, from pockets of Africa to planetary domination."
"I judge people by what they might be, — not are, nor will be."
"A person's lifeworm is a tangle of atomic worldlines. A braid. The dotty little atoms trace out smooth lines in spacetime: you are the pattern that these lines make up. There is no one single atom that is exclusively yours. I breathe an atom out, you breathe it in. Your garbage helps my tomatoes grow. And so the little spacetime threads weave us all together. The human race is a single vast tapestry, linked by our shared food and air. There are larger links as well: sperm, egg and umblilicus. Each family tree is an organic whole. Your spacetime body tapers back to the threads of mother's egg and father's sperm. And children, if you have them, are forever rooted in your flesh."
"As human beings, we are part of the whole stream of life."
"Measured against the vast backdrop of geologic time, the whole era of man seems but a moment—but how portentous a moment!"
"Who could have foretold that this being, who walked upright and no longer lived in trees, who lurked in caves, hiding in fear from the great beasts who shared his world—who could have guessed that he would one day have in his hands the power to change the very nature of the earth—the of life and death over so many of its creatures? Who could have foretold that the brain that was developing behind those heavy brow ridges would allow him to accomplish things no other creature had achieved-but would not at the same time endow him with wisdom so to control his activities that he would not bring destruction upon himself?"
"Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person — among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life."
"Someday, somehow, I am going to do something useful, something for people. They are, most of them, so helpless, so hurt and so unhappy."
"If one denies human life its absolute, transcendental character, the human person loses his inalienable worthiness and his inviolable rights. Then society determines what rights are to be bestowed on a person, and the State becomes absolute lord and master."
"Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a . As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society."
"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty."
"If humanity was , the Earth would return to a paradise in a few hundred years. If we lose bees, we’re a desert, forever. We’re not that important. We’re just one species of narcissistic ape. And some people on social media get annoyed when I say we’re apes. You know, religious types, Americans."
"O wearisome condition of humanity! Born under one law, to another bound; Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity; Created sick, commanded to be sound."
"All right. It's instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands! But we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill - today!"
"The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax."
"It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor. ... The all-seeing eye of a totalitarian regime is usually the watchful eye of the next-door neighbor."
"It is presumptively wrong to do violence to innocent persons."
"Plausible moral theory must have at its center a concern for the lives and well-being of persons."
"Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble."
"With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”"
"Human life is sacred... From its very inception it reveals the creating hand of God."
"Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made."
"Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home."
"Humans are basically good. That's why it takes so much training to march march march kill kill kill kill."
"We prefer to help ourselves. We make mistakes, but we’re human–and maybe that’s the word that best explains us."
"Society is composed only of various conditions, professions, functions, and ways of life, among those who form what we call a Nation; of proprietors of the soil, and proprietors of houses; of investments, of handicrafts, of merchants, of manufacturers, of formers; of day-laborers becoming fanners, manufacturers, merchants, or possessors of houses or capital, in their turn; of the rich, of those in easy circumstances, of the poor, of workmen with their hands, workmen with their minds; of day-laborers, of those in need, of a small number of men enjoying considerable acquired or inherited wealth, of others of a smaller fortune painfully increased and improved, of others with property only sufficient for their needs; there are some, finally, without any personal possession but their hands, and gleaning for themselves and for their families, in the workshop, or the field, and at the threshold of the homes of others on the earth, the asylum, the wages, the bread, the instruction, the tools, the daily pay, all those means of existence which they have neither inherited, saved, nor acquired. These last are what have been improperly called the People."
"You know what I want to think of myself? As a human being. Because, I mean I don't want to be like "As Confucius say," but under the sky, under the heavens there is but one family. It just so happens man that people are different."
"Every human heart is human."
"Laborin' man an' laborin' woman Hev one glory an' one shame; Ev'ythin' thet's done inhuman Injers all on 'em the same."
"O mankind! If ye are in doubt concerning the Resurrection, then lo! We have created you from dust, then from a drop of seed, then from a clot, then from a little lump of flesh shapely and shapeless, that We may make (it) clear for you. And We cause what We will to remain in the wombs for an appointed time, and afterward We bring you forth as infants, then (give you growth) that ye attain your full strength. And among you there is he who dieth (young), and among you there is he who is brought back to the most abject time of life, so that, after knowledge, he knoweth naught."
"Man is (self-) destroyed: bow ungrateful! From what thing doth He create him? From a drop of seed. He createth him and proportioneth him, Then maketh the way easy for him, Then causeth him to die, and burieth him; Then, when He will, He bringeth him again to life. Nay, but (man) hath not done what He commanded him."
"Lo! man is in a state of loss."
"The concept of person is an acquisition of Christianity. Historically, the word ‘person’ marks the dividing line between pagan and Christian culture. (introduction, p. 9)"
"If one of your people equals hundreds of ours, what does that say about people?"
"Man is a social, political and communal being (Aristotle's politikòn zoon), a being endowed with reason, language and the capacity for calculation (Aristotle's zoon logon echon), a being with an uncontrollable and absolute need for recognition by others (Hegel, but also Lévinas), a generic being that designs its own social configuration (the ontology of Karl Marx), and finally a highly symbolic animal (Cassirer)."
"Most people aren’t as interesting as they think they are."
"Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy."
""I swear that what I went through, no animal would have gone through." This sentence, the noblest ever spoken, this sentence that defines man's place in the universe, that honors him, that re-establishes the true hierarchy, floated back into my thoughts."
"The people will live on. The learning and blundering people will live on."
"Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will."
"I think the destiny of all men is not to sit in the rubble of their own making but to reach out for an ultimate perfection which is to be had. At the moment, it is a dream. But as of the moment we clasp hands with our neighbor, we build the first span to bridge the gap between the young and the old. At this hour, it’s a wish. But we have it within our power to make it a reality. If you want to prove that God is not dead, first prove that man is alive."
"Every man’s death does diminish us. And it follows that every man’s poverty, every man’s indignity, every man’s frustration and hopelessness – they are a part of mankind."
"What a piece of work is a man, How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and moving how express and admirable, In action how like an Angel, In apprehension how like a god, The beauty of the world, The paragon of animals. And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor Woman neither."
"First Murderer: We are men, my liege.Macbeth: Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men; As hounds, and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves are clept All by the name of dogs: the valu’d file Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle, The housekeeper, the hunter, every one According to the gift which bounteous nature Hath in him clos’d; whereby he does receive Particular addition, from the bill That writes them all alike: and so of men."
"What is brighter than the sun? Yet it disappears. Man is no more than flesh and blood, yet he thinks of doing evil. While the sun surveys the stars in the lofty sky, human beings remain dust and ashes."
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it."
"Many the forms of life, Wondrous and strange to see, But nought than man appears More wondrous and more strange."
"In my time, we knew not of earth men. I am pleased to see that we have differences. May we together become greater than the sum of both of us."
"Social science means inventing a certain brand of human we can understand."
"Were I (who to my cost already am One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man) A spirit free to choose, for my own share What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear, I’d be a dog, a monkey, or a bear, Or anything but that vain animal, Who is so proud of being rational."
"I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things."
"We declare our right on this earth to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence ."
"Man is not just another animal. Our species possesses something unique, a privilege that distinguishes us from all other life forms: Reason. It is so because of Reason that we have been able to make extraordinary discoveries, such as mathematics and rigorous logic, which have enabled us to understand the universe and our place in it.Evolutionists tell us that we are just another animal species, but they forget that we are the only ones capable of building a collective memory, such as writing, and transmitting knowledge through the centuries. Other species have not left traces of themselves as we have.This privilege allowed us not to be children of chaos, but of an extraordinary logical structure that we still try to understand today. Evolutionism ignores the extraordinary uniqueness of our species, which cannot be reduced to simple formulas."
"Love, hope, fear, faith — these make humanity; These are its sign and note and character."
"W'en you see a man in woe, Walk right up and say "hullo." Say "hullo" and "how d'ye do," "How's the world a-usin' you?" . . . . . W'en you travel through the strange Country t'other side the range, Then the souls you've cheered will know Who you be, an' say "hullo.""
"He held his seat; a friend to human race."
"Respect us, human, and relieve us, poor."
"Over the brink of it Picture it—think of it, Dissolute man. Lave in it—drink of it Then, if you can."
"Oh, God! that bread should be so dear, And flesh and blood so cheap!"
"For He, who gave this vast machine to roll, Breathed Life in them, in us a Reasoning Soul; That kindred feelings might our state improve, And mutual wants conduct to mutual love."
"It is good to be often reminded of the inconsistency of human nature, and to learn to look without wonder or disgust on the weaknesses which are found in the strongest minds."
"For nothing human foreign was to him."
"For the interesting and inspiring thing about America, gentlemen, is that she asks nothing for herself except what she has a right to ask for humanity itself."
"Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."
"There are people in our society who should be separated and discarded. I think it's one of the tendencies of the liberal community to feel that every person in a nation of over 200 million people can be made into a productive citizen. I'm realist enough to believe this can't be. We're always going to have our prisons, we're always going to have our places of preventive detention for psychopaths, and we're always going to have a certain number of people in our community who have no desire to achieve or who have no desire to even fit in an amicable way with the rest of society. And these people should be separated from the community, not in a callous way but they should be separated as far as any idea that their opinions shall have any effect on the course we follow."
"Where there is no vision, the people perish."
"I can not wish you success in your effort to reject the treaty because while it may win the fight it may destroy our cause. My plan cannot fail if the people are with us and we ought not to succeed unless we do have the people with us."
"I am a child of the House of Commons. I was brought up in my father's house to believe in democracy. "Trust the people"—that was his message."
"Your people, sir, is nothing but a great beast!"
"Would yee both eat your cake, and have your cake?"
"People don't eat in the long run—they eat every day."
"The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution."
"A sense of this necessity, and a submission to it, is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights."
"The President to-night has a dream:—He was in a party of plain people, and, as it became known who he was, they began to comment on his appearance. One of them said:—"He is a very common-looking man". The President replied:—"The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason he makes so many of them"."
"No democracy has ever long survived the failure of its adherents to be ready to die for it…. My own conviction is this, the people must either go on or go under."
"I do not want the voice of the people shut out."
"Your country is calling you. Our people are calling us. The people of America are calling us to relieve them from the distress that has infested this entire Nation as the result of following the Cabinet officers of the present administration. Your people are asking you to deliver them from this condition that now exists. They are asking relief."
"If I were to attempt to put my political philosophy tonight into a single phrase, it would be this: Trust the people. Trust their good sense, their decency, their fortitude, their faith. Trust them with the facts. Trust them with the great decisions. And fix as our guiding star the passion to create a society where people can fulfill their own best selves—where no American is held down by race or color, by worldly condition or social status, from gaining what his character earns him as an American citizen, as a human being and as a child of God."
"We human beings constitute and reconstitute ourselves through cultural traditions, which we experience as our own development in a historical time that spans the generations. To investigate the life-world as horizon and ground of all experience therefore requires investigating none other than generativity - the processes of becoming, of making and remaking, that occur over the generations and within which any individual genesis is always already situated... Individual subjectivity is intersubjectively and culturally embodied, embedded, and emergent."
"No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency."
"People are not an interruption of our business. People are our business."
"In the last analysis, my fellow countrymen, as we in America would be the first to claim, a people are responsible for the acts of their government."
"All men by nature desire to know; the proof of this is the pleasure caused by sensations, for even apart from the usefulness, we enjoy them for themselves, and visual sensations more than the others."
"One man talks continually about the particular actions of this or another neighbor; whilst another looks beyond the acts to the inward principle from which they spring, and gathers from them larger views of human nature. In a word, one man sees all things apart and in fragments, whilst another strives to discover the harmony, connection, unity of all. One of the great evils of society is, that men, occupied perpetually with petty details, want general truths, want broad and fixed principles."
"Before all other things, man is distinguished by his pursuit and investigation of Truth. And hence, when free from needful business and cares, we delight to see, to hear, and to communicate, and consider a knowledge of many admirable and abstruse things necessary to the good conduct and happiness of our lives: whence it is clear that whatsoever is True, simple, and direct, the same is most congenial to our nature as men. Closely allied with this earnest longing to see and know the truth, is a kind of dignified and princely sentiment which forbids a mind, naturally well constituted, to submit its faculties to any but those who announce it in precept or in doctrine, or to yield obedience to any orders but such as are at once just, lawful, and founded on utility. From this source spring greatness of mind and contempt of worldly advantages and troubles."
"It is essential to every inquiry about duty that we keep before our eyes how far superior man is by nature to cattle and other beasts: they have no thought except for sensual pleasure and this they are impelled by every instinct to seek; but man's mind is nurtured by study and meditation."
"Nature outweighing art begets roughness; art outweighing nature begets pedantry. Art and nature well blent make a gentleman."
"He lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, "I am looking for a human.""
"The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner and would disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one is the healthy attitude of human nature."
"Anarchists trust the best instincts of the people, and human nature dictates that where there is repression there will be resistance; where there is slavery, there will a struggle against it."
"Thus we discover that this blind and impersonal process produced humans not in a lightning flash, not in a sudden instant of creation, but as the result of accumulation. The origin of humans is not something that can be pinpointed at five million years, or one million years, or 100,000 years in the past, but, rather, occurs continuously over time. Our origin is the whole pattern of evolution, although there are key events that we must discover and identify. The things that make us human are acquired as a complex mosaic—we became upright four million years ago; we began to make tools two million years ago; we began to live all over the earth less than one million years ago; and possibly we only acquired language in the last 100,000 years or so. Each of these factors is an essential part of the process of becoming human. What makes human evolution such an endlessly fascinating story is trying to visualize the stages, imagining what sort of a creature could walk upright but not talk, make tools but not use fire, survive the rigors of the Ice Age but know nothing of agriculture and a settled way of life."
"Il est dans la nature humaine de penser sagement et d'agir d'une façon absurde."
"History often reproduces without reference to nationality some particular human type or class which becomes active and predominant for a time, and fades away when its task is finished. It is, however, not utterly lost, for the germ of it lies dormant yet ready to re-appear when the exigencies of the moment recall it. The reserve forces of human nature are inexhaustible and inextinguishable."
"Human nature is intractable stuff, hard jagged stuff, the kind of stuff that dreams are wrecked on."
"It is human nature to avoid being consumed by hypotheticals until they are staring us squarely in the face."
"The nature of man doesn’t change, and that’s reassuring, since we know the necessary conditions that can save him from himself."
"The fate of the Jewish people is the fate of Macbeth who stepped out of nature itself, clung to alien beings, and so in their service had to trample and slay everything holy in human nature."
"There is a startling similarity between Bacon’s prescription for mastering nature—“Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed”—and Loyola’s formula for manipulating men—“Follow the other man’s course to your own goal.”"
"Human nature, as manifested in tribalism and nationalism, provides the momentum of the machinery of human evolution."
"Certain basics about human nature do not change. Man needs a certain moral sense of right and wrong. There is such a thing called evil, and it is not the result of being a victim of society. You are just an evil man, prone to do evil things, and you have to be stopped from doing them."
"Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed."
"Human nature is not of itself vicious."
"Nature … has born and reared all men alike, and created them genuine brothers, not in mere name, but in very reality, though this kinship has been put to confusion by the triumph of malignant covetousness, which has wrought estrangement instead of affinity and enmity instead of friendship."
"The needs of man, if life is to survive, are usually said to be four -- air, water, food, and in the severe climates, protection. But it is becoming clear today that the human organism has another absolute necessity... This fifth need is the need for novelty -- the need, throughout our waking life, for continuous variety in the external stimulation of our eyes, ears, sense organs, and all our nervous network."
"Humane nature I always thought the most useful object of humane reason, and to make the consideration of it pleasant and entertaining, I always thought the best employment of humane wit: other parts of philosophy may perhaps make us wiser, but this not only answers to that end, but makes us better too. Hence it was that the Oracle pronounced Socrates the wisest of all men living, because he judiciously made choice of human nature for the object of his thoughts; an enquiry into which as much exceeds all other learning, as it is of more consequence to adjust the true nature and measures of right and wrong, than to settle the distance of the planets, and compute the times of their circumvolutions."
"Our human nature is made out of peace, and peace is what we are made for. All troubles are in fact caused by the disruption of our original condition, which is both our origin and our destiny."
"Therapeutic re-education … teaches the patient-student how to live with the contradictions that combine to make him into a unique personality; this is does in contrast to the older moral pedagogies, which tried to re-order the contradictions into a hierarchy of superior and inferior, good and evil. ... What hope there is derives from Freud’s assumption that human nature is not so much a hierarchy of high-low, and good-bad, as his predecessors believed, but rather a jostling democracy of contending predispositions, deposited in every nature in roughly equal intensities. … Psychoanalysis if full of such mad logic; it is convincing only if the student of his own life accepts Freud’s egalitarian revision of the traditional idea of a hierarchical human nature."
"Human nature is governed by general self-interest and affected by genetic predisposition, which implies that there are likely to be limits to our moral sensitivities."
"In Aristotle the conception of human nature is perfectly sound; everything ideal has a natural basis and everything natural an ideal development."
"Natural desires are limited; but those which spring from false opinion can have no stopping-point. The false has no limits. When you are travelling on a road, there must be an end; but when astray, your wanderings are limitless. Recall your steps, therefore, from idle things, and when you would know whether that which you seek is based upon a natural or upon a misleading desire, consider whether it can stop at any definite point. If you find, after having travelled far, that there is a more distant goal always in view, you may be sure that this condition is contrary to nature."
"Once the increase of empirical knowledge, and more exact modes of thought, made sharper divisions between the sciences inevitable, and once the increasingly complex machinery of the state necessitated a more rigorous separation of ranks and occupations, then the inner unity of human nature was severed too."
"Human nature is the same now as when Adam hid from the presence of God; the consciousness of wrong makes us unwilling to meet those whom we have offended."
"It belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured."
"You don't really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around and why his parents will always wave back."
"We're just like other people: We love to sing, we love to dance, we admire beautiful women. We are human, and sometimes very human."
"Ancestral humans behaved like Bonobos. Later, when we developed the family system, the use of sex for this sort of purpose became more limited, mainly occurring within families. A lot of the things we see, like pedophilia and homosexuality, may be leftovers that some now consider unacceptable in our particular society."
"God consecrates us with His Spirit; whom He adopts, He anoints; whom He makes sons, He makes saints; He doth not only give them a new name, but a new nature. God turns the wolf into a lamb; He makes the heart humble and gracious; He works such a change as if another soul did dwell in the same body."
"Human nature is evil; its goodness derives from conscious activity. Now it is human nature to be born with a fondness for profit. Indulging this leads to contention and strife, and the sense of modesty and yielding with which one was born disappears. One is born with feelings of envy and hate, and, by indulging these, one is led into banditry and theft, so that the sense of loyalty and good faith with which he was born disappears. One is born with the desires of the ears and eyes and with a fondness for beautiful sights and sounds, and, by indulging these, one is led to licentiousness and chaos, so that the sense of ritual, rightness, refinement, and principle with which one was born is lost. Hence, following human nature and indulging human emotions will inevitably lead to contention and strife, causing one to rebel against one’s proper duty, reduce principle to chaos, and revert to violence. Therefore one must be transformed by the example of a teacher and guided by the way of ritual and rightness before one will attain modesty and yielding, accord with refinement and ritual, and return to order."
"[AI] gets at the essence of what intelligence is, what humanity is, Anybody who has worked with AI for a while…realize[s] this is something so different and so deep that, we would need societal regulations to think about how to adapt... the most profound technology humanity is working on. More profound than fire or electricity or anything that we've done in the past."
"It is clear that so far human beings are not managing their world very well.... They... [are on a] planet which continues to roll unerringly upon its appointed path. The seasons follow each other with faithful regularity. Upon this revolving home they can find everything calculated to give them their hearts’ desires. Infinite beauties and infinite delights are theirs for the taking... There is sufficient space, sufficient nourishment and sufficient occupation for all.... Human beings have... amazing bodies, whose natural state is that of joyful health and energy. They have... mental powers whose possibilities are immeasurable, and creative ability which is allowing them to master all the substances and forces of nature one by one. They have been provided throughout their history with a succession of leaders and teachers who have bequeathed to them doctrines and laws which, although quite simple, would ensure an ideal social life... The picture before us of human quality and human achievement is kaleidoscopic, showing closely intermingling facets of beauty, of worth, of genius, of bestiality, of idiocy and of crime. ...Capable of creating beauty, he yet seems content to dwell mostly in conditions of hopeless ugliness. Of his magnificent body he makes on the whole a travesty. His mind, as an actual potent instrument, he usually ignores altogether. He sets self-preservation as his goal, yet bends all his efforts and his wits to the production of conditions which result in wars, disease, and other methods of self-destruction."
"He sets self-preservation as his goal, yet bends all his efforts and his wits to the production of conditions which result in wars, disease, and other methods of self-destruction. His mental life must habituate itself to a code of contradictions, misfits, conflictions and inadequacies which inhibit coherent thought. In many ways the present life of humanity presents a quite mad spectacle to the unbiased eye. Yet withal, the average human being desires supremely to live happily and safely, to enjoy beauty and comfort and good-fellowship, and the stimulation of achievement. Where, then, is the missing link between man and his desires? What is the hidden error which dislocates his life? IT MUST BE FOUND. Until it is discovered arid recognized humanity will continue to wallow in the quagmire of confusion and destruction into which it has plunged. When powerful nations treat other nations without apology to anarchy, robbery, slaughter and persecution and the only remedy which can be found is further slaughter by those who would keep the peace (!), it is indeed no longer a world in which anyone can shirk the urgent responsibility for putting things straight, and for establishing a new and a better order.... It is the mentality of the public—made up of the mentalities of you and of myself—which rules the issue. We, and only we, are in the last analysis responsible."
"Only by being a man or woman for others does one become fully human."
"The peoples of the world... are divided into four groups... This is of course a wide generalization... First, the ignorant masses... They can be easily... swept into a collective activity by leaders of any school of thought which is clever enough, and emotional enough, to appeal to material desires, to love of country... They can be controlled by fear, and thus aroused to action by emotional appeal... Their conditions must be bettered, but not through bloodshed and exploitation. Secondly, the middle classes... the bulk of the nations, the bourgeoisie - intelligent, diligent, enquiring, narrow-minded... They are...without exception, the most powerful element in any nation... the most fruitful field from which the new leaders and organizers are being drawn... they are the determining factor in world affairs... Because of their intelligence... they provide the most powerful group in the world in each nation... Thirdly, the thinkers...the intelligent and highly educated men and women, who sense ideas and formulate them into ideals. These people speak the words, write the articles and books, and utilise all the known methods to reach and educate the general public... sometimes for good, and sometimes for selfish ends. They play upon the human mind, as a musician plays upon his instrument... Some few, more perhaps than might appear, are working selflessly under the inspiration of the new era... dedicated to the amelioration of human conditions, and the betterment of world affairs along certain lines... They are found in every government, party, society, and organization... p.174-175"
"It is essential that all thinking people should give time and thought to the consideration of the major world problems with which we are now faced... It must be recognized that the cause of all world unrest, of the world wars which have wrecked humanity, and the widespread misery upon our planet, can largely be attributed to a selfish group with materialistic purposes, who have for centuries exploited the masses and used the labour of mankind for their selfish ends... This group of capitalists has cornered and exploited the world's resources and the staples required for civilised living; they have been able to do this because they have owned and controlled the world's wealth through their interlocking directorates, and have retained it in their hands. They have made possible the vast differences existing between the very rich and the very poor; they love money and the power which money gives; they have stood behind governments and politicians; they have controlled the electorate; they have made possible the narrow nationalistic aims of selfish politics; they have financed the world businesses and controlled oil, coal, power, light and transportation; they control publicly or sub rosa the world's banking accounts. The responsibility for the widespread misery to be found today in every country in the world, lies predominantly at the door of certain major interrelated groups of businessmen, bankers, executives of international cartels, monopolies, trusts and organisations, and directors of huge corporations, who work for corporate or personal gain. p. 70/1"
"Humanity is a moral disaster. There would have been much less destruction had we never evolved. The fewer humans there are in the future, the less destruction there will still be."
"To suffer with the other and for others; to suffer for the sake of truth and justice; to suffer out of love and in order to become a person who truly loves—these are fundamental elements of humanity, and to abandon them would destroy man himself."
"The definition of humanity typically extols our cultural brilliance as manifest through millennia of mythology, religion, philosophy, art, music, literature, dance, architecture, and science. The praise of humanity's multifaceted achievements is well deserved, but this stunning radiance also has a macabre and dark side that is an inseparable part of human history and nature. This underbelly of "civilization" is barbarism–the unbroken timeline involving hierarchy, domination, colonization, violence, war, genocide, extinctions, and environmental ruination."
"A poor Irish Widow, her husband having died in one of the Lanes of Edinburgh, went forth with her three children, bare of all resource, to solicit help from the Charitable Establishments of that City. At this Charitable Establishment and then at that she was refused; referred from one to the other, helped by none;— till she had exhausted them all; till her strength and heart failed her: she sank down in typhus-fever; died, and infected her Lane with fever, so that 'seventeen other persons' died of fever there in consequence. The humane Physician asks thereupon, as with a heart too full for speaking, Would it not have been economy to help this poor Widow? She took typhus-fever, and killed seventeen of you!—Very curious. The forlorn Irish Widow applies to her fellow-creatures, as if saying, "Behold I am sinking, bare of help: ye must help me! I am your sister, bone of your bone; one God made us: ye must help me!" They answer, "No; impossible: thou art no sister of ours." But she proves her sisterhood; her typhus-fever kills them: they actually were her brothers, though denying it! Had man ever to go lower for a proof?For, as indeed was very natural in such case, all government of the Poor by the Rich has long ago been given over to Supply-and-demand, Laissez-faire and such like, and universally declared to be 'impossible.' "You are no sister of ours; what shadow of proof is there? Here are our parchments, our padlocks, proving indisputably our money-safes to be ours, and you to have no business with them. Depart! It is impossible!""
"An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path. But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will turn aside and let the reptile live."
"We are in an age that assumes the narrowing trends of specialization to be logical, natural, and desirable. Consequently, society expects all earnestly responsible communication to be crisply brief. . . . In the meantime, humanity has been deprived of comprehensive understanding... It has also resulted in the individual's leaving responsibility for thinking and social action to others. Specialization breeds biases that ultimately aggregate as international and ideological discord, which, in turn, leads to war."
"Lack of knowledge concerning all the factors and the failure to include them in our integral imposes false conclusions."
"The youth of humanity all around our planet are intuitively revolting from all sovereignties and political ideologies. The youth of Earth are moving intuitively toward an utterly classless, raceless, omnicooperative, omniworld humanity. Children freed of the ignorantly founded educational traditions and exposed only to their spontaneously summoned, computer-stored and -distributed outflow of reliable-opinion-purged, experimentally verified data, shall indeed lead society to its happy egress from all misinformedly conceived, fearfully and legally imposed, and physically enforced customs of yesterday. They can lead all humanity into omnisuccessful survival as well as entrance into an utterly new era of human experience in an as-yet and ever-will-be fundamentally mysterious Universe."
"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."
"In all respects, we are one humanity, one human family. Limitations arise from political beliefs and world leaders who hold thinking to time, place and culture, thereby creating differences and separateness. The birthright of all mankind is to love and follow God. Limitations arise from erroneous human beliefs."
"One can follow any religion, one can follow any practice or path, but one must be humane."
"The world now is in a state of turmoil. It is suffering from three kinds of pain – physical, mental, spiritual – and there is only one way of being cured from these. We have to root out inhumanity and replace it with humanity. (…) There are people in this world who, when they see someone else’s house burning, are happy. There are people who want to live in comfort at the expense of the labor of others. There is only one God, who created all men in His image. This is why we have to re-establish humanity."
"The third assumption, and by far the most pernicious, is a behavioral model that describes human beings as something called "homo economicus," which basically means that we are all perfectly selfish, perfectly rational and relentlessly self-maximizing. But just ask yourselves, is it plausible that every single time for your entire life, when you did something nice for somebody else, all you were doing was maximizing your own utility? Is it plausible that when a soldier jumps on a grenade to defend fellow soldiers, they're just promoting their narrow self-interest? If you think that's nuts, contrary to any reasonable moral intuition, that's because it is and, according to the latest science, not true. But it is this behavioral model which is at the cold, cruel heart of neoliberal economics, and it is as morally corrosive as it is scientifically wrong because, if we accept at face value that humans are fundamentally selfish, and then we look around the world at all of the unambiguous prosperity in it, then it follows logically, then it must be true by definition, that billions of individual acts of selfishness magically transubstantiate into prosperity and the common good."
"But, if... we accept the latest empirical research, real science, which correctly describes human beings as highly cooperative, reciprocal and intuitively moral creatures, then it follows logically that it must be cooperation and not selfishness that is the cause of our prosperity, and it isn't our self-interest but rather our inherent reciprocity that is humanity's economic superpower."
"Now, the old economics is correct, of course, that competition plays a crucial role in how markets work, but what it fails to see is that it is largely a competition between highly cooperative groups -- competition between firms, competition between networks of firms, competition between nations -- and anyone who has ever run a successful business knows that building a cooperative team by including the talents of everyone is almost always a better strategy than just a bunch of selfish jerks."
"Today, the most important humanist sect is liberal humanism, which believes that 'humanity' is a quality of individual humans, and that the liberty of individuals is therefore sacrosanct."
"the plea of humanity is lost by going through the process of law, the firm and manly tone of principle is exchanged for the wavering and pitiful cant of policy, the living bursts of passion are reduced to a defunct common-place, and all true imagination is buried under the dust and rubbish of learned models and imposing authorities."
"It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor. … Some of the worst tyrannies of our day genuinely are "vowed" to the service of mankind, yet can function only by pitting neighbor against neighbor. The all-seeing eye of a totalitarian regime is usually the watchful eye of the next-door neighbor. In a Communist state love of neighbor may be classed as counter-revolutionary."
"The impulse of power is to turn every variable into a constant, and give to commands the inexorableness and relentlessness of laws of nature. Hence absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity."
"A man discovers what he is actually worth in this world when he faces society as a man, without money, name, or powerful connections, stripped of all but his native potentialities. He soon finds that nothing has less weight than his human qualities. They are prized so low that the market does not even list them. Strict science, which acknowledges man only as a biological concept, reflects man’s lot in the actual world; in himself, man is nothing more than a member of a species. In the eyes of the world, the quality of humanity confers no title to existence, nay, not even a right of sojourn. Such title must be certified by special social circumstances stipulated in documents to be presented on demand."
"I have written for all, with a profound love for my own country, but without being engrossed by France more than by any other nation. In proportion as I advance in life, I grow more simple, and I become more and more patriotic for humanity."
"The ... sentiment of the equality before God of all his creatures ... tends to nullify man's usual acquisitiveness. Those who have it spurn dignities and honors, privileges and advantages, preferring ... to grovel on the common level before the face of God. It is not exactly the sentiment of humility, though it comes so close to it in practice. It is humanity, rather, refusing to enjoy anything that others do not share."
"For it is humanity which is the great Orphan, the only disinherited one upon this earth, my friend. And it is the duty of every man who is capable of an unselfish impulse to do something, however little, for its welfare. Poor, poor humanity! it reminds me of the old fable of the war between the Body and its members: here, too, each limb of this huge "orphan"—fatherless and motherless—selfishly cares but for itself. The body uncared for suffers internally, whether the limbs are at war or at rest. Its suffering and agony never ceases. . . . And who can blame it — as your materialistic philosophers do— if, in this everlasting isolation and neglect it has evolved gods, unto whom "it ever cries for help but is not heard!""
"Man isn't a noble savage, he's an ignoble savage. He is irrational, brutal, weak, silly, unable to be objective about anything where his own interests are involved—that about sums it up. I'm interested in the brutal and violent nature of man because it's a true picture of him. And any attempt to create social institutions on a false view of the nature of man is probably doomed to failure."
"There is no such thing as man in the world. In my lifetime I have seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, etc.; thanks to Montesquieu, I even know that one can be Persian. But as for man, I declare that I have never in my life met him; if he exists, he is unknown to me."
"I dread to think of a society devoid of love, compassion and humanity."
"To us who regard [Jesus]as the unique revelation of God, the unfolding of the divine life under human forms, he is the ultimate standard of moral and spiritual life, the perfect expression of the will of God for humanity, the categorical imperative with a human heart. But very many who do not hold this belief in a formulated way or who feel compelled to deny it, including an increasing portion of our Jewish fellow-citizens, will still consent that in Jesus our race has reached one of its highest points, if not its crowning summit thus far, so that Jesus Christ is a prophecy of the future glory of humanity, the type of Man as he is to be. Christianizing means humanizing in the highest sense."
"Its Humanity develops fully only in the Fourth—our Fourth—our present Round. Up to this fourth Life-Cycle, it is referred to as 'humanity' only for lack of a more appropriate term. Like the grub which becomes chrysalis and butterfly, Man, or rather that which becomes man, passes through all the forms and kingdoms during the first Round and through all the human shapes during the two following Rounds... During the three Rounds to come, Humanity, like the globe [planet] on which it lives, will be ever tending to reassume its primeval form, that of a Dhyan-Chohanic Host. Man tends to become a God and then—GOD, like every other atom in the Universe..."
"Mimzy returned to her own time, as if time had stopped. It was what the scientist had hoped for — to find a soul in the past not contaminated by the pollutants that filled our bodies and minds. Our precious quality of humanity had been turned off, but in Emma's tears was the instruction for an awakening; and it spread like wildflowers. People shed their protective suits. And over time humanity blossomed again. Our world was saved by a child, very much like you. Emma was our mother, the mother of us all."
"There are no "human" oppressors. Oppressors have lost their humanity."
"How could we be were it not for this planet that provided our very shape? Two conditions—gravity and livable temperature range between freezing and boiling—have given us fluids and flesh. The trees we climb and the ground we walk on have given us five fingers and toes. The "place"... gave us far-seeing eyes, the streams and breezes gave us versatile tongues and whorly ears. The land gave us a stride, and the lake a dive. The amazement gave us our kind of mind."
"When we speak of man, we have a conception of humanity as a whole, and before applying scientific methods to the investigation of his movement we must accept this as a physical fact. But can anyone doubt to-day that all the millions of individuals and all the innumerable types and characters constitute an entity, a unit? Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them. I cut myself in the finger, and it pains me: this finger is a part of me. I see a friend hurt, and it hurts me, too: my friend and I are one. And now I see stricken down an enemy, a lump of matter which, of all the lumps of matter in the universe, I care least for, and it still grieves me. Does this not prove that each of us is only part of a whole?"
"Superman stands alone. Superman did not become Superman, Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he is Superman. His alter ego Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He's weak. He's unsure of himself. He's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race."
"The greatest achievement of humanity is not its works of art, science, or technology, but the recognition of its own dysfunction, its own madness. In the distant past, this recognition already came to a few individuals. A man called Gautama Siddhartha, who lived 2,600 years ago in India, was perhaps the first who saw it with absolute clarity. Later the title Buddha was conferred upon him. Buddha means “the awakened one.” At about the same time, another of humanity’s early awakened teachers emerged in China. His name was Lao Tzu. He left a record of his teaching in the form of one of the most profound spiritual books ever written, the Tao Te Ching. To recognize one’s own insanity, is of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence."
"Most humans are still in the grip of the egoic mode of consciousness: identified with their mind and run by their mind. If they do not free themselves from their mind in time, they will be destroyed by it. They will experience increasing confusion, conflict, violence, illness, despair, madness. Egoic mind has become like a sinking ship. If you don't get off, you will go down with it. The collective egoic mind is the most dangerously insane and destructive entity ever to inhabit this planet."
"If the balance between male and female energies had not been destroyed on our planet, the ego's growth would have been greatly curtailed. We would not have declared war on nature, and we would not be so completely alienated from our Being."
"Nobody knows the exact figure because records were not kept, but it sees certain that during a three hundred year period between three and five million women were tortured and killed by the “Holy Inquisition, “ an institution founded by the Roman Catholic Church to suppress heresy. This sure ranks together with the Holocaust as one of the darkest chapters in human history. It was enough for a woman to show a love for animals, walk alone in the fields or woods, or gather medicinal plants to be branded a witch, then tortured and burned at the stake. The sacred feminine was declared demonic, and an entire dimension largely disappeared form human experience. Other cultures and religions, such as Judaism, Islam, and even Buddhism, also suppressed the female dimension, although in a less violent way. Women's status was reduced to being child bearers and men's property. Males who denied the feminine even within themselves where now running the world, a world that was totally out of balance. The rest is history or rather a case history of insanity."
"Humanity is under great pressure to evolve because it is our only chance of survival as a race. This will affect every aspect of your life and close relationships in particular. Never before have relationships been as problematic and conflict ridden as they are now. As you may have noticed, they are not here to make you happy or fulfilled. If you continue to pursue the goal of salvation through a relationship, you will be disillusioned again and again. But if you accept that the relationship is here to make you conscious instead of happy, then the relationship will offer you salvation, and you will be aligning yourself with the higher consciousness that wants to be born into this world. For those who hold on to the old patterns, there will be increasing pain, violence, confusion, and madness.Most humans are still in the grip of the egoic mode of consciousness: identified with their mind and run by their mind. If they do not free themselves from their mind in time, they will be destroyed by it. They will experience increasing confusion, conflict, violence, illness, despair, madness. Egoic mind has become like a sinking ship. If you don't get off, you will go down with it."
"When people set themselves above nature, they put their very humanity at risk."
"America’s most important ally should be humanity itself. Our species will not survive another 100 years if we don’t move from a competitive to a cooperative mode of existence. “Me first” is an obsolete, unsustainable perspective."
"I can see no hope for humanity so long as one's right to live depends upon one's ability to pay the cost of living imposed by those who exploit our daily needs."
""Now, I would like just to give a quick visual perspective on the idea that we are at the center of the universe. There is a recent Hubble Space Telescope photograph of an obscure edge of the Virgo Cluster some 45 million light-years away. This is a giant elliptical galaxy in the Virgo Cluster, but almost everything else you see, all these other things, are not stars in our galaxy, and not galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, but galaxies behind the Virgo Cluster; and there are some hundred billion other galaxies in the known universe. Now, suppose you were an intergalactic traveler seeking interesting galaxies, and you were told that the beings who are the point of the universe live on one of those galaxies. 'See that little one right there? That's the center of the universe! And they are the reason the whole universe of 100 billion galaxies was made. Just ask them!' What's your sense of them?"
"It is important to note that a form of anthropocentrism remains in Heidegger, according to whom: “Man is not the Lord of beings. Man is the shepherd of Being. Man loses nothing in this ‘less’; rather, he gains in that he attains the truth of Being”. Although Man is not the “Lord of beings anymore,” he is still granted the privileged position of “shepherd of Being.”"