Quotes About Humanity

As neuroscientist Antonio Damasio reminds us, humans are not either thinking machines or feeling machines, but rather feeling machines that think.

to the conspiratorial mind, shit never just happens,' the complexities of human life are reduced to produce theories that are 'always consoling in their simplicity" bad things do not happen because of a wildly complex swirl of abstract historical and social variables. They happen because bad men live to stalk our happiness. And you can fight, and possibly even defeat, bad men. If you can read the hidden story

To know shame is to be human. And to have the capacity for empathy is also to be human.

We seem to have forgotten that even when we're utterly alone, we're connected to one another by something greater than group membership, politics, and ideology - that we're connected by love and the human spirit.

Neuroeconomist Paul Zak has found that hearing a story—a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end—causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin. These chemicals trigger the uniquely human abilities to connect, empathize, and make meaning. Story is literally in our DNA.

When you look away from a homeless person, you diminish their humanity and your own.

People Are Hard to Hate Close Up. Move In.

Because we are human and so beautifully imperfect

We like to be moved. We like to feel connected to what it means to be human, to be reminded of our inextricable connection to one another.

When we reduce Muslim people to terrorists or Mexicans to "illegals" or police officers to pigs, it says nothing at all about the people we're attacking. It does, however, say volumes about who we are and the degree to which we're operating in our integrity.

always knew these moments were important to me. I knew they were connected to my spiritual well-being and allowed me to stay in love with humanity while doing research that can be devastating and hard.

Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they don't exist in the human experience. We must walk into the arena, whatever it may be—

Buber wrote, "When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.

Common humanity recognizes that suffering and feelings of personal inadequacy are part of the shared human experience

I think the most important thing she has told me about reaching out to others in crisis is this: "You do it because that's the person you want to be. You do it because that could have been me and one day it could just as easily be you.

Empathy is connecting with the emotion that someone is experiencing, not the event or the circumstance. Shame dissipated the minute I realized that I wasn't alone—that my experience was human.

empathy is infinite and renewable.

We're hardwired for connection. There's no arguing with the bioscience. But we can want it so badly we're trying to hot-wire it.

Don't look away. Don't look down. Don't pretend not to see hurt. Look people in the eye. Even when their pain is overwhelming. And when you're hurting and in pain, find the people who can look you in the eye.

my favorite quote about darkness and compassion from Pema Chödrön, who writes: "Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.

If we believe empathy is finite, like pizza, and practicing empathy with someone leaves fewer slices for others, then perhaps comparing levels of suffering would be necessary. Luckily, however, empathy is infinite and renewable. The more you give, the more we all have. That means all pain can be met with empathy—there's no reason to rank and ration.

Which means we don't "fix it" by cutting people down to size and reminding folks of their inadequacies and smallness. Shame is more likely to be the cause of these behaviors, not the cure.

But then, if it's the case that we can care about citizens and the police, shouldn't the rallying cry just be All Lives Matter? No. Because the humanity wasn't stripped from all lives the way it was stripped from the lives of black citizens.

Solo cuando conocemos bien nuestra propia oscuridad conseguimos estar presentes en la oscuridad de los demás. La compasión se vuelve real cuando reconocemos nuestra humanidad compartida.»