Quotes About Humanity

I just think it's odd how we parse out our empathy," he said. "Why we only have empathy for those who remind us most of ourselves. I'm not saying I don't understand it. Sure, it's easy to have empathy for someone who's just like us. It comes naturally. I just think it's a shame we can't take it a bit further. I can't help wondering what the world would be like if our empathy muscle were a bit more developed.

The world will still be a place where people do terrible things. But here's the thing about despair. We fall into despair when the terrible gangs up on us and we forget the world can also be wonderful. We just see terrible everywhere we look. So what you do for your friend is you bring up the wonderful, so both are side by side. The world is terrible and wonderful at the same time. One doesn't negate the other, but the wonderful keeps us in the game. It keeps us moving forward.

Every life matters. Even if it's "them.

Everybody is a good person and a bad person at the same time. The only real variation is in the balance

if you meet someone you don't like, or who doesn't treat you right, try to reserve judgment, because you don't know what that person's going through,

world is terrible and wonderful at the same time.

What does it mean when someone loses the use of most of his brain, and it makes him more kind?

There is no boogeyman. Just a bunch of flawed humans, some more flawed than others, but more or less cut from the same human mold.

First I think, how weird is this? Sitting in the park holding hands with a complete stranger. Then I decided that there are a lot of weird things in the word, and this is not the very worst of them.

The people with the least to give always give the most. Haven't you noticed that?

t's like people who want to feel only happy but not sad," she said. "It never works. You either feel things or you don't. You don't get to pick and choose..

If you're feeling something, other people in other places are feeling it, too.

How can you do that to a person? Hate them when they haven't even done anything to you?

Until you get it that's he's only what his experience has shaped him to be, you're seeing him as subhuman. As 'other' somehow. And the danger in the meantime is that he'll see that. He'll know how you view him. When you see a child as 'less than,' it's not long before self-fulfilling prophecy comes into play.

What the hell is wrong with people?

was something contagious. "I'm not sure what you're

The longer you live, the more you'll see that the inside of everybody is a lot like the inside of everybody else. If you're feeling something, more likely than not it's just what anyone would feel.

tea. "I think very often in life we do something important for someone else for no better reason than that they need us to. And really, when you think about it . . . what more reason is needed?

this was his single greatest quality: he made everybody feel dear. And the sad truth of this world is that not many people feel that way, and not much of the time.

I'm letting you down. I get that. People always will. That's not as much of a downer as it sounds. There's a reason people will always let you down. It's because they came to this weird planet to live their own lives. Not anybody else's. Classic case of needs in conflict. You get what I'm saying?

Catherine Ryan Hyde

I don't know if war is always pointless," she said. "I know it's always tragic.

It would be easier if people were just good or bad and that was that.

Catherine Ryan Hyde