Quotes About Humanity

Cruelty is a terrible thing. I believe it is the worst human sin.

I love dogs, not chimps. Some chimps are nice, and some are horrid. I don't actually think of them as animals any more than I think of us as animals, although both of us are.

there seems to be a disconnect between our clever brain and our compassionate heart.

Moral evolution, I think, is understanding how we should behave, how we should treat others, understanding justice, understanding the need for a more equitable society.

For this reason I believe that only humans are capable of true evil—only we can sit down and, in cold blood, work out ways to torture people, to inflict pain. Carefully plan horrific cruelty.

using our powerful intellect to recognize the consequences of our actions and to think of the well-being of the whole.

And there's another thing, Doug. Just as only we are capable of true evil," Jane said, "I think only we are capable of true altruism.

The forces raging around us—greed, corruption, hatred, blind prejudice—are ones we might be foolish to think we can overcome. It's understandable

We need a new universal moral code.

Later Rick was interviewed. 'You must have known it was dangerous—why did you do it?' he was asked. 'Well, you see, I happened to look into his eyes, and it was like looking into the eyes of a man,' he said. 'And the message was, "Won't anybody help me?" That same look in the eyes of the vulnerable and oppressed people that has appealed to human altruism led to so many heroic acts.

I think humanity at least has a shared understanding of what justice means.

There are over seven billion of us today

This is a common assumption: that human beings are charming in small numbers and noxious in large numbers.

we human beings have the blessed creative capacity to do so much better. So why don't we?" 2.

I think everything has value, absolute value, a child, a house, a day's work, the sky. But nothing will save us. We were never meant to be saved. What were we meant for then? To love the whole damned world.

War is inevitable when the world is fallen. If you stop one, another will start. Redemption is the only path away from war.

And then he saw what he was, an old man, ready to die, pressed against the Greenland earth, as small as an ash berry on the face of a mountain, and he did the only thing that men can do when they know themselves, which was to weep and weep and weep.

Those who are especially destructive they call 'wolves' or 'jackals,' but there is no wolf or jackal in the world who has been remotely as destructive as the average human.

I personally believe we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.

One thing I have no worry about is whether God exists. But it has occurred to me that God has Alzheimer's and has forgotten we exist.

Language helps develp life as surely as it reflects life. It is a most important part of our human condition.

People were dying around us, of starvation, tuberculosis, cholera, typhus, typhoid, deportation, influenza, heartbreak. Their lungs were filling up because of the cold. They were being shot for walking too quickly, staring too hard, not answering questions fast enough or answering too fast, or just because they wore the yellow star. To die was easy. To live was harder. Papa said to us, "We have chosen the more difficult path, that of life. Now we must walk it." We walked.

How can we be so different and feel so much alike?

Were really screwed up, aren't we? In a very large way.