Quotes About Humanity

That telephones can connect us in seconds to any creature on earth foolhardy enough to lift its own chunk of plastic is wonderful. But it's also terrible, given what a lot of people think and feel about each other. That's why, until they're equipped with some sort of flush or filter or waste-disposal system for the billions of words that ought not to be spoken, I'll not trust the things.

What separates us from the animals, what separates us from the chaos, is our ability to mourn people we've never met.

Just because a person is beautiful doesn't mean there's no soul beneath. Doesn't mean that person hasn't suffered like everyone else, doesn't mean they don't hope to still be a good human being in an awful world.

Why do we even bother? Why do we make ourselves so open to such easy damage? Is it all loneliness? Is it all fear? Or is it just to experience those narcotic moments of belonging with someone else?

The world, right now, is only us.

The terrorists-those nineteen people, with hundreds or maybe thousands behind them-did the worst thing you can possibly imagine. But tens of millions people did the right thing...On 9/11, all the hatred and murder could not compare with the weight of love, of bravery, of caring.

A guy can do far far worse than surrounding himself with people who restore his faith in humanity.

We wish we could show you the world as it sleeps. Then you'd never have any doubt about how similar, how trusting, how astounding and vulnerable we all are.

Ultimately, the universe doesn't care about us. Time doesn't care about us. That's why we have to care about each other.

I find myself looking into people's eyes more than I ever did before. And I realize, that's where we stop being a certain gender or color. Just look right into the center of the eye.

I hope suffering don't exist.

It was like everyone suddenly knew what mattered. Money didn't matter. Politics didn't matter. Tabloid news didn't matter. No-compassion mattered. Calm mattered. Respect mattered. Did it really take something of this magnitude to make us realize this?

That's the problem with having a moral code. We want to destroy the jerkish part of the jerks, but we want to save the human being underneath.

I think that if you were somehow able to measure the weight of human kindness, it would have weighed more on 9/11 than it ever had. On 9/11, all the hatred and murder could not compare with the weight of love, of bravery, of caring. I have to believe that.

This, I think, is how people survive: Even when horrible things have been done to us, we can still find gratitude in one another.

But I had a feeling I wasn't supposed to find her that way. She was not a needle. This was not a haystack. We were people, and people had ways of finding each other.

Sometimes I wish we could open ourselves up to each other as much as we do to the sky. To the smallness and the enomity.

It's only in the finer points that it gets complicated and contentious, the inability to realize that no matter what our religion or gender or race or geographic background, we all have about 98 percent in common with each other.... For whatever reason, we like to focus on the 2 percent that's different, and most of the conflict in the world comes from that.

f you stare at the center of the universe, there is a coldness there. A blankness. Ultimately, the universe doesn't care about us. Time doesn't care about us. That's why we have to care about each other

On 9/11, all the hatred and murder could not compare with the weight of love, of bravery, of caring. I have to believe that. I honestly believe that. I think we saw the way humanity works on that day, and while some of it was horrifying, so much of it was good.

Elijah is overwhelmed by the sheer fact of all the people who have walked over this very spot. As he watches Nikes and loafers glide past, he tries to fathom the feet of centuries ago. A person could stay in this same place his whole life and meet millions of people from all over the world. But instead, everyone moves on, and meets no one.

We are such wonderful idiots, Peter thinks.

There's truly a story on every corner. But still might be a shock, to realize you are just one story walking among millions

the universe doesn't care about us. Time doesn't care about us. That's why we have to care about each other.