Quotes About Humanity

As James Madison put it in Federalist No. 40, "The choice must always be made, if not one of the lesser evil, at least of the GREATER, not the PERFECT good." And in the last of the Federalist Papers, he said, "I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man.

Forget injuries, never forget kindness.

Five things constitute perfect virtue: gravity, magnanimity, earnestness, sincerity and kindness.

Is there any one maxim which ought to be acted upon throughout one's whole life? Surely the maxim of loving kindness is such: Do not unto others what you would not they should do unto you.

Till you have learned to serve men, how can you serve ghosts? Till you know about the living, how are you to know about the dead?

Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.

Goodness is more to the people than water and fire. I have seen men lose their lives when "treading upon" water and fire; but I have never seen anyone lose his life through "treading upon" Goodness.

Virtue is more to man than either water or fire. I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue.

Xuan smiled at the thought of men sleeping peacefully next to those they would try to kill in daylight. Only humanity could have conceived such a strange and artificial way to die. Wolves might tear the flesh of deer, but they never slept and dreamed near their quarry.

Some people will always be animals, while the others want to be... people.

How we treat those who can't force us to be kind says everything about who we are as a people.

This being human is a guest-house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out

The sad truth is that man's real life consists of a complex of inexorable opposites—day and night, birth and death, happiness and misery, good and evil. We are not even sure that one will prevail against the other, that good will overcome evil, or joy defeat pain. Life is a battleground. It always has been, and always will be; and if it were not so, existence would come to an end. C. G. JUNG

We were all born of flesh, in a flare of pain. We do not remember the red roots whence we rose, but we know that we rose and walked, that after a while we shall lie down again.

Once more we turn in pain, bewildered, Among our finite walls: The walls we built ourselves with patient hands; For the god who sealed a question in our flesh.

Human beings are caught in a unique and unavoidable dilemma: on one hand, we have astounding powers of perception, memory, analysis, imagination - and we know it. We each feel our own uniqueness and grandeur; we should be gods. But we can't help noticing that our remarkable powers are attached to a dying animal. (summarizing Becker's writings)

To find the right pitch is to be human, to have a sense of the street, while still reaching for the lofty. It means resisting the kind of language that suits cogs in a machine better than sentient beings.

Let's never forget that we need to speak and write like human beings with hearts, and not like the tin woodsman in The Wizard of Oz or Hal in the movie 2001 .

A plange e o impudoare la fel de mare ca a te arata gol-pusca. Larimile sunt mai intime decat pielea.

Instead of inflicting these horrible punishments, it would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of livelihood, so that nobody is under the frightful necessity of becoming first a thief and then a corpse.' Thomas More (1474–1535), student at Lincoln's Inn from 1496–1500

It's very simple, I just tell my sad story, and people weep.

You and I are animals, darling, not even real people, but people do not understand the teaching of Joan, that whatever seems human is human.

If anything needs to get fixed in society, it's people's consumption of other people's problems.

War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.