Quotes About Humanity

His heart filled his chest and ran to the end of his tail and the very tips of his considerable ears. It filled his head, squeezing out his brain. But Henri, the foundling, was a humanist, and while not particularly clever was the smartest creature Gamache knew. Everything he knew he knew by heart.

Look at Nuremberg. Why did the Holocaust happen?" "Because deluded, power-crazy leaders needed a common enemy," said Clara. "No," said Myrna. "It happened because no one stopped them. Not enough people stood up soon enough.

You need to remember that, Jean-Guy. The blindness you mention isn't believing in the essential goodness of people, it's failing to see it.

Anyone could be clever. Anyone could be smart. Anyone could be taught. But not everyone was kind." Chapter 1 · Page 10 · Location 202

he'd come to agree with Sister Prejean that no one was as bad as the worst thing they'd done.

Armand Gamache had seen the worst. But he'd also seen the best. Often in the same person.

Kindness beats cruelty.

He inhaled deeply and exhaled the word "people." Not so much an indictment as in wonderment. That there could be so much deliberate cruelty and so much kindness in one species.

The banality of evil. It wasn't the frothing madman. It was the conscientious us.

He listened to people, took notes, gathered evidence, like all his colleagues. But he did one more thing. He gathered feelings. He collected emotions. Because murder was deeply human.

If kind acts could protect us from tragedy, thought Lacoste, the world would be a kinder place.

But he'd come to agree with Sister Prejean that no one was as bad as the worst thing they'd done. Armand Gamache had seen the worst. But he'd also seen the best. Often in the same person.

Jews, gypsies, gays. It became normal and acceptable. No one told them what was happening was wrong. In fact, just the opposite.

ahead. But at his core he believed the world a lovely place. And his

That any decent person would've refused to participate in the Holocaust.

But they, better than most, knew that no place was really safe from physical harm. Anything could happen to anyone, at any moment. What made a place safe were the people. The caring. The kindness. The helping. Sometimes the mourning. And often the forgiveness.

For Armand Gamache knew what not-nice was. He knew what cruelty, despair, horror were. And he knew what a forgotten, and precious quality 'nice'was.

But he'd come to agree with Sister Prejean that no one was as bad as the worst thing they'd done.

was always human and never pleasant and often misleading. Aid workers, when handing out food to starving people, quickly learn that the people fighting for it at the front are the people who need it least. It's the people sitting quietly at the back, too weak to fight, who need it the most. And so too with tragedy. The people who don't insist on their sorrow can often be the ones who feel it most strongly.

We love life, thought Reine-Marie as she watched Ruth and Rosa sitting side by side, not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving. Nietzsche. How Armand would kid her if he knew she was quoting Nietzsche, even to herself.

A populace he saw not as either victim or threat, but as brothers and sisters. Equals, to be respected and protected. And sometimes arrested.

Clara saw what others couldn't. Like that little boy in The Sixth Sense, but instead of seeing ghosts, Clara saw good. Which was itself pretty scary. So much more comforting to see bad in others; gives us all sorts of excuses for our own bad behavior. But good? No, only really remarkable people see the good in others.

who would want to kill kindness.

An Asshole Saint," said Stephen. "Not the first. I think most were, weren't they? In fact, she wouldn't even be the first around here.