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Quotes About Humanity

Most people were good, intelligent, responsible human beings struggling to live decent, useful lives. Why was it so many of them found that almost impossible? Was it because there were just no rules anymore, people making them us as the went along? From her own bitter experience, she saw that most good people were simply lost, bobbing around like castaways in a moral wasteland flooded with debris and ugliness, waiting to be rescued and placed on solid ground.
~ Naomi Ragen
Or you could say that human society is denying a basic truth that human beings have verified from the dawn of time, and that in removing themselves from the idea of a Supreme Being, man is moving away from all that is spiritual and moral in the world, all that is spiritual and moral in himself.
~ Naomi Ragen
There are several ways of looking at this. You could say that mankind is getting smarter, removing itself from superstition and irrationality. Or you could say that human society is denying a basic truth that human beings have verified from the dawn of time, and that in removing themselves from the idea of a Supreme Being, man is moving away from all that is spiritual and moral in the world, all that is spiritual and moral in himself.
~ Naomi Ragen
When there was nothing left to gain, nothing more to lose, when one was face-to-face with the moment of greatest despair, to speak to God in love and thanks, rather than to curse Him and one's fate, was the ultimate choice of any human creature, and perhaps the ultimate expression of one's humanity.
~ Naomi Ragen
I used to think religious people were kinder, nicer, had better characters, but I found out they're just like everybody else, just people. Some are better, some are worse. There are sincere ones . . . but also the opposite . . .
~ Naomi Ragen
So many mistakes. So many bad choices. So many tragedies and hurts brought to innocent people with the best of intentions or with no intentions at all. It was so hard to be human. It was so hard to be alive.
~ Naomi Ragen
I am looking for the human who admits his flaws Who shocks the adversary By being kinder not stronger What would that be like? We don't even know
~ Naomi Shihab Nye
If someday, in a morning, you see you, in a mirror or the dent of a spoon, and wonder Where is my soul and Where has it gone, remember this: Catch the gaze of a woman on the metro, subway, tram. Look at a man. Seek and you will find you in the silvered space, a flash between souls.
~ Naomi Shihab Nye
Good and evil." I chuckle under my breath. "Such binary thinking. So simplistic. So boring. Everything is shades of gray, Emery. There is no such thing as good people or evil people. There are simply people. And some of us are willing to do whatever it takes to get what we want. I don't think you're one of them. Do you understand what I'm telling you?
~ Unknown
Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.
~ Napoleon Bonaparte
We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.
~ Napoleon Bonaparte
I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism, by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me, because I will believe in them, and in myself.
~ Napoleon Hill
To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, would be to be a god.
~ Unknown
Nonviolence presupposes a level of humanness--however low it may be, in every human being.
~ Unknown
When you have put all your faith in man and continue to be disappointed, don't you hope there is something out of there that is not of human element?
~ Natalie Cole
Failure is a hard word for people to take. Use the word kindness then instead. Let yourself be kind. And this kindness comes from an understanding of what it is to be a human being. Have compassion for yourself when you write. There is no failure—just a big field to wander in.
~ Natalie Goldberg
I wanted to like people. It worried me that I didn't.
~ Unknown
There is a separation between parents and children that shouldn't be breached when the children are young. The parents' adult follies are private. They're disturbing and hard to understand. But eventually the kids wise up, the follies start leaking out, and the parents are revealed in all their flawed humanity. Dad and I were about to cross that boundary for good.
~ Unknown
That day, so many wept. Young and old, friends and strangers, black and white, men and women wept. The angels wept. Jesus wept. Coach Gabe Lewis, though, with his eyes on the lilies, shed not a single tear.
~ Unknown
Jesus Himself, the Lover and Uniter of humanity, often stood up and spoke out for what was right or needed to be reinterpreted, even though it caused problems in the "church" He was loyal to. So much so, they killed Him for it.
~ Unknown
At the close of life the question will be not how much have you got, but how much have you given nor how much have you won, but how much have you done not how much have you saved, but how much have you sacrificed how much have you loved and served, not how much were you honored.
~ Unknown
It is hard to know what a person would and wouldn't do in any specific instance. And you, spoiled child, apply the rules of civilization to a boy who had only seen its opposite. Maybe the fault for those deaths lies in a system designed for the killing of Tendlers that failed to do its job. An error, a slip that allowed a Tendler, no longer fit, back loose in the world.
~ Nathan Englander
The way to be gay is to make other people gay," Miss Lonelyhearts said. "Sleep with me and I'll be one gay dog.
~ Nathanael West
Mankind are earthen jugs with spirits in them.
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne