Quotes About Humanity

We need to defend the interests of those whom we've never met and never will.

She believed not in divine salvation but in the proposition that we poor mortals are fully capable of saving ourselves, if conditions and inclinations are right, and the evidence of this potential is found in the smallest of gestures, like the uncertain resting of a large hand on a bony shoulder.

As we enter the third millennium, our human community is rent by war, increasing distrust, and the loss of a sense of our common nature and past. We seem to be more tempted than ever to define ourselves in opposition to the Other and more threatened than ever by a paradigm, or worldview, that separates rather than unites us.

Neither George Washington, nor Thomas Jefferson, nor Benjamin Franklin believed that Jesus was anything more than a divinely inspired and chosen human being—which is exactly what James and the earliest Christians believed.

There's no one place a virus goes to die - but that doesn't make its demise any less a public health victory. Throughout human history, viral diseases have had their way with us, and for just as long, we have hunted them down and done our best to wipe them out.

Cartesian dualism served science well, at first: by ceding matters of the spirit to men of the cloth, it got the Church off the back of science, which for centuries afterward was perceived as less of a threat to religion's domain than it would otherwise have been (pace, Galileo). But Cartesian dualism was a disaster for moral philosophy, setting in motion a process that ultimately reduced human beings to automatons.

Imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. This must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it.

Deep down, if we really accept that their lives - African lives - are equal to ours, we would all be doing more to put the fire out. Its an uncomfortable truth.

Renan has the last word: "Man is a slave neither of his race nor his language, nor of his religion, nor of the course of rivers nor of the direction taken by mountain chains. A large aggregate of men, healthy in mind and warm of heart, creates the kind of moral conscience which we call a nation.

I think what we are witnessing in this country is the slow but inevitable fall of an empire that got too comfortable. In other words, when people are so interested in feathering their own nests and scamming on everybody else or being as macho as the person on the TV or movie screen and not caring about other human beings, of course things are going to start to crumble and collapse around them--just like it did with Rome or Britain or Egypt or the Aztecs.

I seek only friends who bleed and sweat and laugh and cry. Don't fear your humanity; it is your best offering.

It is no wonder humanity has long preferred legalism, which involves much cleaner territory. Give me a rule any day. Give me a clear "in" and "out" because boundaries make me feel safe. If I can clearly mark the borders, then I am assured of my insider status—the position I feel compelled to defend, the one thing I can be sure of. I want to stand before God having gotten it right.

Henri Nouwen wrote: "Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.

If we all raised others up instead of raising ourselves a little higher, there would be few needs left on earth.

Trust me, no one wants a perfect friend who can't offer a minute of transparency. We can get that on Pinterest. Our souls ache for real people in real homes with real kids and real lives. We may carefully curate online identities with well-chosen pictures and selective information, but doing so leaves us starving for something true. I seek only friends who bleed and sweat and laugh and cry. Don't fear your humanity; it is your best offering.

With the resurrection of Jesus and the salvation of humanity, we are no longer identified by nation, race, gender, or any group dynamic. We don't get to stand behind the shield of church or denomination or political party. There is no "us" and "them" anymore. "Us" is the worldwide assembly of the rescued who have been transformed from hopeless humans to adopted sons and daughters of God through faith in Jesus. The end.

The cross leveled the playing field, and no earthly distinction is valid anymore.

God is here and we are not alone. We can't deliver folks from their pits, but we can sure get in there with them until God does. Live long enough and it becomes clear that stuff is not the stuff of life. People are. We need each other, so we probably ought to practice radical grace, because our well-flaunted opinions are cold companions when real life hits.

academia has its place but can atrophy a real life. I need to see and smell and travel and put my arms around human beings. I cannot write a good story if I am not living one. Doctors put in the work to be good doctors. Teachers

If something came near your mouth, you stuck it in, if it came near your hand, you grabbed it. You were simply a human . . . being.

AS A HUMAN BEING," Einstein once wrote, "one has been endowed with just enough intelligence to be able to see clearly how utterly inadequate that intelligence is when confronted with what exists.

I'm not one aspect of the human experience - none of us is.

Compassion takes imagination.

la bondad es sorprendentemente difícil