Quotes About Humanity

Music is a lens through which to see who we are. Every phrase of every piece of music is trying to tell a story.

A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.

I always like it when writers posit writing as an act of empathy. It's such a grand turn of phrase, such a noble ideal; empathy is so worth aiming for in life that the same must hold true in art. But personally, I can't think too deeply about that when I'm working, or I'd never get anything down on the page.

I don't believe in data-driven anything, it's the most stupid phrase. Data should always serve people, people should never serve data.

If we were all perfected beings, we wouldn't be here in the physical world.

I discovered my physicality, I discovered running, and endorphins, and the sort of amazing way that people are meant to move. And that's what's great about 'Hanna,' because she moves. She's human and she embodies all of that.

You and I have been physically given two hands and two legs and half-decent brains. Some people have not been born like that for a reason. The karma is working from another lifetime.

You can never just write off a person as crazy. I think that is the most inhumane thing you can do to someone without physically abusing them.

I have this amateur side attraction to, and interest in, the sciences and biology and physics and evolution. Paleontology is of interest to me. I'm interested in the way these fields have helped us understand how we are human and why we are human.

I want to act in a film like 'The Pianist.'

We approach people the same way we approach our cars. We take the poor kid to a doctor and ask, What's wrong with him, how much will it cost, and when can I pick him up?

My message to everyone: the next time you hear about migrant children near the border, just picture them as your own. Then think what you would want our government to do.

My first show at MoMA in New York was pictures of new developments along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. They were housing developments that were brutal in many ways, that cared almost not a thing for the human beings inside. They were just designed to make money.

You can find pictures anywhere. It's simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them. You just have to care about what's around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy.

I think that the actors that I work with feel safer with me. Because they know I understand what they go through and I don't see them as chess pieces.

My characters aren't chess pieces. I don't move them around some big board. I actually care about these fictitious people.

If the only thing that was interesting about Jefferson Pierce is that he is African-American, I don't think we'd have much of a show.

We have to be sure we don't pigeonhole one group as though they're not part of the human family, as though there's a different set of rules for them. That would be a big mistake.

People who live inside garbage piles - that should not be happening.

To give to those in need is a central pillar of Islam.

The sturdiest pillars of human morality are compassion and a sense of justice.

I think the core of Jaime Lannister is actually that final line in the pilot when he says, 'The things I do for love.' He might do horrible things - and they are truly, some of them, horrific. There's no excuses. But he does it out of what he sees as a necessity, out of love.

The Gift' doesn't deal with the neat, tie-me-up-with-a-bow kind of stories - they are grittier, messier, and not all of them have a happy resolution. You are following people and events that are more difficult, more elusive, and therefore harder to pin down.

I don't think we should have to do a Mars mission on the basis of hysteria. I think we should do a Mars mission on the basis of a deliberate judgment that what we want to do is open up a new planet for humanity... that we are continuing to be a nation of pioneers.