Quotes About Human

But the desire to turn oneself into a multiple or machine is also a desire to be liberated from human feeling, human need, which is to say the need to be cherished or loved. 'Machines have less problems. I'd like to be a machine, wouldn't you?

That wasn't love." "What was it, then?" "Just purely physical. Animal. Vulgar." "Love has a body, Laura. Eyes and lips, legs and sex. We humans can't help that.

Scripture exists; human beings interpret it.

The gurus I have met personally, as well as those whose careers and teachings I have studied at a distance, range from crooks who could be quickly dismissed to teachers who were brilliant but flawed, to those who, while still human, seemed to possess so much compassion and clarity of mind that they were nearly flawless examples of the benefits of spiritual practice.

Surely there must come a time when we will acknowledge the obvious: theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings.

Although science may ultimately show us how to truly maximize human well-being, it may still fail to

If we could popularize the understanding that all conclusions from scripture are but interpretations, then all variant readings of a holy book would become a matter of differing human perspectives. That

If we could popularize the understanding that all conclusions from scripture are but interpretations, then all variant readings of a holy book would become a matter of differing human perspectives.

It is time we recognized that all reasonable men and women have a common enemy. It is an enemy so near to us, and so deceptive, that we keep its counsel even as it threatens to destroy the very possibility of human happiness. Our enemy is nothing other than faith itself.

Yes, a peculiar trait of holding certain symbols as sacred and intimately tied to one's own identity is that they can often become more important than human life. No

ONE OF THE most pernicious effects of religion is that it tends to divorce morality from the reality of human and animal suffering.

Consider the case of alchemy: it fascinated human beings for over a thousand years, and yet anyone who seriously claims to be a practicing alchemist today will have disqualified himself for most positions of responsibility in our society. Faith-based religion must suffer the same slide into obsolescence.

But let us assume, for the moment, that every three-day-old human embryo has a soul worthy of our moral concern. Embryos at this stage occasionally split, becoming separate people (identical twins). Is this a case of one soul splitting into two? Two embryos sometimes fuse into a single individual, called a chimera. You or someone you know may have developed in this way. No doubt theologians are struggling even now to determine what becomes of the extra human soul in such a case.

the fact that unjustified beliefs can have a consoling influence on the human mind is no argument in their favor.

Your principal concern appears to be that the Creator of the universe will take offense at something people do while naked. This prudery of yours contributes daily to the surplus of human misery.

Among the many paradoxes of human life, this is perhaps the most peculiar and consequential: We often behave in ways that are guaranteed to make us unhappy.

Despite how impressive many of my teachers were, they were undoubtedly human and susceptible to the same cultural biases and physical infirmities that define the lives of ordinary people.

The urge for retribution, therefore, seems to depend upon our not seeing the underlying causes of human behavior. Despite

spirituality is not just important for living a good life; it is actually essential for understanding the human mind.

birds back home have some size and respect for human temper. How did fear and respect become synonymous?

Sexual pleasure is a legitimate right of the human being.

No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.