Quotes About Humanism

In the United States, the negative legacy of humanism and the reliance on books, recitation, and role learning have been difficult to overcome.

Modern man may deify science and technology and set up a religion of 'Scientific Humanism' which offers the utopian prospect of unlimited progress. But all such constructions are inevitably fragile, since they are dependent on human will as well as intelligence, and we have seen in our own generation how the irrational element in human nature may prove stronger than scientific intelligence.

Humanism was not a loss of confidence either in art or in art's capacity to exceed historical scholarship. For Panofsky humanism meant dedication to a balanced ideal of human nature. As such, it was a formal concept. Humanism sees asymmetries and imbalances in human nature as deformations. Humanism is the form classicism takes after the discrediting of the Idea.

As the late Edward W Said wrote after the attack on the World Trade Center, 'Western humanism is not enough: we need a universal humanism.' I agree with that. The question is how to get it, and my own view is that it can't be had unless we raise our demands on ourselves a long way beyond decorating our lives with enough cultivation to make the pursuit of ambition look civilized.

I think that the scienti?c way of looking at the world, and the humanistic way of looking at the world are complementary. There are important differences which should be preserved, and in trying to do away with those differences we would lose something the same way as if we tried to make all religions one religion or all races one race. There is a cultural diversity that's very valuable, and it's valuable to have different ways of looking at the world.

When men can no longer be theists, they must, if they are civilized, become humanists.

Dutch values are based on Christianity, on Judaism, on humanism.

I have great hope and faith, but it's a humanistic faith based in facts; you have to believe that facts exist. We can all arrive at the same facts if we engage in the process of experimentation, observation, and verification, which can solve more of the world's major problems than a debate over whether God does or doesn't exist.

I'm a humanist. I'm an observer. I have a very scientific mind. I believe metaphysics and science absolutely blended are more the truth for me. It doesn't work just believing in what somebody says.

Pietro Pompanazzi (1462–c. 1525)

secular people don't believe in life after death, but rather, they believe in life before death.

humanist principles—especially those that emphasize human worth and dignity, the imperative to respect human rights, reverence for life, and the intrinsic ability of humans to be caring and just—provide the foundations of secular moral orientations.

Among the religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, ethical culture, secular humanism and others.

Eventually I understood that a man in possession of Bildung was more than merely cultivated: he was ideally purified by humanism, an aristocrat of sensibility and wisdom.

As both a scientist and a humanist myself, I have struggled to understand different claims to knowledge, and I have eventually come to a formulation of the kind of religious belief that would, in my view, be compatible with science.

One must say bluntly that it is an unattractive sight when, with a view to smearing the Soviet people, leaders of such a country as the United States resort to what almost amounts to obscenities alternating with hypocritical preaching about morals and humanism.

From my point of view, there is a tremendous amount to be said for secular humanism.

We must insist, contrary to the "free will" of humanism, that God did not merely "permit" evil, but he decreed it; otherwise, it could not have originated.

Three key humanist virtues are courage, cognition, and caring - not dependence, ignorance, or insensitivity to the needs of others.

Our increasingly humanistic laws, courts and legislators are giving us a new morality. They tell us, as they strike down laws resting upon biblical foundations, that morality cannot be legislated, but what they offer is not only legislated morality, but salvation by law.

Our basic problem today is that we have two religions in conflict, humanism and Christianity, each with its own morality and the laws of that morality.

Children are no longer seen by many people as a blessing from God but as extensions of personal goals and pride. As a result, the family under humanism is in a state of crisis.

Humanistic law aims at saving man and remaking society. For Humanism, salvation is an act of the state.

The true humanist maintains a just balance between sympathy and selection.