Quotes About Humankind

Only when I saw the Earth from space, in all its ineffable beauty and fragility, did I realize that humankind's most urgent task is to cherish and preserve it for future generations.

With the advent of this something-not-known (which he scarcely dares consider lest it vanish), the metastasizing animosities among the witness bearers are dissolving, as if the Dancing were sealing their acceptance of all woebegone humankind in all its greed and cruelties as the only creature capable of evil and the only one - surely those two are connected - aware that it must die.

So here you are near the end of the world, savages, beings who, given the time, would build up a great civilization again. You don't have the time, and the long, long story, the many-eons tale of humankind, will end. For what reason? I don't know. The universe, looked at logically, is, despite all its intricate order and irresistible physical principles, senseless.

the divine has taken a few steps back from humankind, perhaps in revulsion, perhaps because we don't deserve to look directly upon holy beings anymore.... When the divine enters the world these days from outside of time, it manifests discreetly through children and animals.

When you observe that today's controversies often reveal not relevance but the clash of the untaught with the wrongly taught, and when you can endure this knowledge without cynicism, as a lover of humankind, greater compensations will be open to you than a sense of your own importance or satisfaction in thinking about the unreliability of others.

The biggest mistake we humans make is thinking we rule it all, when in fact, we rule nothing.

2,222 - Chickens you will eat in your lifetime, along with one sheep, six ducks, nine cows, and 63 turkeys – although you're unlikely to hunt, pounce on, and kill any of these creatures yourself!

I should far rather be drunk than eaten, Miss Lancaster," Ferus said in a serious tone. "As should we all. Very well, that's settled.

The woods, the streams, the snow, the thaw, the spring, New England's spring, that surprise that is among the greatest reinvigorators of humankind on record.

It is a terrible arrogance to think that there are any of humankind who are better or worse, or worthy or not. It comes of a pitiful need to believe in one's own worth when one is hollow within. We are all worthy. And none of us are, all at once. Once that is acknowledged, that hollow, howling space may be filled with understanding. But so many cling to their emptiness, and I fear that they may yet prevail.

Humanity is a parade of fools and I'm at the front, twirling a baton

Technology is a new evolutionary means of convergence; it is accelerating evolution by causing humankind to concentrate upon itself through complex levels of information.

I firmly believe that the mission of religion in the 21st century must be to contribute concretely to the peaceful coexistence of humankind.

In other words, since all good comes from God, and the Book of Mormon tries to persuade humankind to do and be good—be righteous and believe in Christ—it is therefore true and inspired even if, in the final analysis, it is not historical.

Some distant day, anthropologists will consider as a landmark in humankind's evolution - comparable to the capacity for destroying ourselves by nuclear obliteration - the adolescent gene's newly emergent power to dictate nightly TV viewing.

The one thing I learned in my youth as a grave robber was that everyone looks the same when they're dead. We're all equal then. So when I meet a chap, sitting on his high horse, I imagine him dead. He's not quite so intimidating then.

Had malice not become a trusted friend to humankind, I should have applauded all technical endeavours.

God may promise not to destroy creation, but it is not a promise humankind made - to our peril.

I also remember being struck by de Sade's will, in which he asked that his ashes be scattered to the four corners of the earth in the hope that humankind would forget both his writings and his name. I'd like to be able to make that demand; commemorative ceremonies are not only false but dangerous, as are all statues of famous men. Long live forgetfulness, I've always said—the only dignity I see is in oblivion.

Mesopotamian literature is concerned about the jurisdiction of the various gods in the cosmos with humankind at the bottom of the heap, the Genesis account is interested in the jurisdiction of humankind over the rest of creation as a result of the image of God in which people were created.

Were it not for habit, life would seem delightful to beings constantly under threat of dying, in other words to all humankind.

I think humankind is going to have to evolve into systems that are more transparent. Then people will be able to make more integral choices about the food they eat.

A person who embraces the desire to find wholeness within his own being, soon learns the importance of tending to relationships, caring for the planet, having compassion for humankind and accepting and tolerating differences among a diverse population of people.

Lest anyone think that any action, however required or useful, could be a source of pride, Sibbes preached that "it is a sottish conceit to think that we can fit ourselves for grace, as if a child in the womb could forward its natural birth. If God hath made us men, let us not make ourselves gods."107