It is a strange habit of wise humanity to speak in enigmas only.
What pains and tears the slightest steps of man's progress have cost! Every hair-breadth forward has been in the agony of some soul, and humanity has reached blessing after blessing of all its vast achievement of good with bleeding feet.--_Bartol._
Society is the grandmother of humanity through her daughters the inventions.
It is the glistening and softly-spoken lie, ... the patriotic lie of the historian, the provident lie of the politician, the zealous lie of the partisan, the merciful lie of the friend, and the careless lie of each man to himself, that cast the black mystery over humanity, through which we thank any man who pierces, as we would thank one who had dug a well in the desert.
I believe that if an individual is not on the path to transcending his society and seeing in what way it furthers or impedes the development of human potential, he cannot enter into intimate contact with his humanity.
Those who think that it is only necessary to feed and clothe the prisoner, and to act towards him in all things according to the law, are much mistaken. However much debased he may be, a man exacts instinctively respect for his character as a man. Every prisoner knows perfectly that he is a convict and a reprobate, and knows the distance which separates him from his superiors; but neither the branding irons nor chains will make him forget that he is a man. He must, therefore, be treated with humanity. Humane treatment may raise up one in whom the divine image has long been obscured. It is with the "unfortunate," above all, that humane conduct is necessary. It is their salvation, their only joy.
For concupiscence is the source of all our movements, and humanity, etc.
I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first.
I decided it is better to scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.
He has no religion who has no humanity.
Religion is the highest humanity= (
Or from Browning some "Pomegranate," which if cut deep down the middle Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.
That man, as a "political animal," is susceptible of a vast amount of improvement, by education, by instruction, and by the application of his intelligence to the adaptation of tne conditions of life to his higher needs, I entertain not the slightest doubt. But, so long as he remains liable to error, intellectual or moral; so long as he is compelled to be perpetually on guard against the cosmic forces, whose ends are not his ends, without and within himself; so long as he is haunted by inexpugnable memories and hopeless aspirations; so long as the recognition of his intellectual limitations forces him to acknowledge his incapacity to penetrate the mystery of existence; the prospect of attaining untroubled happiness, or of a state which can, even remotely, deserve the title of perfection, appears to me to be as misleading an illusion as ever was dangled before the eyes of poor humanity. And there have been many of them.
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
Wit is a pernicious thing when it is not tempered with virtue and humanity.
Dependence is a perpetual call upon humanity, and a greater incitement to tenderness and pity than any other motive whatsoever.
Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better.
It has been my conviction ever since reading Rauschenbusch that any religion which professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the social and economic conditions that scar the soul, is a spiritually moribund religion only waiting for the day to be buried. [“Pilgrimage to Nonviolence,” excerpted from Stride Toward Freedom , 1958.] I had also learned that the inseparable twin of racial injustice was economic injustice. Although I came from a home of economic security and relative comfort, I could never get out of my mind the economic insecurity of many of my playmates and the tragic poverty of those living around me. During my late teens I worked two summers, against my father’s wishes–he never wanted my brother and me to work around white people because of the oppressive conditions–in a plant that hired both Negroes and whites. Here I saw economic injustice firsthand, and realized that the poor white was exploited just as much as the Negro. Through these early experiences I grew up deeply conscious of the varieties of injustice in our society. [ Ibid. ] Man is not made for the state; the state is made for man. To deprive man of freedom is to relegate him to the status of a thing, rather than elevate him to the status of a person. Man must never be treated as a means to the end of the state, but always as an end within himself. [ Ibid. ] T]ruth is found neither in Marxism nor in traditional capitalism. Each represents a partial truth. Historically capitalism failed to see the truth in collective enterprise, and Marxism failed to see the truth in individual enterprise. Nineteenth century capitalism failed to see that life is social and Marxism failed and still fails to see that life is individual and personal. The Kingdom of God is neither the thesis of individual enterprise nor the antithesis of collective enterprise, but a synthesis which reconciles the truths of both. [ Ibid. ] With all of its false assumptions and evil methods, communism grew as a protest against the hardships of the underprivileged. Communism in theory emphasized a classless society, and a concern for social justice, though the world knows from sad experience that in practice it created new classes and a new lexicon of injustice. [ Ibid. ] [C]apitalism is always in danger of inspiring men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life. We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity-thus capitalism can lead to a practical materialism that is as pernicious as the materialism taught by communism. [ Ibid. ] Personalism’s insistence that only personality-finite and infinite-is ultimately real strengthened me in two convictions: it gave me metaphysical and philosophical grounding for the idea of a personal God, and it gave me a metaphysical basis for the dignity and worth of all human personality. [ Ibid. ] A sixth basic fact about nonviolent resistance is that it is based on the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice. Consequently, the believer in nonviolence has deep faith in the future. This faith is another reason why the nonviolent resister can accept suffering without retaliation. For he knows that in his struggle for justice he has cosmic companionship. It is true that there are devout believers in nonviolence who find it difficult to believe in a personal God. But even these persons believe in the existence of some creative force that works for universal wholeness. Whether we call it an unconscious process, an impersonal Brahman, or a Personal Being of matchless power and infinite love, there is a creative force in this universe that works to bring the disconnected aspects of reality into a harmonious whole. [ Ibid. ] [A]gape means recognition of the fact that all life is interrelated. All humanity is involved in a single process, and all men are brothers. To the degree that I harm my brother, no matter what he is doing to me, to that extent I am harming myself. [ Ibid. ]
O suffering, sad humanity! O ye afflicted ones, who lie Steeped to the lips in misery, Longing, yet afraid to die, Patient, though sorely tried!
Though Christianity has given us a purer and truer idea of the Godhead, of the majesty of His power and the holiness of His will, there remains with many of us the conception of a merely objective Deity. God is still with many of us in the clouds, so far removed from the earth and so high above anything human, that in trying to realise fully the meaning of Christ's teaching we often shrink from approaching too near to the blinding effulgence of Jehovah. The idea that we should stand to Him in the relation of children to their father seems to some people almost irreverent, and the thought that God is near us everywhere, the belief that we are also His offspring, nay, that there has never been an absolute barrier between divinity and humanity, has often been branded as Pantheism. Yet Christianity would not be Christianity without this so-called Pantheism, and it is only some lingering belief in something like a Jove-like Deus Optimus Maximus that keeps the eyes of our mind fixed with awe on the God of Nature without, rather than on the much more awful God of the soul within.
O wearisome condition of humanity!
Some people are all quality; you would think they were made up of nothing but title and genealogy. The stamp of dignity defaces in them the very character of humanity, and transports them to such a degree of haughtiness that they reckon it below themselves to exercise either good-nature or good manners.
We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
Let us not forget that human knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life. Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the enquiring and constructive mind. What these blessed men have given us we must guard and try to keep alive with all our strength if humanity is not to lose its dignity, the security of its existence, and its joy in living.
A machine is not a man or a work of art; it is destructive of humanity and art.
All the knowledge that we mortals can acquire is not knowledge positive, but knowledge comparative, and subject to the errors and passions of humanity.--_Bulwer-Lytton._
Great men, though far above us, are felt to be our brothers; and their elevation shows us what vast possibilities are wrapped up in our common humanity. They beckon us up the gleaming heights to whose summits they have climbed. Their deeds are the woof of this world's history.
La femme est l'element le plus moral de l'humanite=--Woman is the element in humanity that has the most moral power. (?).
Modern science gives lectures on botany, to show there is no such thing as a flower; on humanity, to show there is no such thing as a man; and on theology, to show there is no such thing as a God. No such thing as a man, but only a mechanism. No such thing as a God, but only a series of forces.
Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious, One should preserve it.
If in the course of our life we see that done by others for which we ourselves at one time felt a vocation, and which we were, with much else, compelled to relinquish, then the noble feeling comes in, that only humanity altogether is the true man, and that the individual can only rejoice and be happy when he has the heart= (_Muth_) =to feel himself in the whole.
There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.
We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims. . . . [Our challenge is to] make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone. [ Utopia or Oblivion .]
To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity.
Human nature= (_Menschheit_) =we owe to father and mother, but our humanity= (_Menschlichkeit
Contre les rebelles, c'est cruaute que d'estre humain et humanite d'estre cruel=--Against rebels it is cruelty to be humane, and humanity to be cruel.
We must never forget that it was not the principal object of Christ's teaching to make others believe that He only was divine, immortal, or the son of God. He wished them to believe this for _their own_ sake, for _their own_ regeneration. 'As many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God.' It might be thought, at first, that this recognition of a Divine element in man must necessarily lower the conception of the Divine. And so it does in one sense. It brings God nearer to us, it bridges over the abyss by which the Divine and the human were completely separated in the Jewish, and likewise in many of the pagan religions. It rends the veil of the temple. This lowering, therefore, is no real lowering of the Divine. It is an expanding of the concept of the Divine, and at the same time a raising of the concept of humanity, or rather a restoration of what is called human to its true character,--a regeneration, or a second birth, as it is called by Christ Himself. 'Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'
Do your bit to save humanity from lapsing back into barbarity by reading all the novels you can.
Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.
All of humanity is in peril of extinction if each one of us does not dare, now and henceforth, always to tell only the truth, and all the truth, and to do so promptly right now.
There is but one law for all; namely, that law which governs all law — the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity; the law of nature and of nations. [January 9, 1795. Needs citation.]
But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
There is no religion in the whole world which in simplicity, in purity of purpose, in charity, and true humanity, comes near to that religion which Christ taught to His disciples. And yet that very religion, we are told, is being attacked on all sides. The principal reason for this omnipresent unbelief is, I believe, the neglect of our foundations, the disregard of our own bookless religion, the almost disdain of Natural Religion. Even bishops will curl their lips when you speak to them of that natural and universal _religion_ which existed before the advent of our historical religions, nay, without which all historical religions would have been as impossible as poetry is without language. Natural religion may exist and does exist without revealed religion--revealed religion without natural religion is an utter impossibility.
The only true principle for humanity is justice.
The wellspring of courage and endurance in the face of unbridled power is generally a firm belief in the sanctity of ethical principles combined with a historical sense that despite all setbacks the condition of man is set on an ultimate course for both spiritual and material advancement. At the root of human responsibility is the concept of perfection, the urge to achieve it, the intelligence to find a path towards it, and the will to follow that path if not to the end at least the distance needed to rise above individual limitations and environmental impediments. It is man's vision of a world fit for rational, civilized humanity which leads him to dare and to suffer to build societies free from want and fear. Concepts such as truth, justice and compassion cannot be dismissed as trite when these are often the only bulwarks which stand against ruthless power.
Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good.
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
Government began in tyranny and force, in the feudalism of the soldier and the bigotry of the priest; and the ideas of justice and humanity have been fighting their way like a thunderstorm against the organised selfishness of human nature.
We must strive to make of humanity one single family.
All the good of which humanity is capable is comprised in obedience.
Oh, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, or man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably!--_Shakespeare._
I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul.
The most basic change necessary to our collective survival is underway: the last redefinition of humanity - gradually extending from family to tribe to nation to the human race.
Man can invent nothing nobler than humanity.
It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.
"We are all atheists about most of the gods humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
Two thousand five hundred years ago the value of civilization was as apparent as it is now; then, as now, it was obvious that only in the garden of an orderly polity can the finest fruits humanity is capable of bearing be produced. But it had also become evident that the blessings of culture were not unmixed. The garden was apt to turn into a hothouse. The stimulation of the senses, the pampering of the emotions, endlessly multiplied the sources of pleasure. The constant widening of the intellectual field indefinitely extended the range of that especially human faculty of looking before and after, which adds to the fleeting present those old and new worlds of the past and the future, wherein men dwell the more the higher their culture. But that very sharpening of the sense and that subtle refinement of emotion, which brought such a wealth of pleasures, were fatally attended by a proportional enlargement of the capacity for suffering; and the divine faculty of imagination, while it created new heavens and new earths, provided them with the corresponding hells of futile regret for the past and morbid anxiety for the future.
Christianity is Christianity by this one fundamental truth, that as God is the father of man, so truly, and not poetically, or metaphorically only, man is the son of God, participating in God's very essence and nature, though separated from God by self and sin. This oneness of nature between the Divine and the human does not lower the concept of God by bringing it nearer to the level of humanity; on the contrary, it raises the old concept of man and brings it nearer to its true ideal. The true relation between God and man had been dimly foreseen by many prophets and poets, but Christ was the first to proclaim that relation in clear and simple language. He called Himself the Son of God, and He was the firstborn son of God in the fullest sense of that word. But He never made Himself equal with the Father in whom He lived and moved and had His being. He was man in the new and true sense of the word, and in the new and true sense of the word He was God. To my mind man is nothing if He does not participate in the Divine.
The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in Life is not triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well. To spread these principles is to build up a strong and more valiant and, above all, more scrupulous and more generous humanity.
There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
And now that generations after generations have passed away, with their languages--adoring and worshipping the Name of God--preaching and dying in the Name of God--thinking and meditating on the Name of God--there the old word stands still, breathing to us the pure air of the dawn of humanity, carrying with it all the thoughts and sighs, the doubts and tears, of our bygone brethren, and still rising up to heaven with the same sound from the basilicas of Rome and the temples of Benares, as if embracing by its simple spell millions and millions of hearts in their longing desire to give utterance to the unutterable, to express the inexpressible.
Whoso lives for humanity must be content to lose himself.
Those who deprived Jesus of His real humanity in order to exalt Him above all humanity were really undoing His work. Christ came to teach us, not what He was, but what we are. He had seen that man, unless he learnt himself to be the child of God, was lost. All his aspirations were vain unless they all sprang from one deep aspiration, love of God. And how can we love what is totally different from ourselves? If there is in us a likeness, however small, of God, then we can love our God, feel ourselves drawn towards Him, have our true being in Him. That is the essence of Christianity, that is what distinguishes the Christian from all other religions. And yet that very kernel and seed of Christianity is constantly disregarded, is even looked upon with distrust. Was not Christ, who died for us, more than we ourselves? it is said. Or again, Are we to make ourselves gods? Christ never says that He is different from ourselves; He never taught as a God might teach. His constant teaching is, that we are His brethren, and that we ought to follow His example, to become like Him, because we were meant to be like Him. In that He has come near to God, as near as a son can be to His father; He is what He was meant to be. We are not, and hence the deep difference between Him and us.
I do not admire the excess of a virtue as of valour, unless I see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who had exceeding valour and exceeding humanity, for otherwise we do not rise, but fall. Grandeur is not shown by being at one extremity, but in touching both at once, and filling the whole space between. But perhaps this is only a sudden motion of the soul from one to the other extreme, and in fact it is always at one point only, as when a firebrand is whirled. Be it so, but at least this marks the agility if not the magnitude of the soul.
Sleep is for the inhabitants of planets only; in another time men will sleep and wake continually at once. The great part of our body, of our humanity, yet sleeps a deep sleep.= (?)
What you see is but the smallest part / And least proportion of humanity; / ... Were the whole frame here, / It is of such a spacious lofty pitch, / Your roof were not sufficient to contain it.= 1
I have investigated the dust-heaps of humanity, and found a treasure in all of them. I have found that humanity is not incidentally engaged, but eternally and systematically engaged, in throwing gold into the gutter and diamonds into the sea.
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium. What a very few are acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return of barbarism.
Such is the position of ethnology, such are the objects of the ethnologist. The paths or methods, by following which he may hope to reach his goal, are diverse. He may work at man from the point of view of the pure zoologist, and investigate the anatomical and physiological peculiarities of Negroes, Australians, or Mongolians, just as he would inquire into those of pointers, terriers, and turnspits,--"persistent modifications" of man's almost universal companion. Or he may seek aid from researches into the most human manifestation of humanity-Language; and assuming that what is true of speech is true of the speaker--a hypothesis as questionable in science as it is in ordinary life--he may apply to mankind themselves the conclusions drawn from a searching analysis of their words and grammatical forms.