Best 668 quotes in «humanism quotes» category

Mind you, my identity is of no greater value than the dust under your feet. If there is anything valuable that I can offer, it is my ideas.

Monkhood means service, for in service lies divinity - at the same time, humanhood means service, for in service lies the meaning of life - so to put it simply, humanhood is monkhood. Material possessions have no bearing here. A doctor who places the benefit of the patient before his or her own, is a monk. A pilot who places the safety of the passengers before his or her own, is a monk. A teacher who places the interest of the students before his or her own and teaches them compassion instead of competition, is a monk. An entrepreneur who places the interest of the employees and customers before his or her own, is a monk. Any person who places the benefit of others, before the self, is a monk.

Morality is like defecation. When you have the urge to defecate, do you ask an intellectual, what it is like to feel like defecating and how to perform the act of defecation, before you actually go to defecate! You simply feel it and go defecating. The same is with morality. You don't ask a scientist, a philosopher or a priest what morality really is, and how to perform it. You simply feel it and act on it.

More than machines, we need mindfulness - more than likes, we need kindness - more than connections, we need commitment - more than advancement, we need enlightenment.

Most humans think - "we are living our life, the world is not our business." And that's precisely where not only everything gets messed up, but more importantly, that's where humanity loses the right to be called human, for being human requires possessing a sense of responsibility towards the society we live in, without which we might as well be living in the jungle with our fellow animals.

My faith has been tempered in Hell. My faith has emerged from the flames of the crematoria, from the concrete of the gas chamber. I have seen that it is not man who is impotent in the struggle against evil, but the power of evil that is impotent in the struggle against man. The powerlessness of kindness, of senseless kindness, is the secret of its immortality. It can never be conquered. The more stupid, the more senseless, the more helpless it may seem, the vaster it is. Evil is impotent before it. The prophets, religious teachers, reformers, social and political leaders are impotent before it. This dumb, blind love is man's meaning. Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer.

My first world is humanity. My second world is humanism. And, I live in the third world being merely a human.

My ideas would burn barbarian stars, raise up empires of liberty and truth, and topple sectarian gods.

My ideas would burn barbarian stars, topple sectarian gods and raise up empires of liberty and truth.

My purpose is to serve a purpose to humanity; therefore I’ve made it my goal to educate myself to the best of my abilities so that I can convey to my children the importance of knowledge and personal responsibility

My soul is trembling, my mind is shattering, but I have no time to rest, I have no time to sleep, each second is precious. Holidays don't exist for me, festivals don't exist for me, parties and gatherings don’t exist for me, all that exists is the responsibility to unify the humankind.

My species should know the following about itself: -The universe created the ultimate abstract life-form by creating man, but scarcity “programmed” him to this current, ridiculously diminished version of himself. -Everyone and every community (clan) is everybody’s and every community’s future ally and brother in arms in what will be humanity’s decisive stand against scarcity, whether they realize it, desire it, or deny it.

No imaginary monkey is going to come down on earth to say hello or give a hand in your times of need. So, you must be the hand that gives a hand to yourself when needed.

Neither are the humanistic scholars and artists of any great help these days. They used to be, and were supposed to be, as a group, carriers of and teachers of the eternal verities and the higher life. The goal of humanistic studies was defined as the perception and knowledge of the good, the beautiful, and the true. Such studies were expected to refine the discrimination between what is excellent and what is not (excellence generally being understood to be the true, the good, and the beautiful). They were supposed to inspire the student to the better life, to the higher life, to goodness and virtue. What was truly valuable, Matthew Arnold said, was 'the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world.' [...] No, it is quite clear from our experience of the last fifty years or so that the pre-1914 certainties of the humanists, of the artists, of the dramatists and poets, of the philosophers, of the critics, and of those who are generally inner-directed have given way to a chaos of relativism. No one of these people now knows how and what to choose, nor does he know how to defend and validate his choice.

No God, Religion, Race or Nation is higher than the humans.

Nobody has it all figured out, not even me - anybody who thinks otherwise, is an idiot.

No god is coming to save you - no messiah is coming to save you - all the gods and all the messiahs that can save our world are already here - they are us - each one of us - so, open your eyes o mighty lords of time, and cleanse this world of all barbarian impurities, with the force of your bold, brave and humane actions.

No man was born in chains; it is their fellow man who has put them in chains, and at any given time, every single man and woman has the absolute right to break free from those chains of any nature and of any form! It is not God who has put you in any sort of bondage! It is your fellow man who puts you in bondage in the name of God!

No matter how much I write, it never feels enough - I feel restless every moment - I can't sleep - I feel a war going on inside me - I feel like words are struggling all the time inside my head to come out in the most effective manner possible, and I must stay awake, so that when they come out, I can put them on the page. My soul is trembling, my mind is shattering, but I have no time to rest, I have no time to sleep, each second is precious. Holidays don't exist for me, festivals don't exist for me, parties and gatherings don’t exist for me, all that exists is the responsibility to unify the humankind

Non-violent resistance to evil is a quintessential element of the character of a real human being. If someone does wrong to me, I may be physically capable of breaking his jaw with one blow of my fist, but such violent reciprocation does not define the strength of my character as a real human being. If I succeed in resisting my limbic urge to do harm in return, then only can I be hailed as human being of real character.

No one is inferior to no one.

Of what did Job repent? His wonder was too small.

Now having travelled from the pride of man in the High Renaissance and the Enlightenment down to the present despair, we can understand where modern people are. They have no place for a personal God. But equally they have no place for man as man, or for love, or for freedom, or for significance. This brings a crucial problem. Beginning only from man himself, people affirm that man is only a machine. But those who hold this position cannot live like machines! If they could, there would be no tensions in their intellectual position or in their lives. But even people who believe they are machines cannot live like machines, and thus they must “leap upstairs” against their reason and try to find something which gives meaning to life, even though to do so they have to deny their reason. This was a solution Leonardo da Vinci and the men of the Renaissance never would have accepted, even if, like Leonardo they ended their thinking in despondency. They would not have done so, for they would have considered it intellectual suicide to separate meaning and values from reason this way. And they would have been right. Such a solution is intellectual suicide, and one may question the intellectual integrity of those who accept such a position when their starting point was pride in the sufficiency of human reason.

[Obituary of atheist philosopher Richard Robinson] An Atheist's Values is one of the best short accounts of liberalism (a term Robinson accepted) and humanism (a term he ignored) produced during the present century, all the more powerful for its lucidity and moderation, its wit and wisdom. It may now seem old-fashioned, but during those confused alarms of struggle and fight between the ignorant armies of left and right, thousands of readers must have taken inspiration from Richard Robinson's rational defence of rationalism. It is a pity that it is now out of print, when there is still so much nonsense and so little sense in the world.

O amor não tem gênero. A compaixão não tem religião. O caráter não tem raça.

No one man should be viewed as having more to offer the world than another. We are all equals and every human being has something of value in their composition which makes them unique – just as every country has their own unique resources to share with the world. Never discount somebody based on material wealth, true wealth is what cannot be seen. Never discount a country by their size or resources, while their resources may greatly benefit other lands in need.

Now is the time that we walk as humans and not as labels. Rise and walk, like did Rosa Parks, MLK, Madiba (Mandela), Honest Abe (Lincoln), Mevlana (Rumi) and many more.

Oh Lord Most High, Creator of the Cosmos, Spinner of Galaxies, Soul of Electromagnetic Waves, Inhaler and Exhaler of Inconceivable Volumes of Vacuum, Spitter of Fire and Rock, Trifler with Millennia — what could we do for Thee that Thou couldst not do for Thyself one octillion times better? Nothing. What could we do or say that could possibly interest Thee? Nothing. Oh, Mankind, rejoice in the apathy of our Creator, for it makes us free and truthful and dignified at last. No longer can a fool point to a ridiculous accident of good luck and say, 'Somebody up there likes me.' And no longer can a tyrant say, 'God wants this or that to happen, and anyone who doesn't help this or that to happen is against God.' O Lord Most High, what a glorious weapon is Thy Apathy, for we have unsheathed it, have thrust and slashed mightily with it, and the claptrap that has so often enslaved us or driven us into the madhouse lies slain!" -The prayer of the Reverend C. Horner Redwine

O my mighty sisters and brothers, forget not that the ideal of humanity is the search of truth. In this pursuit, countless souls have sacrificed themselves in the past. And in this pursuit, countless more shall need to sacrifice themselves.

Once your character is poured with vigor and your attitude radiates confidence, there is no power in any external force to have any form of authority over you.

O my brave Almighty Human, with the ever-effulgent flow of courage, conscience and compassion, turn yourself into a vivacious humanizer, and start walking with bold footsteps while eliminating racism, terminating misogyny, destroying homophobia and all other primitiveness that have turned humanity into the most inhuman species on earth.

O my Courageous Sister! You have to become the beacon of hope for all women around you and then for the whole society.

Once the humans implode with pride-less awareness, humanity will explode with egalitarian and progressive greatness.

Once you see yourself reflected on the face of others, that's when you know that you have truly become enlightened.

One bridge of acceptance trumps a hundred walls of discrimination.

One human's despair is all humans' despair - one human's joy is all humans' joy - one human's accomplishments is all humans’ accomplishments. Such should be the genuine thinking of a civilized and conscientious human, if there is to be peace and harmony in the world.

Only fools neglect the living God – the Human Self, while running after imaginary shadows.

One of the greatest benefits of living abroad and traveling abroad, is learning how to appreciate meet people exactly where they are, and for exactly whom they are. Having climbed mountains all around the world, I was blessed to have met some of the most welcoming, warm, honest, most humble and most amazing people alive. They welcomed my team and I into their homes, like they'd known us their entire lives, like we were neighbors or family. From Indonesia to Tanzania, from Zanzibar to the Andes, I have been blessed to meet more of our human family, and I took a little bit of each with me when I parted. Their impact on me as a person, will bless me for the rest of my days.

Only man’s misdirected abstract mind can delude its own desire to know by creating contradicting belief systems using self-contradicting myths, and then make itself believe that these “revealed” belief systems are in fact the only “truths”, Then kill and die FOR them, Instead of saving each other FROM them.

Only the individual can ensure the rights and equality in the infinite complexity of the human society, not some government or institution.

Only those who live for others become immortal, and the rest simply perish within a few weeks , or alas days, after their mortal demise.

On the outside, my fame may appear to you as glorious and gala, but in reality, I am a simple candle burning in darkness and solitude, while giving light to the whole world.

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.

O que parece haver de desprezo entre homem e homem, de indiferente que permite que se mate gente sem que se sinta que se mata, como entre os assassinos, ou sem que se pense que se está matando, como entre os soldados, é que ninguém presta a devida atenção ao facto, parece que abstruso, de que os outros são almas também.

Ours is an illusionless humanism that cares about protecting our species, especially from itself. We must forgive humanity, and ourselves, for being what we are – neither angels nor beasts...

Our sin is our resistance to going along with God's initiative in making suffering reparative. We are deeply drawn towards God, but we also sense how following him will dislocate and transform beyond recognition the forms which have made life tolerable for us. We often react with fear, dismay, hostility. We are at war with ourselves, and responding differently to this inner conflict, we end up at war with each other. So it is undoubtedly true that the result of sin is much suffering. But this is by no means distributed according to desert. Many who are relatively innocent are swept up in this suffering, and some of the worse offenders get off lightly. The proper response to all this is not retrospective book-keeping, but making ourselves capable of responding to God's initiative. But now if that's what sin is, then one can sympathize with a lot of the modern critique of a religion which focuses on the evil tendencies of human nature, and the need for renunciation and sacrifice. This is not because humans are in fact angelic, or there is no point to sacrifice. It's just that focusing on how bad human beings can be, even if it's to refute the often over-rosy views of secular humanists with their reliance on human malleability and therapy, can only strengthen misanthropy, which certainly won’t bring you closer to God; and propounding sacrifice and renunciation for themselves takes you away from the main points, which is following God's initiative. That this can involve sacrifice, we well know from the charter act in this initiative, but renunciation is not is point.

Patriotism or Nationalism without reasoning is what I call “Nationalist Fundamentalism”, which is as dangerous as “Religious Fundamentalism”.

Peace first, sophistication later. Harmony first, luxury later.

People are what matters and how you treat them determines what kind of a creature you are - a conscientious human being or a mere human-looking animal.

People don't always tell you what they are thinking. They just see to it that you don't advance in life.