You don't have to teach people how to be human. You have to teach them how to stop being inhuman.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that humanity is inherent, but negative behaviors must be addressed and corrected.
Eldridge Cleaver's quote suggests that being human is a natural state, while inhumanity and negative behaviors are learned or adopted. Instead of instructing individuals on what it means to be human, we should focus on helping them unlearn harmful behaviors that detract from their inherent humanity.
In practice
During a seminar on compassion in the workplace, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of fostering a supportive environment.
I know that sometimes people fake on each other out of genuine motives to hold onto the object of their tenderest feelings. They see themselves as so inadequate that they feel forced to wear a mask in order to continuously impress the other. I do not want to "hold" you, I want you to "stay" out of your own need for me.
The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less.
the size of a misfortune is not determinable by an outsider’s measurement of it but only by the measurements applied to it by the person specially affected by it.
Dominique as Gail looks at her "... there is a stage of worship which makes the worshiper himself an object of reverence."
Despair is the result of each earnest attempt to go through life with virtue, justice and understanding, and to fulfill their requirements. Children live on one side of despair, the awakened on the other side.
On the human imagination, events produce the effects of time. Thus, he who has travelled far and seen much, is apt to fancy that he has lived long; and the history that most abounds in important incidents, soonest assumes the aspect of antiquity.
The point of asylum is not to declare to the world what country you think is the pinnacle of civilization. The point of asylum is to find a country that's both willing and able to protect you from political persecution. In no way is asylum an endorsement of a country's politics, laws, or values.
Disciples will not be weakened by suffering, worn down, and embittered until they are broken. Instead, they bear suffering, by the power of him who supports them. The disciples bear the suffering laid on them only by the power of him who bears all suffering on the cross. As bearers of suffering, they stand in communion with the Crucified.
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