Quotes on Humans

It is well, when the wise and the learned discover new truths; but how much better to diffuse the truths already discovered, amongst the multitude! Every addition to true knowledge is an addition to human power; and while a philosopher is discovering one new truth, millions may be propagated amongst the people. Diffusion, then, rather than discovery, is the duty of our government.

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.

I do not regard a broker as a member of the human race.

What is our policy? ... to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime.

Helmer: "Before all else you are a wife and a mother." Nora: "That I no longer believe. I believe that before all else I am a human being."

Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, that history informs us of nothing new or strange in this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature.

History is for human self-knowledge. Knowing yourself means knowing, first, what it is to be a person; secondly, knowing what it is to be the kind of person you are; and thirdly, knowing what it is to be the person you are and nobody else is. Knowing yourself means knowing what you can do; and since nobody knows what they can do until they try, the only clue to what man can do is what man has done. The value of history, then, is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is.

Let us be patient with one another,_x000D_ _x000D_ And even patient with ourselves._x000D_ _x000D_ We have a long, long way to go._x000D_ _x000D_ So let us hasten along the road,_x000D_ _x000D_ The road of human tenderness and generosity._x000D_ _x000D_ Groping, we may find one another's hands in the dark.

I am not blind to the shortcomings of our own people. I am not unaware that leaders betray, and sell out, and play false. But this knowledge does not outweigh the fact that my class, the working class, is exploited, driven, fought back with the weapon of starvation, with guns and with venal courts whenever they strike for conditions more human, more civilized for their children, and for their children's children.

The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are of subordinate importance, is the conflict of skepticism with faith.

There is no history of mankind, there is only an indefinite number of histories of all kinds of aspects of human life.

History is the discovering of the principles of human nature.

When a thoughtful human being has overcome incentives to vice and is aware of having done his bitter duty, he finds himself in a state that could be called happiness, a state of contentment and peace of mind in which virtue is its own reward.

Be compassionate to everyone. Don't just search for whatever it is that annoys and frightens you-see beyond those things to the basic human being. Especially see the child in the man or woman. Even if they are destroying you, allow a moment to see how lost in their own delusion and suffering they are.

Once the truth is denied to human beings, it is pure illusion to try to set them free. Truth and freedom either go together hand in hand or together they perish in misery.

I start ... from a belief in individual freedom and that derives fundamentally from a belief in the limitations of our knowledge, from a belief ... that nobody can be sure that what he believes is right, is really right ... I'm an imperfect human being who cannot be certain of anything, so what position ... involved the least intolerance on my part? ... The most attractive position ... is putting individual freedom first.

I believe that it would be almost impossible to find anywhere in America a black man who has lived further down in the mud of human society than I have; or a black man who has been any more ignorant than I have; or a black man who has suffered more anguish during his life than I have. But it is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest joy can come; it is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come.

The human race has entered a stage where we are all dependent on each other. No other country or nation should be regarded in total separation from another, let alone pitted against another.

Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them.

Forgiveness is an absolute necessity for continued human existence.

It is in human nature to relax, when not compelled by personal advantage or disadvantage.