Human affairs are not serious, but they have to be taken seriously.
—Iris Murdoch (1919–99) British Novelist, Playwright, Philosopher
God must love the common man, he made so many of them.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
In every child who is born, under no matter what circumstances, and of no matter what parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again.
—James Agee (1909–55) American Journalist, Poet, Screenwriter, Film Critic
Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Man is a machine and in the whole universe there is but a single substance, matter, variously modified.
—Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709–51) French Physician, Philosopher
Humanity I love you because when you’re hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink.
—e. e. cummings (1894–1962) American Poet, Writer, Painter
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs, he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on him and they still give him much trouble at times.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
However exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers, the true practical system can be learned only in the world.
—Henry Fielding (1707–54) English Novelist, Dramatist
We are members of one great body planted by nature in a mutual love, and fitted for a social life. We must consider that we were born for the good of the whole.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
But although denying that we have a special position in the natural world might seem becomingly modest in the eye of eternity, it might also be used as an excuse for evading our responsibilities. The fact is that no species has ever had such wholesale control over everything on earth, living or dead, as we now have. That lays upon us, whether we like it or not, an awesome responsibility. In our hands now lies not only our own future, but that of all living creatures with whom we share the earth.
—David Attenborough (b.1926) English Naturalist, Broadcaster
I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
There are two kinds of people in the world—those you love, and those you don’t understand.
—Unknown
As there is much beast and some devil in man, so there is some angel and some God in him.—The beast and devil may be conquered, but in this life are never destroyed.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
The great universal family of men is a utopia worthy of the most mediocre logic.
—Comte de Lautreamont (1846–1870) French Symbolist Poet
There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
Each man is haunted until his humanity awakens.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
A sweet new blossom of humanity, fresh fallen from God’s own home, to flower on earth.
—Gerald Massey (1828–1907) English Mystic, Poet, Egyptologist
If, when you charged a person with his faults, you credited him with his virtues too, you would probably like everybody.
—Lawrence G. Lovasik (1913–86) American Missionary Priest, Prolific Catholic Author
Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
There is a destiny which makes us brothers; none goes his way alone. All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own.
—Edwin Markham (1852–1940) American Poet, Lecturer
Man is God’s highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902) British Victorian Novelist, Essayist, Critic
The universe is but one great city, full of beloved ones, divine and human, by nature endeared to each other.
—Epictetus (55–135) Ancient Greek Philosopher
Zeal without humanity is like a ship without a rudder, liable to be stranded at any moment.
—Owen Feltham (1602–68) English Essayist
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that everyone of those darkly clustered houses encloses it’s own secret that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of it’s imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
Everyone is as God made him, and often a great deal worse.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
Humanity is never more sphinxlike than when it is expressing itself.
—Rebecca West (1892–1983) English Author, Journalist, Literary Critic
It is almost impossible to smile on the outside without feeling better on the inside.
—Unknown
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