quotations about humanity
True humanity consists not in a squeamish ear; it consists not in starting or shrinking at tales of misery, but in a disposition of heart to relieve it. True humanity appertains rather to the mind than to the nerves. and prompts men to use real and active endeavors to execute the actions which it suggests.
C. J. FOX
attributed, Day's Collacon
Love, hope, fear, faith--these make humanity; These are its sign and note and character.
ROBERT BROWNING
Paracelsus
Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity.
ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN
letter, Oct. 1967
There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.
VICTOR HUGO
Les Misérables
The history of man is essentially zoological; it becomes human late in the day, and then only in the beautiful souls, the souls alive to justice, goodness, enthusiasm, and devotion. The angel shows itself rarely and with difficulty through the highly-organized brute.
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
Journal Intime
Humanity toward a subdued foe is as noble as the valor displayed in encountering him.
G. D. PRENTICE
attributed, Day's Collacon
A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.
OSCAR WILDE
The Soul of Man Under Socialism
Human nature is like a bad clock; it might go right now and then, or be made to strike the hour, but its inward frame is to go wrong.
THOMAS ADAM
Private Thoughts on Religion
That humanity and sincerity which dispose men to resist injustice and tyranny render them unfit to cope with the cunning and power of those who are opposed to them. The friends of liberty trust to the professions of others because they are themselves sincere, and endeavour to secure the public good with the least possible hurt to its enemies, who have no regard to anything but their own unprincipled ends, and stick at nothing to accomplish them.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characters of Shakespeare's Plays
Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.
CARL SAGAN
Cosmos
The truth is ... that human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity beyond what serves to increase the pleasure of the moment. They hunt in packs. Their packs scour the desert and vanish screaming into the wilderness.
VIRGINIA WOOLF, Mrs. Dalloway
Human beings are not machines, and however powerful the pressure to conform, they sometimes are so moved by what they see as injustice that they dare to declare their independence. In that historical possibility lies hope.
HOWARD ZINN
You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train
But further: if humanity be a unit, having a corporate moral character, a result would seem to follow which we have not yet considered. Ought not the conscience, in that case, to be painfully affected by the world's wickedness? Of course, it will not affect the uncultivated conscience, nor even if that faculty be but partially cultivated, but how is it with those who have attained to a high state of moral culture? Is the conscience, in its highest state of moral refinement and susceptibility, capable of being influenced only by the remembrance of its own personal acts? or do, then, the acts of others affect us also? pleasurably, if good; painfully, if evil? and do they so affect us by virtue of a secret consciousness, then only brought out, of our moral oneness?
ROBERT BROWN
A Lecture on the Social Unity of Humanity
When the battle is ended, and victory assured, let humanity be exercised.
CYRUS THE GREAT
attributed, Day's Collacon
In virtue of the mysterious connection of all organic forms (and unconsciously the feeling of the necessity of this connection lies within us), these new exotic forms present themselves to our fancy as exalted and ennobeld out of those which surrounded our childhood. Blind feeling, therefore, and the enchainment of the phenomena perceived by sense, in the same measure as reason and the combining faculty, lead us to the recognition which now penetrates every grade of humanity, that a common bond, according to determinate laws, and therefore eternal, embraces the whole of animated nature.
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT
introduction, Cosmos: A Survey of the General Physical History of the Universe
Humanity may be compared to an immense temple ruined, but now rebuilding, the numerous compartments of which represent the several nations of the earth. True, the different portions of the edifice present great anomalies; but yet the foundation is the same.
MME. D'AUBIGNE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Humanity is to be met with in a den of robbers.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
Loving humanity means as much, and as little, as loving raindrops, or loving the Milky Way. You say that you love humanity? Are you sure you aren't treating yourself to easy self-congratulation, seeking approval, making certain you're on the right side?
JULIAN BARNES
Flaubert's Parrot
Humanity is the equity of the heart.
CONFUCIUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
In forming our notions of human nature, we are apt to make a comparison between men and animals, the only creatures endowed with thought that fall under our senses. Certainly this comparison is favourable to mankind. On the one hand, we see a creature whose thoughts are not limited by any narrow bounds, either of place or time; who carries his researches into the most distant regions of this globe, and beyond this globe, to the planets and heavenly bodies; looks backward to consider the first origin, at least the history of the human race; casts his eye forward to see the influence of his actions upon posterity and the judgments which will be formed of his character a thousand years hence; a creature, who traces causes and effects to a great length and intricacy, extracts general principles from particular appearances; improves upon his discoveries; corrects his mistakes; and makes his very errors profitable. On the other hand, we are presented with a creature the very reverse of this; limited in its observations and reasonings to a few sensible objects which surround it; without curiosity, without foresight; blindly conducted by instinct, and attaining, in a short time, its utmost perfection, beyond which it is never able to advance a single step. What a wide difference is there between these creatures! And how exalted a notion must we entertain of the former, in comparison of the latter.
DAVID HUME
"Of the Dignity or Meanness of Human Nature", Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary