Quotes about Humanity

As for the person who is not impelled to give thanks for the procession of the stars, the alternation of day and night, the regular succession of the seasons, and the fruits which are produced for our enjoyment--how can such a person be counted as human at all?

There is no people so brutish or barbarous that they do not know that they must believe in a god, even if they do not know precisely what god they should worship.

For when the soul is deprived of emotion, what difference is there — I do not say between man and the beasts of the field, but between man and a stock or a stone, or any such thing?

I would never blame a human creature for feeling lonely.

All Creatures know that some must die That all the rest may take and eat; Sooner or later, all transform Their blood to wine, their flesh to meat. But Man alone seeks Vengefulness, And writes his abstract Laws on stone; For this false Justice he has made, He tortures limb and crushes bone. Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? Oh, if Revenge did move the stars Instead of Love, they would not shine.

He's lost something, some illusion I used to think was necessary to him. He's come to realize he too is human. Or is this a performance, for my benefit, to show me he's up-to-date? Maybe men shouldn't have been told about their own humanity. It's only made them uncomfortable. It's only made them trickier, slier, more evasive, harder to read.

How shrunk, how dwindled, in our times Creation's mighty seed - For Man has broke the Fellowship With murder, lust, and greed.

Nobody's heart is perfect.

Or he'd watch the news: more plagues, more famines, more floods, more insect or microbe or small-mammal outbreaks, more droughts, more chickenshit boy-soldier wars in distant countries. Why was everything so much like itself?

I am not scoffing at goodness, which is far more difficult to explain than evil, and just as complicated. But sometimes it's hard to put up with.

He was not a monster, to her ... How easy to invent a humanity, for anyone at all.

The threat to the planet is us. It's actually not a threat to the planet - it's a threat to us.