Being Human Quotes

Our thoughts, our language, are always at a distance from whatever they're trying to describe. We're dreamers and - since we only have one life, and if we screw up we can get in a world of trouble - we're very intense dreamers. That's the beauty and the terror of being human beings: We just have these symbolic languages, these dreams, and that's all it ever is. There is no American or Frenchhistory. There are all these dreams that are floating around. People construct them and fight with them and criticize them, and the world goes on. I don't think the stars pay much attention.

Being human, we can only receive infinite truth in finite doses

Over the years I have come to believe that life is full of unchosen circumstances, that being human has to do with the evolution of our individual consciousness and with it, responsibilities for choice. Pain and joy both come with life. I believe that how we respond to what happens to us and around us shapes who we become and has to do with the psyche or the soul's growth.

To shut your mind, heart, imagination to the sufferings of others is to begin slowly but inexorably to die. It is to cease by inches from being human, to become in the end capable of nothing, generous or unselfish; or sometimes capable of anything, however terrible.

We are all musicians in a great human orchestra, and it is now time to play the Save the World Symphony. You are not required to play a solo, but you are required to know what instrument you hold and play it as well as you can. You are required to find your place in the score. What we love we must protect. That’s what love means. From the right to know and the duty to inquire flows the obligation to act.

As the conceptual, material world increases its hold on us, and inanimate objects become more lifelike, we humans must become more human. Open hearts, kindness and care-these are our most precious gifts.

I've known great happiness in my life along with great darkness, and a question that has repeatedly entered my poetry has been, how do we use the direct experience of happiness that may be given us, whether of love and sexuality or creativity or the sense of connectedness with other beings, human and otherwise?

I'm being sincere and I'm being human. I'm making mistakes or I'm doing things correctly, but I'm being human regardless. I'm talking about my pain and my joy, and I'm not saying it with words but mainly with colors and shapes. That's what I tried to do with the utmost sincerity and humility of a child.

One of the penalties of being a human being is other human beings.

If we human beings rely only on material development, we can’t be sure of a positive outcome. Employing technology motivated by anger and hatred is likely to be destructive. It will only be beneficial if we seek the welfare of all beings. Human beings are the only species with the potential to destroy the world. Because of the risks of unrestrained desire and greed we need to cultivate contentment and simplicity.

Positivity psychology is part and parcel of psychology. Being human includes both ups and downs, opportunities and challenges. Positive psychology devotes somewhat more attention to the ups and the opportunities, whereas traditional psychology - at least historically - has paid more attention to the downs.

Silence kills the soul; it diminishes its possibilities to rise and fly and explore. Silence withers what makes you human. The soul shrinks, until it's nothing.

There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else's life. But this notion gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life; I miss what being human is for me.

It may be hyperbolic to declare that Shakespeare teaches us more about being human than all the natural scientists combined.

Being human means losing everything we love best in the world," she murmured as she released me. "But would you ask to be anything else?

Crying's always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling, and feeling is being human.

I've made mistakes, I've misspoke, I am sure I will again sometime, but that happens, that's part of being human in my book. I'm OK with that. I've never done it maliciously, ever.

Being human is overrated.

At 12, I knew that the point of being human was to spend one's life fighting social injustice.

The earth becomes heaven when you release your fear. The main thing in life is not to be afraid of being human.

I don't like human nature, but I do like human beings.

With everyone born human, a poet - an artist - is born, who dies young and who is survived by an adult.

What is private belongs to me alone. What is personal belongs to all of us through the shared experience of being human.

Before becoming a Muslim, a Hindu, a Sikh or a Christian, let's become a Human first.

Being human is a lot more difficult than being on tour.

Of all the creatures on this planet none is more dangerous than a human being.

The essence of being human is that, in the brief moment we exist on this spinning planet, we can love some persons and some things, in spite of the fact that time and death will ultimately claim us all.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

We are unusual and tragic and alive.

What a bummer it is to be a human being.

There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime.

If being human requires freedom, then enslavement to the cares of this world is dehumanizing.

Christianity is an entirely new way of being human.

We can make ourselves whole only by accepting our partiality, by living within our limits, by being humans not by trying to be gods.

Merely being human is morally significant.

In life, friendships change, divorces happen, people move on, others die. Money and jobs will come and go. Live long enough and your health and body will change. It goes with the territory of being human. The fact that you are still here gives you an advantage. Don't look back. Look straight ahead!! Decide to use all of your knowledge, skills, experiences and your life lessons from your mistakes, defeats and setbacks, to start over again. Life changes. You may not have the same life as before, but you can still enjoy your life!

There will be no more 'them and us', only us, sharing struggles and challenges as part of being human.

To be fully human is...to know that it's possible to face the unimaginable and somehow put one foot in front of the other.

More fundamental than religion is our basic human spirituality. We have a basic human disposition towards love, kindness and affection, irrespective of whether we have a religious framework or not. When we nurture this most basic human resource - when we set about cultivating those basic inner values which we all appreciate in others, then we start to live spiritually.

Without emotion, what's the point of being human?

Your job is not to be perfect, your job is only to be human.

I am only human, although I regret it.

Mastery of life is not a question of control, but of finding a balance between human and being...Human is form. Being is formless. Human and Being are not separate but interwoven.

Only human beings can reorder their lives any day they choose by refining their philosophy.

While people are often content to criticize and blame others for what goes wrong, surely we should at least attempt to put forward constructive ideas. One thing is for certain: given human beings' love of truth, justice, peace, and freedom, creating a better, more compassionate world is a genuine possibility. The potential is there.

Animism is far from primitive, nor is it about pre-modernity because animism does not serve as a precursor to modernity. Rather animism is one of the many vitally present and contemporary other-than-modern ways of being human.

Star Trek was a big thing for me. I kind of grew up with that. And Twilight Zone is one of my all-time favorite shows. In fact me and Sam Witwer from Being Human sit down and have marathons to get our little Twilight Zone fix.

Being human signifies, for each one of us, belonging to a class, a society, a country, a continent and a civilization; and for us European earth-dwellers, the adventure played out in the heart of the New World signifies in the first place that it was not our world and that we bear responsibility for the crime of its destruction.

But adulthood," continued the barely twentysomething, "doesn't give you power over what matters most. It doesn't protect you from pain, loss, fate. That's part of being human.

People have traditionally turned to ritual to help them frame and acknowledge and ultimately even find joy in just such a paradox of being human - in the fact that so much of what we desire for our happiness and need for our survival comes at a heavy cost.