Beautifully Human Quotes

I know the hard ground and the taste of the salt water I'm made of and the way even getting out of bed feels impossible some days. I know how some moments there's not even enough air.

I know the desperate and the bargains you want to make with the universe and every last prayer you've prayed to gods you don't even believe in.

But stupid? No, love.

Not stupid. Not you. You are infinitely, impossibly, beautifully human. ~ Jeanette LeBlanc

But then in all his words if not deeds Jefferson was so beautifully human, so eminently vague, so entirely dishonest but not in any meretricious way. Rather it was a passionate form of self-delusion that rendered Jefferson as president and as man (not to mention as writer of tangled sentences and lunatic metaphors) confusing even to his admirers. Proclaiming the unalienable rights of man for everyone (excepting slaves, Indians, women and those entirely without property), Jefferson tried to seize the Floridas by force, dreamed of a conquest of Cuba, and after his illegal purchase of Louisiana sent a military governor to rule New Orleans against the will of its inhabitants. ~ Gore Vidal

Love is a powerful thing; it makes us all equals by making us briefly, beautifully human. ~ Seanan McGuire

Androgyny refers to a specific way of joining the 'masculine' and 'feminine' aspects of a single human being. ~ June Singer

To me, cruelty is the worst of human sins. Once we accept that a living creature has feelings and suffers pain, then by knowingly and deliberately inflicting suffering on that creature, we are guilty, whether it be human or animal. ~ Jane Goodall

I had always had a little problem looking out for myself in love. I was afraid people would leave me. So I sort of clung and did everything possible to keep someone around. I didn't have a hard talk with myself about who I was keeping around. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. I clung to people like human life preservers. I thought i'd die if someone left me. Its ironic because now I'm the one who's leaving. ~ Deb Caletti

There can be no beauty if it is paid for by human injustice, nor truth that passes over injustice in silence, nor moral virtue that condones it. ~ Tadeusz Borowski

My lowest self says: "That person is acting like a total jerk!"
My slightly higher self says: "That person is acting like a total jerk right now only because he's going through a really hard time in life, and his parents never taught him how to behave better, and he might have some sort of mild mental illness, and also he has a drinking problem ... so I should try to be more compassionate and generous toward sad, tragic, miserable people like that."
My even higher self says: "We are all just flawed and frightened human beings in an uncertain world, struggling to survive."
Then finally my VERY highest self says: "Lord, please help me stop acting like a total jerk."
... and that's when it finally stops being about the other person at all. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Must be grounded in a philosophy whose foundation is on the solidarity of the human race, a philosophy which will not waver when the race happens to be represented by a drunken woman or an idiot boy. ~ Jane Addams

If we divide human attributes into "masculine" and "feminine" and strengthen only those attributes that "belong" to that sex, we cut off half of ourselves from ourselves as human beings, condemned forever to search for our other half. The world is in desperate need of multilayered human beings with the voices, stamina, and insight to break through our current calcified ways of doing things, (...) The patriarchal structures of honor, shame, violence, and might is right, do as much harm to Hamlet, Edgar, Lear, and Coriolanus as they do to Ophelia, Desdemona, Lady Macduff (...)
(...) To have feelings, intuitive flights of understanding, a desire to have knowledge of what is happening below the surface, to serve. These are often called "feminine" attributes, and it is true that many women in the plays possess them. But they also belong to Kent, Ferdinand, Florizel, Camillo, as well as the women. So they are not "feminine" attributes: they are human attributes. ~ Tina Packer

We stand before a burning bush whenever other human beings share with us something of their relationship with God or something of the movements of their hearts. In such moments may we always realize that we stand on holy ground ~ Margaret Silf

Every emotion, every phrase or sentence, every bit of human action, can be a form of art. Art is not necessarily bound to the stereotypical notions of the human society. Art can come in the form of a little sentence, art can come in the form of a simple brush-stroke, art can come in the form of an everyday snapshot, art can come in the form of a plain strumming on the fret of an old guitar. Art doesn't require definition, and more importantly, art cannot be bound by the descriptions of words, yet words themselves can form the most rejuvenating and liberating form of art. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Even though the discples were not aware of it, the presence was with them while they were reviewing the scriptures together on the road. Henceforth, we will catch only a fleeting glimpse of it
in the study of sacred writings, in other human beings, in liturgy, and in communion with strangers. But these moments remain us that our fellow men and women are themselves sacred; there is something about them taht is worthy of absolute reverence, is in the last resort mysterious, and we will always elude us. ~ Karen Armstrong

Giants isn't eating each other either, the BFG said. Nor is giants killing each other. Giants is not very lovely, but they is not killing each other. Nor is crockadowndillies killing other crockadowndillies. Nor is pussy-cats killing pussy-cats.

'They kill mice,' Sophie said.

'Ah, but they is not killing their own kind,' the BFG said. 'Human beans is the only animals that is killing their own kind.'

'Don't poisonous snakes kill each other?' Sophie asked. She was searching desperately for another creature that behaved as badly as the human.

'Even poisnowse snakes is never killing each other,' the BFG said. 'Nor is the most fearsome creatures like tigers and rhinostossterisses. None of them is ever killing their own kind. Has you ever thought about that?'

Sophie kept silent.

'I is not understanding human beans at all,' the BFG said.' You is a human bean and you is saying it is grizzling and horrigust for giants to be eating human beans. Right or left?'

'Right,' Sophie said.

'But human beans is squishing each other all the time,' the BFG said. 'They is shootling guns and going up in
aerioplanes to drop their bombs on each other's heads every week. Human beans is always killing other human beans.'

He was right. Of course he was right and Sophie knew it. She was beginning to wonder whether humans were actually any better than giants. 'Even so,' she said, defending her own race, ~ Roald Dahl

Tolerance of Cruelty in any form is a degraded state of mind and soul. When we freely allow the massacre and prolonged torture of defenseless creatures, it increases our receptivity to human cruelty and war and steals our humanity, peace and soul. Very little speeds and greases your way to Hell, like animal cruelty. ~ Russell Boyd

That's what life is, it's fucking trying. You don't get a medal for it. It's expected, as a member of the human race, that you try. ~ Kim Holden

One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them. ~ Virginia Woolf

Logotherapy sees the human patient in all his humanness. I step up to the core of the patient's being. And that is a being in search of meaning, a being that is transcending himself, a being capable of acting in love for others. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

We naturally try to forget our personal tragedies, serious or trifling, as soon as possible (even something as petty as being scorned or disdained by a stranger on a street corner). We try not to carry these things over to tomorrow. It is not strange, therefore, that the whole human race is trying to put Hiroshima, the extreme point of human tragedy, completely out of mind. ~ Kenzaburo Oe

But more than 15 sections in Chapter 8 of the report-the key chapter setting out the scientific evidence for and against a human influence over the climate-were changed or deleted after the scientist charged with examining this question had accepted the supposedly final text ... ~ Frederick Seitz

Your locus of attention is the single point on which you are able to concentrate your mind. You're human and you can only focus on one thing at a time. ~ Anonymous

The books we need are the kind that act upon us like a misfortune, that make us suffer like the death of someone we love more than ourselves, that make us feel as though we were on the verge of suicide, or lost in a forest remote from all human habitation-a book should serve as an axe for the frozen sea within us. ~ Franz Kafka

In the cloudy swirl of misleading ideas surrounding public discussion of addiction, there's one that stands out: the misconception that drug taking by itself will lead to addiction - in other words, that the cause of addiction resides in the power of the drug over the human brain. It is one of the bedrock fables sustaining the so-called War on Drugs. ~ Gabor Mate

We have a tendency to describe the human condition in lofty terms, such as a quest for freedom or striving for a virtuous life, but the life sciences hold a more mundane view: It's all about security, social companionships, and a full belly. There is obvious tension between both views, which recalls that famous dinner conversation between a Russian literary critic and the writer Ivan Turgenev: 'We haven't yet solved the problem of God,' the critic yelled, 'and you want to eat! ~ Frans De Waal

Even though it is common knowledge in our field of Neuroscience, I take immense pleasure every time I realize that our perception of the whole universe emerges from the activity of the little specks of jelly inside our skull. ~ Abhijit Naskar

That's the trouble with good writers. Only the bad ones make you want to do the human thing and look away. ~ Nick Hornby

If Christianity is true, this changes EVERYTHING. Christ's very last words to us in scripture were: "Behold, I make all things new." (Rev. 21:5) I hope you remember that most moving line in the most moving movie ever made, The Passion Of The Christ, when Christ turns to His mother on the way to Calvary, explaining the need for the Cross and the blood and the agony: "See, Mother, I make all things new." I hope you remember that line with your tear ducts, which connect to the heart, as well as with your ears, which connect to the brain. Christ changed every human being he ever met. In fact, He changed history, splitting it open like a coconut and inserting eternity into the split between B.C. and A.D. If anyone claims to have met Him without being changed, he has not met Him at all. When you touch Him, you touch lightning. ~ Peter Kreeft

Of all the weapons discussed in this book, nothing is more important than your primary firearm. Keep it cleaned, keep it oiled, keep it loaded, keep it close. With a cool head, steady hand, and plenty of ammunition, one human is more than a match for an army of zombies. ~ Max Brooks

I too am a member of the human race, (but admittedly not a very active member). ~ Ashleigh Brilliant

Our raw imperfections make us real and make us human but they don't make us. ~ Jay McLean

The forces which move the cosmos are not different from those which move the human soul. ~ Anagarika Govinda

I suggested that a better understanding of human nature in the light of modern science can point the way to an approach to politics that is more sophisticated. ~ Steven Pinker

I'm lost in the middle of my birthday. I want my friends, their touch, with the earth's last love. I will take life's final offering, I will take the last human blessing. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

What you are is a human being, sensitive and alive, with genius inside of you. Not only that, but you are one of a kind. There has never been anyone like you before. You see the world in a unique way because you have unique gifts. That's the way nature made you. And it will feel like nothing less than fulfilling your destiny to follow those gifts to a rich and exciting life, full of purpose and meaning and enjoyment. ~ Barbara Sher

Music is the human treatment of sounds. ~ Jean Michel Jarre