Faith In Humanity Quotes

There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested ... ~ Nelson Mandela

There's nothing like having grandchildren to restore your faith in humanity. ~ Doug Larson

People who go through a heavy experience like that are changed men, like it or not," he said. "They change for the better and they change for the worse. On the good side, they become unshakable. Next to that half year, the rest of the suffering I've experienced doesn't even count. I can put up with almost anything. And I also am a lot more sensitive to the pain of people around me. That's on the plus side. It made me capable of making some real friends. But there's also the minus side. I mean, it's impossible, in my own mind, to believe in people. I don't hate people, and I haven't lost my faith in humanity. I've got a wife and kids. We've made a home and we protect each other.
Those things you can't do without trust. It's just that, sure, we're living a good life right now, but if something were to happen, if something really were to come along and yank up everything by the roots, even surrounded by a happy family and good friends, I don't know what I'd do. What would happen if one day, for no reason, no one believes a word you say? It happens, you know.
Suddenly, one day, out of the blue. I'm always thinking about it. Last time, it was only six months, but the next time? No one can say; there's no guarantee. I don't have confidence in how long I can hold out the next time. When I think of these things, I really get shaken up. I'll dream about it and wake up in the middle of the night. It happens a little too often, in fact. And when it happens, I wake my wife up ~ Haruki Murakami

He would struggle with finding any value in himself and would despair at how he perceived the rest of humanity to be acting. ~ Rob Jovanovic

When you read the news, and you see all this bad stuff happening, there's a tendency to lose faith in humanity. But I meet so many people who restore it and realize that, actually, 99 percent of people are great. ~ Johnny Galecki

Faith in God necessarily implies a lack of faith in humanity. ~ Barbara G. Walker

Twitter has restored my faith in humanity. I thought I'd hate it, but while there are lots of knobheads, there are even more lovely people. It delights me how witty and friendly most people are. ~ John Simm

Reflecting on his years in prison, Nelson Mandela wrote that there were dark moments that tested his faith in humanity, but he refused to give up. ~ Barack Obama

As TV and film writer/director Joss Whedon said, "The enemy of Humanism is not faith - the enemy of Humanism is hate, it is fear, it is ignorance, it is the darker part of man that is in every Humanist, and every person in the world ... But faith is something we have to embrace. Faith in God means believing absolutely in something, with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers."4 ~ Greg M. Epstein

Nothing renews my faith in humanity more than the exchange of compassion so profound that mere words cannot embrace it. ~ Tiffany Madison

The sight of parents, children and grandparents all descending on a tented field to enjoy the pleasure of ideas and books renews my faith in humanity. ~ Mariella Frostrup

War reporting is still essentially the same - someone has to go there and see what is happening. You can't get that information without going to places where people are being shot at, and others are shooting at you. The real difficulty is having enough faith in humanity to believe that enough people, be they government, military or the man on the street, will care when your file reaches the printed page, the website or the TV screen. ~ Marie Colvin

If humans are kind to each other, if really humanity do exist, the world would have been a better place and we wouldn't need to fight so much for innocent lives. This would have made our struggles easier. As I get involved more and more in protecting innocent lives my faith in Humanity fades away. What a world we live in? Can we have faith in humanity? We humans are here to protect others, but we are the very reason that their lives are in danger. How long can we fight for the week, for the voiceless? The future is so dark!!! ~ Ama H. Vanniarachchy

There is child in all of us that refuses to grow up, a child that is in awe of what can be, the polar opposite of the cynic in all of us who despairs over what is. Stories of magic, fantastic monsters, impossible courage and spectacular heroism appeal to this child, instilling it with hope and faith in humanity and in the cosmic order. ~ Shatrujeet Nath

...At the end of the day, what matters is our faith in humanity... ~ Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Faith in God means believing absolutely in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers. ~ Joss Whedon

To give up faith in Christ is to give up faith in humanity; to believe in Christ is to believe in the redemption and final glorification of men; and this faith is the best inspiration to a holy and useful life for the good of our race of the glory of God. ~ Akinwumi Jarule

She hoped he was right, but she couldn't help distrusting his faith in humanity, he had never been on the receiving end of its hatred. ~ Kaede Lazares

Science is the global civilization of which I am a citizen. The spread of its democratic ethic and its unifying powers provides my faith in humanity. The astonishing depths of wonders in the universe, continuously revealed by science is my temple. The capacity of the informed human mind, liberated at last by the understanding that we are alone and thus the sole stewards of earth, is my religion. The potential of humanity to turn this planet into a paradise for future generations is my afterlife. ~ E. O. Wilson

Our difficulty or inability to perceive the experience of others…is all the more pronounced the more distant these experiences are from ours in time, space, or quality," wrote the Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi. We can be moved by the tragedy of mass starvation on a far continent; after all, we have all known physical hunger, if only temporarily. But it takes a greater effort of emotional imagination to empathize with the addict. We readily feel for a suffering child, but cannot see the child in the adult who, his soul fragmented and isolated, hustles for survival a few blocks away from where we shop or work.

Levi quotes Jean Améry, a Jewish-Austrian philosopher and resistance fighter who fell into the grasp of the Gestapo. "Anyone who was tortured remains tortured… Anyone who has suffered torture never again will be able to be at ease in the world…Faith in humanity, already cracked by the first slap in the face, then demolished by torture, is never acquired again." Améry was a full-grown adult when he was traumatized, an accomplished intellectual captured by the foe in the course of a war of liberation. We may then imagine the shock, loss of faith and unfathomable despair of the child who is traumatized not by hated enemies but by loved ones. ~ Gabor Mate

My faith in humanity leads me to believe that people are looking for something more elevating than the sordid details of the intimate aspects of one's personal life. ~ Ginger Rogers

All the deserts of the Earth combined, don't have enough sand to cover the darkness of this world. ~ Mladen Đorđević

Don't lose faith in humanity. There are good people out there. You have the power to make a difference. ~ Akiroq Brost

I know that our world is going through a very difficult time right now, but I will never lose my faith in humanity, and our incredible ability to overcome just about anything. ~ Yanni

Edwin Hubble, who continues to give me great faith in humanity, because he started out as a lawyer and then became an astronomer. ~ Lawrence M. Krauss

Whenever i find myself losing faith in humanity, i come back to the classical music. They are a great reminder that we are also able to produce beautiful things made out of strong and barely controllable emotions. ~ Efrat Cybulkiewicz

The history of the human race doesn't make happy reading, does it? I've seen a lot of sadness during my time, but I've seen seen a lot of things that have kept my faith in humanity alive too. If there were no bad things in the world, we'd have nothing to measure the good against, would we? The light can only shine in darkness. ~ Peter James

Shortly afterwards, a whistling customer with a ponytail and what I can only assume was a hat he'd borrowed from a clown bought a copy of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, I suspect deliberately to undermine my faith in humanity and dampen my spirits further. ~ Shaun Bythell

Most people hammer your mind with Thesis>Antithesis>Synthesis or as my old friend, the late Robert Anton Wilson, said: "Here's what it is, here's what it isn't, now here's why you need to go tell everyone how smart I am." I can't tell you how much that tired old formula skeeves me. When I do see people brave enough to (god forbid!) put the onus of drawing a conclusion back on the reader (heresy!), I am not only relived (what, me have to think?), my faith in humanity has it's execution stayed another day. ~ Joseph Matheny

I used to have a lot of faith in humanity before the advent of the website "comment" section. ~ Jim Gaffigan

A guy can do far far worse than surrounding himself with people who restore his faith in humanity. ~ David Levithan

I was swiftly losing faith in humanity. Not that I had much to spare. ~ Wildbow

She was adamant that any organization that labelled one group of people as evil would eventually do the same to others. That to treat any one person as less than human was to cheapen the very substance of humanity. ~ Samantha Shannon

I am prejudiced in favor of him who, without impudence, can ask boldly. He has faith in humanity, and faith in himself. No one who is not accustomed to giving grandly can ask nobly and with boldness. ~ Johann Kaspar Lavater

Every time a trick hangs up on me, I gain a renewed faith in humanity - someone really cares! ~ Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

People are too emotional about communism, or rather, about their own Communist Parties, to think about a subject that one day will be a subject for sociologists. Which is, the social activities that go on as a direct or indirect result of the existence of a Communist Party. People or groups of people who don't even know it have been inspired, or animated, or given a new push into life because of the Communist Party, and this is true of all countries where there has been even a tiny Communist Party. In our own small town, a year after Russia entered the war, and the left had recovered because of it, there had come into existence (apart from the direct activities of the Party which is not what I am talking about) a small orchestra, readers' circles, two dramatic groups, a film society, an amateur survey of the conditions of urban African children which, when it was published, stirred the white conscience and was the beginning of a long-overdue sense of guilt, and half a dozen discussion groups on African problems. For the first time in its existence there was something like a cultural life in that town. And it was enjoyed by hundreds of people who knew of the communists only as a group of people to hate. And of course a good many of these phenomena were disapproved of by the communists themselves, then at their most energetic and dogmatic. Yet the communists had inspired them because a dedicated faith in humanity spreads ripples in all directions. ~ Doris Lessing

I didn't have much faith in humanity before. I have even less faith now that the world has sh*t the bed." – character quote ~ Andrew Cormier

I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death. ~ Nelson Mandela

Many things in life inspire philanthropy, such as your faith in humanity and your belief in the human spirit to overcome. ~ Oprah Winfrey

He is not a punishing God, Lizzy. That is the mistake most people make, thinking He sits with an account book and a big fist, waiting to punish us. He is not a wrathful God but a loving God who made each of us and loved us since we were in our mother's womb ~ Ann Rinaldi

Back in the '50s and '60s, most politicians were concerned about not talking about faith, partly because there were consequences you had to deal with - (for instance) Catholicism had been made an issue. ~ Barack Obama

We can be ethical only in relation to something we can see, feel, understand, love, or otherwise have faith in. ~ Aldo Leopold

If you are full of fear, you will drown in the shallowest river. If you are full of faith, you will swim across the deepest ocean. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

When we suffer from amnesia, every form of serious authority for faith is in question, and we live unauthorized lives of faith and practice unauthorized ministries. ~ Walter Brueggemann

Questions, questions – you wear me out with your questions, child. Find out for yourself – we all have to in the end. No one can give you faith. It is a gift from God alone. Seek and ye shall find. Read the Gospels. There is no other way. Do not pester me with your everlasting questions. Go with God, child; just go with God. ~ Jennifer Worth

I have grown to appreciate the power of believing in myself and of always having faith in myself. I rarely look back; instead, I always look forward. There is so much of life that we miss when we wallow in regret. ~ Tony Bennett

Patriotism is the wholesome, constructive love of one's land and people. Nationalism is the unhealthy love of one's government, accompanied by the aggressive desire to put down others – which becomes in deracinated modern men a substitute for religious faith. Patriotism is an appropriate, indeed necessary, sentiment for people who wish to preserve their freedom; nationalism is not. ~ Clyde N. Wilson

As long as the eyes of our faith are fixed upon our troubles we will not find joy. Until our minds consciously move the Lord from our peripheral vision into the narrow corridor of our focus, joy will elude us. ~ Paul Tautges

In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man - these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause. ~ Calvin Coolidge

Trust what you know; have faith in where you go; if there's no wind, row; or go with the flow. ~ Ed Parrish III

Anything you do to help better humanity is never a waste of time~Nor is done in vain! Keep your work up...keep moving forward! Your beaming lights will always help make things brighter for all! ~ Timothy Pina

The John Birch Society is Communism's greatest ally. With its help we will divide and confuse the American people until they have lost faith in their Government, their nation has ceased to be a major world power, and their country is ripe for revolution. ~ Nikita Khrushchev

My brothers and sisters prayers and faith in God does not negate professionalism and dignity of labour. ~ Sunday Adelaja

By the grace of God, we two unworthy souls were joined together in holy marriage. Branded by the flames of sin, bowed by the burdens of sin, we came together at the portals of God's house; together we received the Savior's Host from the hand of the priest. Should I now complain if God is testing my faith? Should I now think about anything else but that I am his wife and he is my husband for as long as we both shall live? ~ Sigrid Undset

...They came to see me too,Varya said.It was a joke.They asked if I believed in God...Yes Mikhail Yırevich repeated,that question shouldn't be in there.The first census after the revolution was in 1920 and when Lenin saw the question on faith,he had them take it out.He understood the inequity of the question. ~ Anatoli Rybakov

What is a disciple? It is not a mindless follower. A disciple is a student.
When Paul prohibits women teaching men, he (in the same breath) requires Christian women to be students of the Word "Let a woman learn ... " (1 Tim 2:11).
Because biblical learning is required of us, we ought not to be afraid of it. We must overcome our ignorance! We ought to read good, solid books on Christian doctrine. It is good for us! We must cultivate a taste for books that will build s up in the faith- not take us to fantasy land. Just read a page or two at a time if need be, and never at the expense of your Bible reading. ~ Nancy Wilson

We have devalued the singular human capacity to see things whole in all their psychic, emotional and moral dimensions, and we have replaced this with faith in the powers of technical calculation. ~ Neil Postman

If I can't find something worthwhile in my own reflection, how am I ever going to see anything worthwhile in the face of another? Maybe I can solve all of this by seeing the face of Jesus in everyone, starting with myself. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

In a segment of the Sermon on the Mount, appearing in Matthew 5, Jesus is reported to have set six new teachings of his against six old Jewish teachings. The latter are introduced by such words as 'You have heard that it was said by them of old time' and the former by 'But I say unto you.'
Since both the teachings of old time and Jesus' new teachings are predicated on the same profoundly mistaken views of human nature and of the world in general, it is unimportant for us here today to compare and contrast these teachings or to determine which is better or worse in some way or other. The point is that whether better or worse, in this way or that, both are lodged in an egregiously mistaken mythology
but in a mythology of enormous importance for us, because it is one of the wellsprings of Western culture. ~ Delos McKown

That it is precisely when we recognize our common humanity - when we recognize our own humanity in the face of the other - it is then that we also recognize the face of God. ~ Diana Butler Bass

Then every man would be as a god, you see. The result of this, of course, would be that there would no longer be any gods, only men. We would give them knowledge of the sciences and the arts, which we possess, and in so doing we would destroy their simple faith and remove all basis for their hoping that things will be better - for the best way to destroy faith or hope is to let it be realized. ~ Roger Zelazny

In societies where coolness and being cool is a top priority, the religious replace the word 'religious' with 'spiritual' to make their faiths seem less extreme. ~ Criss Jami

People make the mistake of assuming far too many things about armies,' Lefevre told me one evening. 'They assume, for a start, that generals know what they are doing and know what is going on. They assume that orders pass down from top to bottom in a smooth and regulated fashion. And above all they assume that wars start only when people decide to start them.' 'You are going to tell me that is not the case?' 'Wars begin when they are ready, when humanity needs a bloodletting. Kings and politicians and generals have little say in it. You can feel it in the air when one is brewing. There is a tension and nervousness on the face of the least soldier. They can smell it coming in a way politicians cannot. The desire to hurt and destroy spreads over a region and over the troops. And then the generals can only hope to have the vaguest notion of what they are doing. ~ Iain Pears

The real festival is the moment when we wipe the tears off from the faces living in despair. ~ Abhijit Naskar

So do not fear the struggle; rather, embrace it. Embrace it in the knowledge that the Grand Weaver will take all of your struggles, questions, disappointments, and fears and use them to build your faith and increasingly make you into a man or woman who looks like Jesus Christ. ~ Ravi Zacharias

It's okay to take time for yourself. We give so much of ourselves to others and we need to be fueled both physically and mentally. If we are in balance, it helps us in all our interactions. ~ Faith Hill

I have long been of the Opinion, says he, that the Fire was a vast Blessing and the Plague likewise; it gave us Occasion to understand the Secrets of Nature which otherwise might have overwhelm'd us. (I busied my self with the right Order of the Draughts, and said nothing.) With what Firmness of Mind, Sir Chris. went on, did the People see their City devoured, and I can still remember how after the Plague and the Fire the Chearfulnesse soon returned to them: Forgetfulnesse is the great Mystery of Time.

I remember, I said as I took a Chair opposite to him, how the Mobb applauded the Flames. I remember how they sang and danced by the Corses during the Contagion: that was not Chearfulnesse but Phrenzy. And I remember, also, the Rage and the Dying -

These were the Accidents of Fortune, Nick, from which we have learned so much in this Generation.

It was said, sir, that the Plague and the Fire were no Accidents but Substance, that they were the Signes of the Beast withinne. And Sir Chris. laughed at this.

At which point Nat put his Face in: Do you call, sirs? Would you care for a Dish of Tea or some Wine?

Some Tea, some Tea, cried Sir Chris. for the Fire gives me a terrible Thirst. But no, no, he continued when Nat had left the Room, you cannot assign the Causes of Plague or Fire to Sin. It was the negligence of Men that provoked those Disasters and for Negligence there is a Cure; only Terrour is the Hindrance.

Terr ~ Peter Ackroyd

I believe in God and that everything I do is because of Him. If I don't have a relationship with God, I can't love my wife and kids the way I'm supposed to love them. ~ Donald Driver

For us to move forward, we have to develop the courage to forward what is behind...the hurt/pain and unpleasant memories that haunt us in the dark moments. We must hold on to our faith as we step out in boldness, strongly believing that our very best lies ahead. ~ Kemi Sogunle

No matter how you may excel in the art of Karate, and in your scholastic endeavors, nothing is more important than your behavior and your humanity as observed in daily life. ~ Gichin Funakoshi

The tragedy in the lives of most of us is that we go through life
walking down a high-walled lane with people of our own kind, the
same economic situation, the same national background and
education and religious outlook. And beyond those walls, all
humanity lies, unknown and unseen, and untouched by our
restricted and impoverished lives. ~ Florence Luscomb

Why is it so hard to get people to study the Scriptures? Common sense tells us what revelation commands: 'Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God'
'Search the Scriptures'
'Be ready to give to every one a reason of the hope that is in you.' These are the words of the inspired writers, and these injunctions are confirmed by praising those who obey the admonition. And yet, for all that we have the Bible in our houses, we are ignorant of its contents. No wonder that so many Christians know so little about what Christ actually taught; no wonder that they are so mistaken about the faith that they profess. ~ William Wilberforce

This is one of the reasons we watch movies, attend recovery groups, read memoirs, and sit around campfires telling stories long after the fire has dwindled down to a few glowing embers. It's written in the Psalms that "deep calls to deep," which is what happens when you get a glimpse of what someone else has gone through or is currently in the throes of and you find yourself inextricably, mysteriously linked with that person because you have been reminded again of our common humanity and its singular source, the subsurface unity of all things that is ever before us in countless manifestations but requires eyes wide open to see it burst into view. ~ Rob Bell

Islam is a system given by God and it aims to establish a fundamental principle of God's sovereignty and people's servitude to Him alone," Qutb wrote. "As such, Islam has the right to remove all obstacles from its way and address people freely without any impediments such as a political system or social customs and traditions . . . it is the right of Islam to take the initiative. It is not the creed of a particular people or the system of a particular country. It is a system given by God for the entire world. As such, it has the right to take action to remove all obstacles that fetter man's freedom of choice. It is a faith that does not force itself on any individual, it only attacks situations and regimes in order to free individuals from deviant influences that corrupt human nature and restrict man's freedom. ~ Mark Bowden

About six years ago, Life magazine ran an article on the historicity of Jesus and I was floored to find that they conceded the only evidence we have for his existence is in the Gospels. But don't take Life's word for it. In his book The Quest of the Historical Jesus, the most definitive study that's ever been done on the subject, Albert Schweitzer admitted that there isn't a shred of conclusive proof that Christ ever lived, let alone was the son of God. He concludes that one must therefore accept both on faith. ~ Madalyn Murray O'Hair

The resort to stereotype is the first refuge and chief strategy of the bigot. Though this is a matter that ought to concern everyone, it should be of particular concern to Negroes. For their lives, as far back as we can remember, have been made nightmares by one kind of bigotry or another.

This urge to stereotype groups and deal wtih them accordingly is an evil urge. Its birthplace is in that sinister back room of the mind where plots and schemes are hatched for the persecution and oppression of other human beings.

It comes out of many things, but chiefly out of a failure or refusal to do the kind of tough, patient thinking that is required of difficult problems of relationship. It comes, as well, out of a desire to establish one's own sense of humanity and worth upon the ruins of someone else's. ~ Bayard Rustin

Salvation, then, is not "going to heaven" but "being raised to life in God's new heaven and new earth." But as soon as we put it like this we realize that the New Testament is full of hints, indications, and downright assertions that this salvation isn't just something we have to wait for in the long-distance future. We can enjoy it here and now (always partially, of course, since we all still have to die), genuinely anticipating in the present what is to come in the future. "We were saved," says Paul in Romans 8:24, "in hope." The verb "we were saved" indicates a past action, something that has already taken place, referring obviously to the complex of faith and baptism of which Paul has been speaking in the letter so far. But this remains "in hope" because we still look forward to the ultimate future salvation of which he speaks in (for instance) Romans 5:9, 10. ~ N. T. Wright

The most central and irrational faith among people is the faith in technology and economical growth. Its priests believe until their death that material prosperity bring enjoyment and happiness - even though all the proofs in history have shown that only lack and attempt cause a life worth living, that the material prosperity doesn't bring anything else than despair. These priests believe in technology still when they choke in their gas masks. ~ Pentti Linkola

I have more faith in my God than to believe He would give me a mind and then ask me not to use it. ~ Jack Butler

In the mirror, I look the same. But I am a different person inside.I am a prodigy who knows the truth. I know exactly what I'm going to do. ~ Marie Lu

I start work by spending time in personal Bible study. Because my projects center on a question in my own faith walk, I find Bible study essential. And God gives me scriptures daily that speak to the question with which I'm struggling. ~ Francine Rivers

Is it not an amazing thing, that men shall attempt to investigate the mystery of the redemption, when, at the same time that it is propounded to us as an article of faith solely, we are told that "the very angels have desired to pry into it in vain"? ~ Laurence Sterne

We, however, have a different goal: the Son of God, the true man. He is the measure of true humanism. An "adult" faith is not a faith that follows the trends of fashion and the latest novelty; a mature, adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ. It is this friendship that opens us up to all that is good and gives us a criterion by which to distinguish the true from the false, and deceit from truth. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

There are times in my 30 years in the theater that I have come perilously close to losing faith in the one form of action I have in this life. ~ Athol Fugard

Today, many women of faith are conflicted. We are moving away from the church and formalized Christianity in record numbers because of the gap between patriarchal doctrine and our real lives. ~ Jennifer Crumpton

Real faith, however, is required to endure this necessary but painful developmental process. As things unfold, sometimes in full view, let us be merciful with each other. We certainly do not criticize hospital patients amid intensive care for looking pale and preoccupied. Why then those recovering from surgery on their souls? No need for us to stare; those stitches will finally come out. And in this hospital, too, it is important for everyone to remember that the hospital chart is not the patient. Extending our mercy to someone need not wait upon our full understanding of their challenges! Empathy may not be appreciated or reciprocated, but empathy is never wasted. ~ Neal A. Maxwell

I have great hope and faith, but it's a humanistic faith based in facts; you have to believe that facts exist. We can all arrive at the same facts if we engage in the process of experimentation, observation, and verification, which can solve more of the world's major problems than a debate over whether God does or doesn't exist. ~ Greg Graffin