Human Agency Quotes

Its emotional character ... is probably mostly indescribable except as a sort of double bind in which any/all of the alternatives we associate with human agency - sitting or standing, doing or resting, speaking or keeping silent, living or dying - are not just unpleasant but literally horrible. ~ David Foster Wallace

You cannot find, I believe, a case in the Bible where a man is converted without God's calling in some human agency
using some human instrument. ~ Dwight L. Moody

Mathematics is a more powerful instrument of knowledge than any other that has been bequeathed to us by human agency. ~ Rene Descartes

As we walk on the stage of human agency otherwise known as history, we should remember that ours are but bit-parts, to be played only momentarily before we move on. The characters may change but the paradigm remains, every generation being the inheritor of the role of Hamlet, yearning and looking for lost fathers, weary of becoming broken men themselves. ~ Farish A. Noor

Economic and political factors play themselves out through human agency; and human beings are fundamentally shaped by their cultures. ~ Francis George

One important theme of this book is that globalization and media are not abstract, unknowable, inevitable, inexorable forces of economics and technology. They are not out of the control of human hands. They have been and will be created by people. They are the result of human actions, or what academics call "human agency. ~ Jack Lule

If Euclid's point, though incapable of being drawn by any human agency, has an imperishable value, my picture has its own for mankind to live. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Who has ever wandered through such forests, in a length of many miles, in a boundless expanse, without a path, without a goal, amid their monstrous shadows, their sacred gloom, without being filled with deep reverence for the sublime greatness of Nature above all human agency, without feeling the grandeur of the idea which forms the basis of Vidar's essence? ~ Snorri Sturluson

Economic man and the Calvinist Christian sing to each other like voices in a fugue. The Calvinist stands alone before an almost merciless God ; no human agency can help him; his church is a means to political and social organization rather than a bridge to deity , for no priest can have greater knowledge of the divine way than he himself; no friend can console him in fact , he should distrust all men; in the same fashion, Economic Man faces a merciless world alone and unaided, his hand against every other's. ~ Lionel Trilling

The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I am travelling with this mystique myself, I know. It has grown out of childhood, and adolescent reading. This looking-glass Tibet is a realm of ancient learning lost to the rest of the world, ruled by a lineage of monks who are reincarnations of divinity. Recessed beyond the greatest mountain barrier on earth, in plateaux of cold purity, it floats in its own time. It is a land forbidden to intruders not by human agency but by some mystical interdiction. So it resonates like the memory of something lost, a survival from a purer time, less a country than a region in the mind. Perhaps it holds the keys to the afterlife ~ Colin Thubron

I'm fascinated by human agency - by the process of decision, both in the individual and the mass. ~ Nick Harkaway

(Psychoanalysis, it seems, does wonders for a man's prose style: it renders it labyrinthine without subtlety.) There is no place, then, for human agency, except the kind that leads you to talk about yourself in the presence of another for twenty years. Shallowness can go no deeper. ~ Theodore Dalrymple

Paul Davies takes us on a logically and rhetorically compelling modern search for human agency. This outstanding analysis, well informed by naturalistic views of our evolved affective nature, is the kind of philosophical work that is essential for a field to move forward when ever-increasing findings from modern science are inconsistent with traditional philosophical arguments. This book is for all who wish to immerse themselves in the modern search for free will. It is steeped in the rich liqueur of current scientific and philosophical perspectives and delusions. ~ Jaak Panksepp

Without undervaluing any other human agency, it may be safely affirmed that the Common School, improved and energized, as it can easily be, may become the most effective and benignant of all the forces of civilization. Two reasons sustain this position. In the first place, there is a universality in its operation, which can be affirmed of no other institution whatever ... And, in the second place, the materials upon which it operates are so pliant and ductile as to be susceptible of assuming a greater variety of forms than any other earthly work of the Creator. ~ Horace Mann

Faced with an ecological crisis whose roots lie in this disengagement, in the separation of human agency and social responsibility from the sphere of our direct involvement with the non-human environment, it surely behoves us to reverse this order of priority. I began with the point that while both humans and animals have histories of their mutual relations, only humans narrate such histories. But to construct a narrative, one must already dwell in the world and, in the dwelling, enter into relationships with its constituents, both human and non-human. I am suggesting that we rewrite the history of human-animal relations, taking this condition of active engagement, of being-in-the-world, as our starting point. We might speak of it as a history of human concern with animals, insofar as this notion conveys a caring, attentive regard, a 'being with'. And I am suggesting that those of us who are 'with' animals in their day-to-day lives, most notably hunters and herdsmen, can offer us some of the best possible indications of how we might proceed. ~ Tim Ingold

The primary paradox that man is superior to all the things around him and yet is at their mercy. ~ G.K. Chesterton

The Lord's Prayer is found in Matthew 6. In verse 12 Jesus says, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" (NKJV). When God talks about debts, He's not just talking about monetary debts. He's talking about the times when people hurt you, the times when people do you wrong. God refers to that as a debt because when you are mistreated, you may feel you are owed something.
Human nature says, "I was wronged. Now I want justice. You mistreated me. Now you've got to pay me back." But the mistake many people make is in trying to collect a debt that only God can pay. The father can't give his daughter's innocence back to her. Your parents can't pay you back for not having a loving childhood. Your spouse can't pay you back for the pain he caused by being unfaithful. Only God can truly pay you back.
If you want to be restored and whole, get on God's payroll. He knows how to make things right. He knows how to bring justice. He'll give you what you deserve. Leave it up to Him. Quit expecting people to make it up to you. They can't give you what they don't have. ~ Joel Osteen

Genesis supplements "created in God's image" with the affirmation that God thus made humanity "male and female." Women and men together comprise this image. The statement is an extraordinary one in this opening chapter of Genesis, written in a patriarchal culture. One might wonder whether the author of Genesis saw the implications of this declaration. Certainly generation after generation of Christians have not seen it. We have often talked and behaved as if the male was the normal and full form of a human being, with the female a deviant and slightly inferior form. But both male and female belong to the image. You have the image of God represented in humanity only when you have both men and women there. When women are not present and involved in God's work in the world (and in the church), the image of God is not present. ~ John E. Goldingay

- Why should we be feminists? Why not egalitarians?

- "Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general- but to choose to use the vague expression human rights (or egalitarians) is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender.

It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women. That the problem was not about being human, but specifically about being a female human.

For centuries, the world divided human beings into two groups and then proceeded to exclude and oppress one group. It is only fair that the solution acknowledge that. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Over time I learned that objects and animals are true friends. In the forest I was surrounded by trees, bushes, birds, and small animals. I was not afraid of them. I was sure that they would do nothing harmful to me. I became familiar with cows and with horses, and they provided me with a warmth that has remained with me to this very day. Sometimes it seemed to me that what saved me were the animals I encountered along the way, not the human beings. ~ Aharon Appelfeld

The unfolding of the bare human soul ... that is what interests me. ~ Bruce Lee

It seems to me that it is the basic right of any human being to work. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

A good analogy is stretching a rubber band. You can stretch and stretch and even feel the tension increase in the muscles in your hands and arms as the gap from one end of the band to the other widens. But at some point you reach the limits of elasticity of the band and it snaps. The same thing happens with human systems. ~ John L. Casti

God, he asserted, was not contained in any Book, but was a Voice, which every human being could hear (and which most of us chose to ignore). The common name of that voice was Conscience; but it was a God by any reasonable definition, Stepney claimed. ~ Robert Charles Wilson

One of the essential problems for education is that most countries subject their schools to the fast-food model of quality assurance when they should be adopting the Michelin model instead. The future for education is not in standardizing but in customizing; not in promoting groupthink and "deindividuation" but in cultivating the real depth and dynamism of human abilities of every sort. ~ Ken Robinson

Sometimes it seemed that the human heart, this side of Eden, feared life more than death, light more than darkness, freedom more than surrender. ~ Dean Koontz

I try to stay away from certain stuff - I'm not a perfect human being. I try to represent myself as much as a good person could. I stay around the positive people. ~ Boi-1da

Without denying that adaptation may be one of God's methods of operation, it may be definitely said, that an intelligent Master of the universe, in which we believe, has the power to prepare an earth to fit the needs of man; or fit man to meet the conditions of earth. If He were not able to do so, He would be inferior to His creatures who build houses for human comfort, and equip them with heating, freezing, and many other devices. The argument for adaptation, standing alone, requires chance as a creative force. That we do not and cannot believe. ~ John Andreas Widtsoe

I am a thing not new, I am as old As human nature. I am that which lurks, Ready to spring whenever a bar is loosed; The ancient trait which fights incessantly Against restraint, balks at the upward climb; The weight forever seeking to obey The law of downward pull; and I am more: The bitter fruit am I of planted seed; The resultant, the inevitable end Of evil forces and the powers of wrong. ~ James Weldon Johnson

A few people had always made lousy choices. But how had a preexisting human propensity for self-destructive behavior exploded into a plague? As Mark's real, much more complete story - the one he didn't tell Berens - proved, it wasn't the increased availability of a drug like heroin, though that was gas on the flames. Lancaster's drug problem predated heroin, OxyContin, Percs. The problem wasn't caused by drugs at all, or government handouts, or single-parent families. While addiction could be as individual as people, common themes included alienation and disconnection. * ~ Brian Alexander

My own show with Sterling Ruby, for example, seems like such a huge disconnection from Dior couture, but then I think, yeah, in both collections there was a very strong focus on the human hand and the actual work of people making garments. So in that sense, they were completely related. But I didn't realize that during the process. ~ Raf Simons

In the third epoch the divinity of man's creative nature is finally revealed and divine power becomes human power. ~ Nikolai Berdyaev

I have tried insofar as possible to avoid getting involved in the sordid complications of human beings. I have been afraid of being sucked down into their bottomless whirlpool. ~ Osamu Dazai

If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
His words, in His Bible. The Book of Genesis, chapter eleven
So our God, our all -powerful God got so scared He scattered the human race across the face of the earth, and shattered their language to heep His children apart.
An almighty God this insecure? Who pits his children against each other, to keep them weak. This is the God we're supposed to worship? ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Pope John Paul II brought hope to all corners of the world, to people of all faiths and backgrounds, with his powerful belief in the human spirit. ~ Jerry Costello

Our legal department was Stuart Dogs, one of the few fully human people on our payroll. He was a Cherokee from Oklahoma with a brutal legal mind and the enviable ability to simply not worry about weird shit that didn't concern him. ~ Misha Burnett

(People) can never attain fulfillment, or sense of meaning, unless it is shared, unless it pertains to other human beings. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

Ultimately, any system, any set of laws or procedures, can only be as effective as the individuals responsible for its implementation. If, owing to failures of personal integrity, a good system is misused, it can easily become a source of harm rather than a source of benefit. This is a general truth which applies to all fields of human activity, ~ Dalai Lama XIV

In a future time when most human thought has been accelerated by artificial intelligence and external memory can be shared on a universal matrix... GITS 2 ~ Masaki Yamada

Every man is his own Pygmalion, and spends his life fashioning himself. And in fashioning himself, for good or ill, he fashions the human race and its future. ~ I. F. Stone

All thinking is sorting, classifying. All perceiving relates to expectations and therefore to comparisons. When we say that from the air houses appear like toys to us, or human beings like ants, we mean, I suggest, that we are startled by the unfamiliar sight of a house that compares to the familiar sight of a toy on the nursery floor. We feel that but for our knowledge we might have been deceived and have almost mistaken the one for the other. Our guesses and methods of testing them have become somewhat unsettled, and we try to describe the experience by indicating possibilities which flitted through our minds. But, to repeat, there is no "objective" sense in which a human being can look "the size of an ant" simply because an ant crawling on our pillow will look gigantic in comparison with a man in the distance. In professor E.G. Boring's words, "Phenomenal size, like physical size is relative and has no meaning except as a relation between objects. ~ E.H. Gombrich

I have learned more about love, selflessness and human understanding from the people I have met in this great adventure in the world of AIDS than I ever did in the cutthroat, competitive world in which I spent my life. ~ Anthony Perkins

That human life depends upon resources, good soil, and governments with just procedures. ~ Noah Cicero

It is probably true quite generally that in the history of human thinking the most fruitful developments frequently take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet. These lines may have their roots in quite different parts of human nature, in different times or different cultural environments or different religious traditions: hence if they actually meet, that is, if they are at least so much related to each other that a real interaction can take place, then one may hope that new and interesting developments may follow. ~ Werner Heisenberg

The more sensitive the lunatic, the less able is he to resist this prying interest of the normal human being. I felt that Renée's change of key - to myself, I compared Renée to a sweet melody, a little flat despite its laborious harmonies - was approaching. ~ Colette

Business of all kinds, over the centuries, had atrophied certain sense receptors and areas of the human brain, so that for most of the fellows taking part, the present-day rituals were no more, and even maybe a little less, than hollow mummery. ~ Thomas Pynchon

Ending the slave trade was contrary to British economic interests. For all its limitations and hypocrisies - British slavery itself, of course, still continued to exist - I still think it was a great moment in human history. ~ Henry Louis Gates

The major flaw with human beings is that despite all our cleverness and ingenuity we both tell and believe lies. ~ Peter B. Lockhart

Everyone these days is concerned so much with privacy and forgets the value of human touch. We still need each other but are scared of how it might sound or appear to the other. ~ Gloria D. Gonsalves

But why at least? What a business it is, the human discourse. I ~ John Banville

The human imagination, in conjunction with technology, has become a force so potent that it really can no longer be unleashed on the surface of the planet with safety. ~ Terence McKenna

In scientific matters there was a common language and one standard of values; in moral and political problems there were many. ... Furthermore, in science there is a court of last resort, experiment, which is unavailable in human affairs. ~ Emilio G. Segre

Religion was created by insecure men to oppress women. Religion is the basis of all political ideas and it exempts the human being to find the "I" in them. ~ Mutabaruka