Human Conditions Quotes

Good fantasy fiction: ... explores real human conditions through fantastic metaphors which universalize the characters' individual experiences to speak personally to us all. ~ Laura Resnick

a man can be human only under human conditions." The purpose of the state is to preserve these conditions, so that its citizens need not see personal survival as their only goal. ~ Timothy Snyder

Reading is, at its best, not an escape; it is genuine experience. A novel is not a monologue, but a conversation, a collaboration between writer and reader, an invaluable exchange of human conditions. ~ Jonathan Evison

We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life "hidden with Christ in God" in our everyday human conditions. ~ Oswald Chambers

Anarchism is no patent solution for all human problems, no Utopia of a perfect social order, as it has often been called, since on principle it rejects all absolute schemes and concepts. It does not believe in any absolute truth, or in definite final goals for human development, but in an unlimited perfectibility of social arrangements and human conditions which are always straining after higher forms of expression, and to which for this reason one can assign no definite terminus nor set any fixed goal. ~ Rudolf Rocker

For so many, death is a liberation from intolerable human conditions. ~ Robert Ludlum

the human condition's like an audience whose members are always surprised when they're required to become actors. ~ Louis Armand

And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once. To find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions. Facing the blind death stone alone, with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head. ~ Krakauer Jon

[To the cultures of Asia and the continent of Africa] it is the Western impact which has stirred up the winds of change and set the processes of modernization in motion. Education brought not only the idea of equality but also another belief which we used to take for granted in the West-the idea of progress, the idea that science and technology can be used to better human conditions. In ancient society, men tended to believe themselves fortunate if tomorrow was not worse than today and anyway, there was little they could do about it. ~ Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson Of Lodsworth

But in our wholeness, we became overly proud. In our pride, we neglected to worship the gods. The mighty Zeus punished us for our neglect by cutting all the double-headed, eight-limbed, perfectly contented humans in half, thereby creating a world of cruelly severed one-headed, two-armed, two-legged miserable creatures. In this moment of mass amputation, Zeus inflicted on mankind that most painful of human conditions: the dull and constant sense that we are not quite whole. For the rest of time, humans would be born sensing that there was some missing part - a lost half, which we love almost more than we love ourselves - and that this missing part was out there someplace, spinning through the universe in the form of another person. We would also be born believing that if only we searched relentlessly enough, we might someday find that vanished half, that other soul. Through union with the other, we would recomplete our original form, never to experience loneliness again.
This is the singular fantasy of human intimacy: that one plus one will somehow, someday, equal two. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

The most important journey of our lives is doing good for the world, especially working for the upliftment of human conditions, human values, human dignity and human rights. ~ Amit Ray

The king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions; his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. ~ William Shakespeare

Health and happiness are the two most precious and elusive of human conditions. At their core, they are one and the same. Both are a function of balance. ~ Victor Shamas

The sea's only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong. Now, I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head ... ~ Primo Levi

I venerate with emotion everything that comes from the heart when it is simple, silent and confident. It is a sensual pleasure, subtle and touching, to try to reach characters through the varied outer appearances of human conditions. ~ Odilon Redon

There is too much emphasis on technical perfection nowadays, and not enough on what music is actually about - irony, joy, human suffering, love. ~ Mstislav Rostropovich

Have compassion for your humanity and your flaws. You're human and you're going to make mistakes. Look at yourself through the eyes of a loving parent ... ~ Lauren Mackler

When the bread basket comes to the table and I have a bite, people are like, "Oh, you eat bread?" I say, "Oh, my God, of course I eat bread. I'm human." ~ Eva Mendes

And I see a lot of us, the producers, who write the books and make the books, accepting this
letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant, and tell us what to publish, what to write.
Books aren't just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable
but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Flirtation ... is a graceful salute to sex, a small impermanent spark between one human being and another, between a man and a woman not in need of fire. ~ Marya Mannes

Every great work makes the human face more admirable and richer, and that is its whole secret. ~ Albert Camus

Unless one is a religious fundamentalist and believes that man was created in the image and likeness of God, it is foolish to believe that human beings are exempt from biological classification and the laws of evolution that apply to all other life forms. ~ J. Philippe Rushton

One must die lovable (if one can). You are moved by this sentence, especially by the words in parentheses, which demonstrate a rare sensitivity of spirit, you feel, a hard-won understanding of how difficult it is to be lovable, especially for someone who is old, who is sinking into decrepitude and must be cared for by others. If one can. There is probably no greater human achievement than to be lovable at the end, ~ Paul Auster

I turn people into human beings by not making them into gods. ~ Imogen Cunningham

Our minds can go no further. The human imagination is capable of no further expression of beauty than the carved owl of Athene, the archaic, marble serpent, the arrogant selfish head of the Acropolis Apollo. ~ Hilda Doolittle

Every good piece of art ... involves first essentially the evidence of human skill, and the formation of an actually beautiful thing by it. ~ John Ruskin

The real end of prayer is not so much to get this or that single desire granted, as to put human life into full and joyful conformity with the will of God. ~ Charles Bent

The fully human person is in deep and meaningful contact with the world outside of him. He not only listens to himself, but to the voices of the world. The breadth of his own individual experience is infinitely multiplied through a sensitive empathy with others. He suffers with the suffering, rejoices with the joyful. He is born again in every springtime, feels the impact of the great mysteries of life: birth, growth, love, suffering, death. His heart skips along with the 'young lovers', and he knows something of the exhilaration that is in them. He also knows the ghetto's philosophy of despair, the loneliness of suffering without relief, and the bell never tolls without tolling in some strange way for him. ~ John Joseph Powell

If you can be absolutely comfortable with not knowing who you are, then what's left is who you are
the Being behind the human, a field of pure potentiality rather than something that is already defined. ~ Eckhart Tolle

The Beauty of It If all I have is Now, where will I look for Joy? Without hope for the future, without hope that things will change, with no hope of finding what's been lost, and no hope of restoring the past, with only the risk to crack open all that has hardened about me, what will I do with what I have? At first, this might seem scary or sad, but as a tired swimmer comes ashore surprised to find pearls washing through his legs, I lift my tired head again and again to find all I need is right where I am. But being human, I stray and dream of lives other than my own, and soon I am busy wanting something else, somewhere else, someone else; busy imagining something just out of reach to strive for. It leads me to say if you are unhappy or in pain, nothing will remove these surfaces. But acceptance and a strong heart will crack them like a shell, exposing a softness that has always been, exposing a soft thing waiting to take form. It glows. I think it is the one spirit we all share. ~ Mark Nepo

No peace can be lasting unless the humans become wise enough to need no borders, which can happen only if you all stop feeling threatened by your own kind and start fostering a sense of genuine trust for each other. I would rather be killed by you, the human, my own kind, than be killed by a disease. There is bliss in being killed by your own people. Once you recognize this simple revelation in your heart, then only can there be peace in the world. This doesn't mean that you are giving permission to your fellow human to kill you for no reason, rather you are showing in practice the absurd extent of your trust upon that person. Then it becomes extremely hard for the other person to see you as an enemy. ~ Abhijit Naskar

If there is anybody I detest, it is weak-minded sentimentalists-all those melancholy people who, out of an excess of sympathy for others, miss the thrill of their own essence and drift through life without identity, like a human fog, feeling sorry for everyone. ~ John Cheever

In fact, he argued, human beings need loyalty. It does not necessarily produce happiness, and can even be painful, but we all require devotion to something more than ourselves for our lives to be endurable. Without it, we have only our desires to guide us, and they are fleeting, capricious, and insatiable. They provide, ultimately, only torment. ~ Atul Gawande

Bolshevism began with the transformation of the human face into a grimace. ~ Lev Nussimbaum

It was not the long, bleak sunny days of spring, nor yet was it that time was reconciling her to the town of her habitation. It was that in it she had found a human interest. ~ Elizabeth Gaskell

Do you believe in the concept of forgiveness? In the possibility of redemption? In the value of every human life, no matter how tainted or corrupted?" "Fuck no," Bull said. "I think it is entirely possible to go so far into the red you can't ever balance the books." "Sounds ~ James S.A. Corey

When people speak of ideas that revolutionize society, they do but express the fact that within the old society, the elements of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence. ~ Karl Marx

The Charter of the United Nations expresses the noblest aspirations of man: abjuration of force in the settlement of disputes between states; the assurance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion; the safeguarding of international peace and security. ~ Haile Selassie

The reality of our life is in love, in solidarity," said a tall, soft-eyed girl. "Love is the true condition of human life."
Bedap shook his head. "No. Shev's right," he said. "Love's just one of the ways through, and it can go wrong, and miss. Pain never misses. But therefore we don't have much choice about enduring it! We will, whether we want to or not. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

In this way, writers are indeed, as Henry Miller suggested, traitors to the human race. We may turn a light on inequity, injustice, and oppression from time to time, but we regularly kill what we love in insidious fashion. ~ Anthony Bourdain

You will never understand." "You may be right. But it is my human imperative to try. ~ Rick Yancey

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

Quantum machine learning promises to discover the optimal network topologies and hyperparameters automatically without human intervention. ~ Amit Ray

If you fill the atmosphere with toxins, then you really cannot be surprised if the solar radiation transmission through it becomes toxic to humans. ~ Steven Magee

Ability for stupendous toil is lodged in every human spirit, a grand gift from the God of nature; but only the persevering worker knows what this latent power is able to achieve. ~ Elias Lyman Magoon

Human comedy is more profound than tragedy. In tragedy we die and it is very sad. In comedy we avoid death, and it is even sadder. ~ Jennifer Stone

Human nature is to live with a "someday" mindset and think life will work itself out. How's that working out for everybody? ~ Hal Elrod

Mother, recently I have discovered the one way in which human beings differ completely from other animals. Man has, I know, language, knowledge, principles, and social order, but don't all the other animals have them too, granted the difference of degree? Perhaps the animals even have religions. Man boasts of being the lord of all creation, but it would seem as if essentially he does not differ in the least from other animals. But, Mother, there was one way I thought of. Perhaps you won't understand. It's a faculty absolutely unique to man - having secrets. Can you see what I mean? ~ Osamu Dazai

No system has ever as yet existed which did not in some form involve the exploitation of some human beings for the advantage of others. ~ John Dewey

By listening to his language of his locality the poet begins to learn his craft. It is his function to lift, by use of imagination and the language he hears, the material conditions and appearances of his environment to the sphere of the intelligence where they will have new currency. ~ William Carlos Williams

The only real distinction at this dangerous moment in human history and cosmic development has nothing to do with medals and ribbons. Not to fall asleep is distinguished. Everything else is mere popcorn. ~ Saul Bellow

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, or George or Bill Bailey -
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter -
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum -
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover -
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Eff ~ T.S. Eliot

The triumph of the Confederacy ... would be a victory for the powers of evil which would give courage to the enemies of progress and damp the sprits of its friends all over the civilized world ... [The American Civil War] is destined to be a turning point, for good or evil, of the course of human affairs. ~ John Stuart Mill

There is no distance greater than the thickness of a human skull."

2000 Miles for Dinner, Marie Claire ~ Peter Birkenhead

Human beings manifesting the fullness of who they were created to be would be inviting and correspondingly transformational in a manner almost mysterious. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

I guess I'm more interested in why people feel they have to believe in God. Why can't it just be science? Science is wondrous. The night sky? Amazing. The inside of a human cell? Incredible. Something that tells us we're born bad and that people use to justify all their petty prejudices and awfulness? I dunno. I guess I believe in science. Science is enough. ~ Nicola Yoon