Human Life Quotes

Few have heard of Fra Luca Pacioli, the inventor of double-entry bookkeeping; but he has probably had much more influence on human life than has Dante or Michelangelo. ~ Herbert J. Muller

Only the middle distance and what may be called the remoter foreground are strictly human. When we look very near or very far, man either vanishes altogether or loses his primacy. The astronomer looks even further afield than the Sung painter and sees even less of human life. At the other end of the scale the physicist, the chemist, the physiologist pursue the close-up – the cellular close-up, the molecular, the atomic and subatomic. Of that which, at twenty feet, even at arm's length, looked and sounded like a human being no trace remains.
Something analogous happens to the myopic artist and the happy lover. In the nuptial embrace personality is melted down; the individual (it is the recurrent theme of Lawrence's poems and novels) ceases to be himself and becomes a part of the vast impersonal universe.
And so it is with the artist who chooses to use his eyes at the near point. In his work humanity loses its importance, even disappears completely. Instead of men and women playing their fantastic tricks before high heaven, we are asked to consider the lilies, to meditate on the unearthly beauty of 'mere things,' when isolated from their utilitarian context and rendered as they are, in and for themselves. Alternatively (or, at an earlier stage of artistic development, exclusively), the nonhuman world of the near-point is rendered in patterns. These patterns are abstracted for the most part from leaves and flowers – the rose, the lotus, the acanthus, palm, papyrus – an ~ Aldous Huxley

The best aphorisms are ... portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feeling. They furnish the largest amount of intellectual stimulus and nutriment in the smallest compass. About every weak point in human nature, or vicious spot in human life, there is deposited a crystallization of warning and protective proverbs. ~ William Rounseville Alger

The life of every citizen is becoming a business. This, it seems to me, is one of the worst interpretations of the meaning of human life history has ever seen. Man's life is not a business. ~ Saul Bellow

Throughout history, independent minds have carried mankind forward. Whether they identified how to make fire or manufacture tools, develop rational philosophy or create man-glorifying art, pioneer scientific knowledge or invent the electric light, independent thinkers have created the goods on which human life and prosperity depend. ~ Andrew Bernstein

The opium of the people in the present world is perhaps not so much religion as it is accepted boredom. Such a world is at the mercy, it must be known, of those who provide at least the semblance of an escape from boredom. Human life aspires to the passions, and again encounters its exigencies. ~ Georges Bataille

Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends. And whoever has sole control of the means must also determine which ends are to be served, which values are to be rated higher and which lower-in short, what men should believe and strive for. ~ Friedrich Hayek

That's the thing about human life
there is no control group, no way to ever know how any of us would have turned out if any variables had been changed. ~ Daniel Keyes

Unlike my brother, I had no respect for authority. Very early on, Uncle Georg had told me the truth about teachers: that they were moral cowards who took out on their pupils all the frustrations they could not take out on their wives. When I was very young Uncle Georg impressed upon me that among the educated classes teachers were the basest and most dangerous people, on a par with judges, who were the lowest form of human life. Teachers and judges, he said, are the meanest slaves of the state--remember that. He was right, as I have discovered not just hundreds but thousands of times. No teacher and no judge can be trusted as far as you can throw him. Without scruple or compunction they daily destroy many of the existences that are thrown upon their mercy, being motivated by base caprice and a desire to avenge themselves for their miserable, twisted lives--and they are actually paid for doing so. The supposed objectivity of teachers and judges is a piece of shabby mendacity, Uncle Georg said--and he was right. Talking to a teacher we soon discover that he is a destructive individual with whom no one and nothing is safe, and the same is true when we talk to a judge. ~ Thomas Bernhard

What if the healing of the world utterly depends on the ten-thousand invisible kindnesses we offer simply and quietly throughout the pilgrimage of each human life? ~ Wayne Muller

Human life, I realized, got progressively worse as you got older, by the sound of things. You arrived, with baby feet and hands and infinite happiness, and then the happiness slowly evaporated as your feet and hands grew bigger. And then, from the teenage years onward, happiness was something you could lose your grip of, and once it started to slip, it gained mass. It was as if the knowledge that it could slip was the thing that made it more difficult to hold, no matter how big your feet and hands were. ~ Matt Haig

Now, I will be the first to admit that human life was not worth much to my generation in the Iron Age, but Flidais and her kind are forever rooted in Bronze Age morality, which goes something like this: If it pleases me, then it is good and I want more; If it displeases me, then it must be destroyed as soon as possible, but preferably in a way that enhances my reputation so that I can achieve immortality in the songs of bards. ~ Kevin Hearne

It might have been my human side clamoring for blood, or my alien side looking for a chance to exercise strategic dominance over a lesser life form. Either way, I was going to win. ~ Stacey Kade

I want to see us to explore outer space. But I want to do it safely, without the loss of human life, and democratically: where is the free-wheeling debate on this question? Only one force can stop this mission: the will of the American people. They have not been asked. Do they want to endanger their loved ones, their industry with this launch? One force is more powerful than plutonium, the spirit of the American people united. ~ Michio Kaku

Sometimes all it takes is a little watering everyday and a sunny day to follow, that's how weeds become flowers and new dawns rise - why would it be any less then for a human life? ~ Nikki Rowe

I find it impossible to subscribe to a philosophy that believes that the destruction of human life is a legitimate solution to a problem that is mostly social, economic and psychological, ... In reality, most women 'choose' abortion because they believe they have no other choice. ~ Patricia Heaton

To vindicate the sanctity of human life by taking it is an outrage upon reason. The spectacle of a human being dangling at the end of a gallows-rope is a degradation of humanity. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

I don't want to forget what it feels like to have someone touch me. I don't want to forget what it feels like to touch other people. ~ A.E.M.

OK.So beside the possible extended lietime you live a normal human life? You what ... you have an apartment in LA? A life? A car? A girlfriend?" she threw in.
"Yes.Yes.Yes.Yes.No."
Ari grunted."We're back to one word answers?"
"Yes. ~ Samantha Young

In a dispassionate comparison of the relative values of human and robotic spaceflight, the only surviving motivation for continuing human spaceflight is the ideology of adventure. But only a tiny number of Earth's six billion inhabitants are direct participants. For the rest of us, the adventure is vicarious and akin to that of watching a science fiction movie. At the end of the day, I ask myself whether the huge national commitment of technical talent to human spaceflight and the ever-present potential for the loss of precious human life are really justifiable. ~ James Van Allen

How short is human life! the very breath
Which frames my words accelerates my death. ~ Hannah More

The individual human life span is brief and, in the long view, inconsequential,' he said. 'We are children one day and signing out the next. Therefore, in the brief moment we are allotted, live reasonably, be compassionate, and when your hour comes, accept it without histrionics. Never forget that your handful of hours is a supreme gift. Use them wisely, do not fritter them away, and remember that your life is not an entitlement. ~ Jack McDevitt

Our economic system and our planetary system are now at war. Or, more accurately, our economy is at war with many forms of life on earth, including human life. What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity's use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it's not the laws of nature. ~ Naomi Klein

All the rarest hues of human life take radiance and are rainbowed out in tears. ~ Gerald Massey

Alan said he'd known what to expect from de St Jorre from the kick-off, since in his preface this cretin speaks of banned books being burnt in the same way heretics were burnt by religious tyrants. Alan was quick to denounce the cruel inhumanity of liberal fuckwits who wantonly blurred the lines between human life and products of a literary culture that had yet to escape its commodity form. ~ Stewart Home

I preach that odd defiant melancholy that sees the dreadful loneliness of the human soul and the pitiful disaster of human life as ever redeemable and redeemed by compassion, friendship and love. ~ John Derbyshire

Food has become a cause of disease rather than a guardian of health in the modern world. Once regarded as the central pillar of life and the most effective of all medicines, food is now a major contributing factor in cancer, heart disease, arthritis , mental illness, and many other pathological conditions. Virtually monopolized by agricultural and industrial cartels, public food supplies, are processed and packaged to produce profits and prolong shelf life, not to promote health and prolong human life. It seems incredible that public health authorities permit the unrestricted use of hydrogenated vegetable oils, refined sugar, chemical preservatives, toxic pesticides, and over 5,000 other artificial food additives that have repeatedly been proven to cause cancer, impair immunity, and otherwise erode human health, while restricting the medical use of nutrients, herbs, acupuncture, fasting, and other traditional therapies that have been shown to prevent and cure the very diseases caused by chemical contaminants in food and water. ~ Daniel Reid

Once we acquired the power to destroy ourselves, the very notion of human life had been altered; even the air we breathed was contaminated with the stench of death. Sachs was hardly the first person to come up with this idea, but considering what happened to him nine days ago, there's a certain eeriness to the obsession, as if it were a kind of deadly pun, a mixed-up word that took root inside him and proliferated beyond his control. ~ Paul Auster

Growing up I often wondered how the world would be today if, since the beginning of human life, every person acted as I did. ~ Criss Jami

I am strongly pro-life, and have fought to protect the rights of the unborn my entire career. I will continue to fight for this cause because I value the sanctity of all human life. ~ Rob Bishop

One's 'life' is 'fractured'; he does not even know what he is living for. What is the essence of the human life? It is that one can attain whatever life form one wants, or he can attain ultimate liberation (moksha) if he wants moksha. ~ Dada Bhagwan

I had only to remember that centuries before, men fell in battle for the daughter of Troy, that passions carried greater weight than decorum. It took so little to prove that human life and property are devastatingly temporary. All she had to do was lie down for a prince. They burned the city to the ground. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

Human life is inexplicable, and still without meaning: a fool may decide its fate. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The Gospel of life must be proclaimed and human life defended in all places and all times. ~ Pope John Paul II

Human life moves only in one direction - toward disease, damage, and death. The best you can hope for is to remain stagnant or, in certain cases, return to a previous condition when things weren't as bad as they've become for you. ~ Thomas Ligotti

The Music of Negro religion is that plaintive rhythmic melody, with its touching minor cadences, which, despite caricature and defilement, still remains the most original and beautiful expression of human life and longing yet born on American soil. ~ W.E.B. Du Bois

After having had so many dealings under God's hand, Jacob was undoubtedly tired of human life. He was weary of supplanting, cheating, struggling, and fighting. ~ Witness Lee

I am not a human being enjoying a spiritual life, I am a spiritual being enjoying a human life. ~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

The individualism of current economic theory is manifest in the purely self-interested behavior it generally assumes. It has no real place for fairness, malevolence, and benevolence, nor for the preservation of human life or any other moral concern. ~ Herman E. Daly

Every issue that we deal with in this country has a moral component to it. And so, to divorce a moral component to the debt burden we're leaving the next generation, the tax structure to how we spend our money in Washington, and how we - you know, how we value human life - I mean, all of those things, to me interrelate. They're not - they're not separate issues. ~ Rick Santorum

Human life is fragile: we live in the space between one breath and the next. We often try to maintain an illusion of permanence, through what we do, say, wear, buy, and how we enjoy ourselves and who and how we love. Yet it is an illusion that is constantly being undermined by change and death. We can use diamonds in whatever way we like. They are empty things, pretty as water, yet within them - if we want to see it - there is blood, dust, love, curses, and suffering. There is desire to make someone happy, there is admiration, there is ostentation ... and there is a company's profit curve. ~ Victoria Finlay

I believe that peace is not merely an absence of war but the nurture of human life, and that in time this nurture would do away with war as a natural process. ~ Jane Addams

...all the great issues in human life make their appearance on Jane Austen's narrow stage. True, it's only the stage of petty domestic circumstance, but that, after all, is the only stage where most of us are likely to meet them. ~ Ian Watt

Nothing in human life, least of all in religion, is ever right until it is beautiful. ~ Harry Emerson Fosdick

No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy. ~ John Ruskin

If the driving force behind bettering human life is our insatiable desire to escape mortality what will we do when we succeed? ~ Tim J. Brooks

It takes so little, so infinitely little, for a person to cross the border beyond which everything loses meaning: love, convictions, faith, history. Human life
and herein lies its secret
takes place in the immediate proximity of that border, even in direct contact with it; it is not miles away, but a fraction of an inch. ~ Milan Kundera

Of all the endless variety of phenomena which nature presents to our senses, there is none that fills our minds with greater wonder than that inconceivably complex movement which, in its entirety, we designate as human life; Its mysterious origin is veiled in the forever impenetrable mist of the past, its character is rendered incomprehensible by its infinite intricacy, and its destination is hidden in the unfathomable depths of the future ... ~ Nikola Tesla

God has blessed both the believer and non-believer equally with time ~ Sunday Adelaja

Narrative and metaphysics alike become flimsy and frivolous if they venture too far from the home base of all humanism - the single, simple human life that we all more or less lead, with its crude elementals of nurture and appetite, love and competition, the sunshine of well-being and the inevitable night of death. We each live this tale. Fiction has no reason to be embarrassed about telling the same story again and again, since we all, with infinite variations, experience the same story. ~ John Updike

Genius is a will-o'-the-wisp if it lacks a solid foundation of perseverence and fanatical tenacity. This is the most important thing in all of human life ... ~ Adolf Hitler

Jazz music celebrates life! Human life; the range of it, the absurdity of it, the ignorance of it, the greatness of it, the intelligence of it, the sexuality of it, the profundity of it. And it deals with it. In all of its ... It deals with it! ~ Wynton Marsalis

But the life that no longer trust another human being and no longer forms ties to the political community is not a human life any longer. ~ Martha C. Nussbaum

The spiritual life and especially its expression in mystical experience, is not so much a matter of striving for heights of mystical union between the soul and God who is utterly different from us. It is rather more a matter of attending to God's presence with us and responding to God's presence by being altogether present to the divine presence which is always near. The long history of Christian spirituality has to do with the various ways of responding to God's presence and participating ever more fully in the divine life altogether present in human life, history, the world and the church. ~ Michael Downey

Nothing can alter the character of God. In the course of a human life, tastes and outlook and temper may change radically: a kind, equable man may turn bitter and crotchety: a man of good-will may grow cynical and callous. But nothing of this sort happens to the Creator. He never becomes less truthful, or merciful, or just, or good, than He used to be. ~ J.I. Packer

Life is busy. There are daily concerns and obligations that have to be met, and to take time to think about how precious and special a human life is that you only get one, and that every wasted minute is lost. You can't get it back. ~ Rush Limbaugh

Men have always been a prey to distractions, which arethe original sins of the mind; but never before today has an attempt been made to organize and exploit distractions, to make of them, because of their economic importance, the core and vital center of human life, to idealize them as the highest manifestations of mental activity. Ours is an age of systematized irrelevances, and the imbecile within us has become one of the Titans, upon whose shoulders rests the weight of the social and economic system ~ Aldous Huxley

To live a very long time ... is supposed to be the desired object of all human life. But it is not. The main thing is to ride the flood tide ... How glorious it is to create! For those few moments of a lifetime when the stream is running full and deep: those are the justification for everything. ~ James Dickey

Art is not to do with the practical side of making a living. It's to live a fuller human life. ~ Henry Moore

We have, all of us, invented things that others have beat us to: walking upright, a certain sort of sandwich involving avocado and an onion roll, a minty sweet cocktail, ourselves, romantic love, human life. ~ Elizabeth McCracken

Unless the distant goals of meaning, greatness, and destiny are addressed, we can't make an intelligent decision about what to do tomorrow morning
much less set strategy for a company or for a human life. Nothing is more practical than for people to deepen themselves. The more you understand the human condition, the more effective you are as a businessperson. Human depth makes business sense. ~ Peter Koestenbaum

My greatest concern is that Mitt Romney seldom addresses the social issues publicly ... I'm referring to the sanctity of human life, the traditional definition of marriage, and religious liberty. ~ James Dobson

A useful definition of liberty is obtained only by seeking the principle of liberty in the main business of human life, that is to say, in the process by which men educate their responses and learn to control their environment. ~ Walter Lippmann

Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning. ~ Samuel Butler

Hitler had charm, loved children, charmed women. But in political respects he would stop at nothing. In other respects he had soft and touching emotions. Just as he could be terribly brutal in following up political ideas, so he could be humanely sensitive for the feelings of individuals, for the individual human life. ~ Wilhelm Keitel

It seems an easy choice - sacrifice the tree for a human life - until one learns that three trees must be destroyed for each patient treated. Suddenly we must confront some tough questions. How important are the medical needs of future generations? ~ Al Gore

The lack of mystery in our modern life is our downfall and our poverty. A human life is worth as much as the respect it holds for the mystery. We retain the child in us to the extent that we honor the mystery. Therefore, children have open, wide-awake eyes, because they know that they are surrounded by the mystery. They are not yet finished with this world; they still don't know how to struggle along and avoid the mystery, as we do. We destroy the mystery because we sense that here we reach the boundary of our being, because we want to be lord over everything and have it at our disposal, and that's just what we cannot do with the mystery…. Living without mystery means knowing nothing of the mystery of our own life, nothing of the mystery of another person, nothing of the mystery of the world; it means passing over our own hidden qualities and those of others and the world. It means remaining on the surface, taking the world seriously only to the extent that it can be calculated and exploited, and not going beyond the world of calculation and exploitation. Living without mystery means not seeing the crucial processes of life at all and even denying them. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The human body is not necessarily a human being. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Reduction is the least observed of the three R's of environmentalism ('reduce, reuse, recycle') but it's probably the most important. Reuse and recycling are sensible measures in an over-productive society, but why not neutralise the problem of overproduction at the source? Instead of choosing to act efficiently at the end of a product's life cycle by reusing or recycling it, we should stop said product from being made in the first place by eliminating consumer demand for it. If the rainforests must be burned and the oceans poisoned to cater for the essentials of human life, then so be it and we'll call it an inevitable pity; but for that to happen in the name of games consoles, cell phones and chocolate fountains is a wanton and avoidable shame. ~ Robert Wringham

In this image (watching sensual murder through a peephole) Lorrain embodies the criminal delight of decadent art. The watcher who records the crimes (both the artist and consumer of art) is constructed as marginal, powerless to act, and so exculpated from action, passive subject of a complex pleasure, condemning and yet enjoying suffering imposed on others, and condemning himself for his own enjoyment. In this masochistic celebration of disempowerment, the sharpest pleasure recorded is that of the death of some important part of humanity. The dignity of human life is the ultimate victim of Lorrain's art, thrown away on a welter of delighted self-disgust. ~ Jennifer Birkett

Of course, everyone had heard of the Ten Commandments, but these things, so much subtler, so embedded in the stuff of everyday human life and human interactions--this was the ultimate goal of all Jewish life: justice, kindness, charity, Holiness. ~ Naomi Ragen

And so, Navani painted a prayer onto the stones themselves, sending her attendants for more ink. She paced off the size of the glyph as she continued its border, making it enormous, spreading her ink onto the tan rocks.
Soldiers gathered around, Sadeas stepping from his canopy, watching her paint, her back to the sun as she crawled on the ground and furiously dipped her brushpen into the ink jars. What was a prayer, if not creation? Making something where nothing existed. Creating a wish out of despair, a plea out of anguish. Bowing one's back before the Almighty, and forming humility from the empty pride of a human life.
Something from nothing. True creation.
Her tears mixed with the the ink. She went through four jars. She crawled, holding her safehand to the ground, brushing the stones and smearing ink on her cheeks when she wiped the tears. When she finally finished, she knelt back before a glyph twenty paces long, emblazoned as if in blood. The wet ink reflected sunlight, and she fired it with a candle; the ink was made to burn whether wet or dry. The flames burned across the length of the prayer, killing it and sending its soul to the Almighty. ~ Brandon Sanderson

I dream ... of a world where we can commit our social resources to the development of human life and not to its destruction ~ Benazir Bhutto

It is scandalous the way some scientists accept uncritically some of the most ridiculous speculations, such as the plurality of worlds, the opinion that spacetime has more than 4 dimensions, that particles can move faster than light, or that human life can be prolonged indefinitely. ~ Mario Bunge

Our hearts and minds desire clarity. We like to have a clear picture of a situation, a clear view of how things fit together, and clear insight into our own and the world's problems. But just as in nature colors and shapes mingle without clear-cut distinctions, human life doesn't offer the clarity we are looking for. The borders between love and hate, evil and good, beauty and ugliness, heroism and cowardice, care and neglect, guilt and blamelessness are mostly vague, ambiguous, and hard to discern. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

It's fun to get together and have something good to eat at least once a day. That's what human life is all about - enjoying things. ~ Julia Child

Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent; something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeem the world. Here, there was the taint of of deepest sin in the most sacred of quality of human life, working such effect, that the world was only the darker for this woman's beauty, and the more lost for the infant that she had borne. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

I try to build the things so that they're fairly indestructible. I've learned from my mistakes and some of those units, even if human life disappears from the planet, will still be recognizable a thousand years from now abandoned somewhere in the woods. ~ John Lindsay

The time has come for us to think of Christianity in a different way. Instead of thinking of God entering human life from outside in the person of Jesus, we have to begin to see human life evolving to the place where it opens itself into an experience of divinity. ~ John Shelby Spong

Gradually we come to admit that Shakespeare understands a greater extent and variety of human life than Dante; but that Dante understands deeper degrees of degradation and higher degrees of exaltation. ~ T. S. Eliot

Photographs capture only the moments; but since every moment is very important in human life, every photo is also very important! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

You wanted to feel alive, right? It doesn't matter if you're monster or human. Living hurts. ~ Victoria Schwab

The child, who is decked with prince's robes and who has jewelled chains round his neck loses all pleasure in his play; his dress hampers him at every step. In fear that it may be frayed, or stained with dust he keeps himself from the world, and is afraid even to move. Mother, it is no gain, thy bondage of finery, if it keep one shut off from the healthful dust of the earth, if it rob one of the right of entrance to the great fair of common human life. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

This is not to say that the deepest concerns of the faithful, whether moderate or extreme, are trivial or misguided. There is no denying that most of us have emotional and spiritual needs that are now addressed - however obliquely and at a terrible price - by mainstream religion. And these are needs that a mere understanding of our world, scientific or otherwise, will never fulfill. There is clearly a sacred dimension to our existence, and coming to terms with it could well be the highest purpose of human life. But we will find that it requires no faith in untestable propositions - Jesus was born of a virgin; the Koran is the word of God - for us to do this. ~ Sam Harris

There is a strong religious commitment to the sanctity of human life, but, paradoxically, some of the most fervent protectors of microscopic stem cells are the most ardent proponents of the death penalty. ~ Jimmy Carter

The more you add value to yourself, the more you discover that you could be much more creative than you are ~ Sunday Adelaja

It is only the pathetic shortness of human life that gives each individual a sense of the permanence of his background. The land we all walk upon has been under the sea many times, and it will be submerged again. ~ Jacquetta Hawkes

In order for us to live within this finely balanced constellation of complex systems, in order for the Earth to show resilience and last for centuries into the future as an environment of human life, we have to embody three things: a respect for Earth systems and their details in balance; a commitment to discovering and sharing the truth and only the truth at all times about all things; and a commitment to doing no harm. ~ Robert David Steele

It is only within a free society that the crucial moral features of human life can be protected and preserved ~ Tibor R. Machan

I suppose I am interested in the variety of human life - how people live. I am most interested in individuals and how they respond to challenges or to difficulties or just to each other. I am curious about people. ~ Claire Denis

The truth is that I've spent all my life with my binoculars trained on the Maybe Islands, a pristine place of fantasy that is really no better than the razor-rocks of misery. Maybe if I had stayed on the farm ... maybe if I hadn't gone with Spike ... maybe if I could have lived more peaceably ... maybe if I'd met the right person years ago, maybe if I hadn't done this, or that or, its cousin, the other. Maybe, baby, the promised land was there and I missed it. Look at it glittering in the light. But the truth is I am inventing the maybe. I can only make the choices I make, so why torture myself with what I might have done, when all I can handle is what I have done. The Maybe Islands are hostile to human life. ~ Jeanette Winterson

Gardening is not trivial. If you believe that it is, closely examine why you feel that way. You may discover that this attitude has been forced upon you by mass media and the crass culture it creates and maintains. The fact is, gardening is just the opposite - it is, or should be, a central, basic expression of human life. ~ Andrew Weil

Inherent in every living thing is an insatiable hunger, the innate desire to express life by freely and fully being "what" it was uniquely created to be. To personalize this, consider the possibility that there was a time when you were a "what" before you were a "who." If you can wrap your mind around that possibility, then, the question to explore is, what were you before you became a who - and why did you become the who you uniquely are when there are so many other "who"s on the planet you might have been? While this may seem like a bit of a paradoxi- cal tongue twister, it is the quintessential question that requires exploration if you are to follow your true North Star back to your point of origin, where you'll find your authentic self waiting to weave itself into the fabric of your human life today and every day. ~ Dennis Merritt Jones

This is not (as you have charged) to paint religion with a broad brush. I am very quick to distinguish gradations of bad ideas; some clearly have no consequences at all (or at least not yet); some put civilization itself in peril. The problem with dogmatism, however, is that one can never quite predict how terrible its costs will be. To use one of my favorite examples, consider the Christian dogma that human life begins at the moment of conception: On its face, this belief seems likely to only improve our world. After all, it is the very quintessence of a life-affirming doctrine.

Enter embryonic stem-cell research. Suddenly, this "life begins at the moment of conception" business becomes the chief impediment to medical progress. Who would have thought that such an innocuous idea could unnecessarily prolong the agony of tens of millions of people? This is the problem with dogmatism, no matter how seemingly benign: it is unresponsive to reality. Dogmatism is a failure of cognition (as well as a commitment to such failure); it is the state of being closed to new evidence and new arguments. And this frame of mind is rightly despised in every area of culture, on every subject, except where it goes by the name of "religious faith." In this guise, parading its most grotesque faults as virtues, it is granted a special dispensation, even in the pages of Nature. ~ Sam Harris

Some people still make promises and keep those they make. When they do, they help make life around them more stably human. ~ Lewis B. Smedes

Salary is the compensation you get for mortgaging your life ~ Sunday Adelaja

But the characteristic that is truly special about our species ... [is] our ability to model our world and understand both it and where we fit into its overall scheme ... ~ Arthur C. Clarke

Civilization must be based on life. We should never forget that human life was created in and for millions of centuries, was nourished by primitive wildness. We cannot separate ourselves from this ancestral background. ~ Charles Lindbergh

On the whole, I think the Darwinian theory of evolution, at least with the additional insights of modern genetics, gives us a fairly coherent account of the evolution of human life on earth. At the same time, I believe that karma can have a central role in understanding the origination of what Buddhism calls "sentience," through the media of energy and consciousness. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

The Oxford Classical Dictionary firmly states: "No word in either Greek or Latin corresponds to the English 'religion' or 'religious.' "6 The idea of religion as an essentially personal and systematic pursuit was entirely absent from classical Greece, Japan, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran, China, and India.7 Nor does the Hebrew Bible have any abstract concept of religion; and the Talmudic rabbis would have found it impossible to express what they meant by faith in a single word or even in a formula, since the Talmud was expressly designed to bring the whole of human life into the ambit of the sacred.8 ~ Karen Armstrong