Human Systems Quotes

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 is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist. All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. I honor my tradition, I walk through my tradition, but I don't think my tradition defines God, I think it only points me to God. ~ John Shelby Spong

When God does the big things, the little people get drawn in too. Human systems often forget that, but God doesn't. ~ N. T. Wright

Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do; and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Although science is not easy in complex human systems, we cannot afford to throw our hands in the air and give up. It may take decades, but it is a game worth playing and winning. ~ Paul Gibbons

If we seek solace in the prisons of the distant past
Security in human systems we're told will always always last
Emotions are the sail and blind faith is the mast
Without the breath of real freedom we're getting nowhere fast.
(History Will Teach Us Nothing) ~ Sting

Blessed are they who, in the calm moments of retirement, of worship, of prayer, of silent waiting, have found that to "the weary and heavy laden " Christ can indeed give rest; that compared with the heavy bondage of the world or the exactions of human systems, His yoke indeed is easy, and His burden is light. ~ Arthur Penrhyn Stanley

We were beginning to understand why, in pre-anaesthetic days, the Bible had stipulated that suicide was a sin. Anything other than the prospect of eternal damnation, and the human race would probably have done away with itself at the first sign of the dentist. ~ Kate Griffin

Human beings get no practice
at staying. We have no special limbs for it. Once we commit
to being still, darling, it's all we ever do. ~ Catie Rosemurgy

A nuclear-weapons armed Iran is not in anyone's human-rights interests. That is a direct threat to the lives and the livelihoods and the stability not only of the region but beyond. ~ Hillary Clinton

No other human being, no woman, no poem or music, book, or painting can replace alcohol in its power to give man the illusion of real creation. ~ Marguerite Duras

The self, the place where we live, is a place of illusion. Goodness is connected with the attempt to see the unself, to see and to respond to the real world in the light of a virtuous consciousness. This is the non-metaphysical meaning of the idea of transcendence to which philosophers have so constantly resorted in their explanations of goodness. 'Good is a transcendent reality' means that virtue is the attempt to pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is. It is an empirical fact about human nature that this attempt cannot be entirely successful. ~ Iris Murdoch

Give yourself freedom to grow through love, as love is the most natural direction for humans to grow, just as every tree grows upward towards the sky. Don't try to control the way that love moves, as any attempt will be futile, for love grows like the branches, wildly growing by the laws of nature, rather than by human rational. Let love grow by her own nature. ~ Forrest Curran

Another kind of transcendence myth has been dramatization of human life in terms of conflict and vindication. This focuses upon the situation of oppression and the struggle for liberation. It is a short-circuited transcendence when the struggle against oppression becomes an end in itself, the focal point of all meaning. There is an inherent contradiction in the idea that those devoted to a cause have found their whole meaning in the struggle, so that the desired victory becomes implicitly an undesirable meaninglessness. Such a truncated vision is one of the pitfalls of theologies of the oppressed. Sometimes black theology, for example that of James Cone, resounds with a cry for vengeance and is fiercely biblical and patriarchal. It transcends religion as a crutch (the separation and return of much old-fashioned Negro spirituality) but tends to settle for being religion as a gun. Tailored to fit only the situation of racial oppression, it inspires a will to vindication but leaves unexplored other dimensions of liberation. It does not get beyond the sexist models internalized by the self and controlling society - models that are at the root of racism and that perpetuate it. The Black God and the Black Messiah apparently are merely the same patriarchs after a pigmentation operation - their behavior unaltered. ~ Mary Daly

Is that the ultimate need? To secure some agent to act as a salve, a bandage, a cover-up, concealer over the black eye, as opposed to facing the issue head on. Nobody wants to address the fist. We'd all much rather take something for the pain and make it all go away. ~ Katandra Jackson Nunnally

Sarah: "Not bad. You look almost human."
Lena: "Thanks."
Sarah: "I said almost."
Lena: "Well, then, almost thanks. ~ Lauren Oliver

One doesn't have to be a Marxist to be awed by the scale and success of early-20th-cent ury efforts to transform strong-willed human beings into docile employees. ~ Gary Hamel

The transience of human feeling is nothing short of ludicrous. My mercurial fluctuations in the course of a single evening made me feel as if I had a character made pf chewing gum. I had fallen into the ugly depths of self-pity, a terrain just above the even more hideous lowlands of despair. Then, easily distracted twit that I am, I had, soon after, found myself on maternal heights, where I had practically swooned with pleasure as I bobbed and fondled the borrowed homunculus next door. I had eaten well, drunk too much wine, and embraced a young woman I hardly knew. In short, I had thoroughly enjoyed myself and had every intention of doing so again. [p. 59] ~ Siri Hustvedt

The classic business story is much like the classic human story. There is rise and fall; the overcoming of great odds, the upholding of principles despite the cost, questions of rivalry and succession, and even the possibility of descent into madness. ~ Mark Helprin

It seems that every life form on this planet strives toward its maximum potential ... except human beings. A tree does not grow to half its potential size and then say, "l guess that will do." A tree will drive its roots as deep as possible. It will soak up as much nourishment as it can, stretch as high and as wide as nature will allow, and then look down as if to remind us of how much each of us could become if we would only do all that we can. ~ Jim Rohn

Usually, we hate the noise but sometimes we feel empty without that noise! ~ Nikhil Karke

It is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is in all this design, cause, and effect up to an Ultimate Cause-a Fabricator of all things, from matter and motion-their Preserver and Regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms-and their Regenerator into new and other forms. ~ Thomas Jefferson

A heartbeat. The first and last sound of a human life. ~ Anna Smith Spark

To me to write well is to battle stereotypes. To write well is to create three-dimensional characters that seem human. ~ David Henry Hwang

I personally believe breathatarianism to be the highest mode of human living [ ... ] breathing in pure air, absorbing the direct light and energies of the sun, bathing in pure water [ ... ] I look at the obituaries every morning and ain't nobody listed but you eaters. ~ Dick Gregory

The grand thing about the human mind is that it can turn its own tables and see meaninglessness as ultimate meaning. ~ John Cage

The divine order of human society from primeval days was based upon certain rights conveyed by the Creator. The right of position, next to God; the right to procreate, in order to be in charge; the right to procure, in order to survive. These rights of necessity required man to maintain a meaningful and submissive relation to God who bestowed them. ~ Dr. J. Otis Yoder

As image and apprehension are in organic unity, so, for a Christian, are human body and human soul. ~ C.S. Lewis

Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general--but to choose to use the vague expression "human rights" 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. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Many are the thyrsus-bearers, but few are the mystics. ~ Plato

You're not a human till you're in my phone book. There. My hat is now in the political ring. ~ Bill Hicks

An attack upon our ability to tell stories is not just censorship - it is a crime against our nature as human beings. ~ Salman Rushdie

We all pretend, we all hide things, so why not take the concept to an extreme? That is the basic idea for the character of Dexter. Pretend to be human, while quietly and carefully living out the life of a monster on the side. ~ Jeff Lindsay

I've been in navigation systems, robotics, restaurants, communications systems, touch screens, and now I'm back in games. I like to say I have five-year A.D.D. ~ Nolan Bushnell

Who are you? Consciousness that has become conscious of itself. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Rhythm is the soul of life. The whole universe revolves in rhythm. Everything and every human action revolves in rhythm." - Babatunde Olatunji ~ Jim Donovan

Even in comedies, you've got to feel safe for things to just happen in a way that is natural and free, and recognizable as human. ~ Richard Gere

Whenever you meet anybody, it is a holy encounter. The primary event is the energy field of presence between you and the other human being that arises. You enjoy it. There is deep joy in the meeting. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Surely it isn't illegal here to complain about young people these days? How cruel. I had thought it a basic part of human nature, one of the few universally practiced human customs. ~ Ann Leckie

The resiliency of the human spirit to recover and flourish over devastating adversity has been well documented. No matter how overwhelming the loss or destructive the setback, we rise. No matter how grueling this is, it's no different. We will get through this... and we will rise. ~ Steve Maraboli

There is some kind of a sweet innocence in being human- in not having to be just happy or just sad- in the nature of being able to be both broken and whole, at the same time. ~ C. JoyBell C.

Everything is amazing right now and nobody's happy. Like, in my lifetime the changes in the world have been incredible… Flying is the worst because people come back from flights and they tell you…a horror story…They're like: "It was the worst day of my life. First of all, we didn't board for twenty minutes, and then we get on the plane and they made us sit there on the runway…" Oh really, what happened next? Did you fly through the air incredibly, like a bird? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight you non-contributing zero?! You're flying! It's amazing! Everybody on every plane should just constantly be going: "Oh my God! Wow!" You're flying! You're sitting in a chair, in the sky! ~ Louis Ck

To hint to unimaginative people of a horror beyond all human conception - a horror of houses and blocks and cities leprous and cancerous with evil dragged from elder worlds - would be merely to invite a padded cell instead of restful rustication, and Malone was a man of sense despite his mysticism. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

Nature's imagination is so boundless compared to our own meager human imagination. ~ James Cameron

As a human race, we lost and we are still losing a lot of humanity in the process of progress ~ Tracy Sillato

The scientific method," Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote, "is nothing but the normal working of the human mind." That is to say, when the mind is working; that is to say further, when it is engaged in corrrecting its mistakes.
Taking this point of view, we may conclude that science is not physics, biology, or chemistry
is not even a "subject"
but a moral imperative drawn from a larger narrative whose purpose is to give perspective, balance, and humility to learning. ~ Neil Postman

Human hearts are full of strife. It's a fallen world, my dears. We can only do our best to establish safe havens where we can. ~ Sarah McCoy

It didn't matter who liked whom, or on what side a man might find himself, because they were all on the side of a world of very definite finite resources, and they would all suffer terrifying consequences if they drained to bare bones the world that had conceived the life of the human race, fostered and nurtured that life, which now threatened to contaminate and destroy - ~ Alan Shepard

First, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us. Therefore, to share with us what he has received from the Father, he had to become ours and to dwell within us. ~ John Calvin

Evolution sceptic: Professor Haldane, even given the billions of years that you say were available for evolution, I simply cannot believe it is possible to go from a single cell to a complicated human body, with its trillions of cells organized into bones and muscles and nerves, a heart that pumps without ceasing for decades, miles and miles of blood vessels and kidney tubules, and a brain capable of thinking and talking and feeling. JBS: But madam, you did it yourself. And it only took you nine months. ~ Richard Dawkins

The power-hungry wanter their followers to believe that heaven was a place to which some people - and only people - went after death, a place that could be reached by those who had the approval of their organizations. So not even the perfected spirits were able to restore the wholeness of truth, because of interference by the human ego. ~ Benjamin Hoff

Everyone who has observed human behavior for more than thirty continuous seconds seems to have noticed that people are strongly, perhaps even primarily, perhaps even single-mindedly, motivated to feel happy. ~ Daniel Gilbert