Human Life Quotes - Page 34

• At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.

  Anthony Kennedy

  Life, Freedom, Heart

  "Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833". A joint opinion coauthored with Justices Souter and O'Connor, caselaw.findlaw.com. 1992.

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• This is what is sad when one contemplates human life, that so many live out their lives in quiet lostness...they live, as it were, away from themselves and vanish like shadows. Their immortal souls are blown away, and they are not disquieted by the question of its immortality, because they are already disintegrated before they die.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Life, Soul, Shadow

  "Either/Or" by Soren Kierkegaard, ‎Howard Vincent Hong, ‎Edna Hatlestad Hong, Princeton University Press, Vol. 1, (p. 168), 2013.

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• The car as we know it is on the way out. To a large extent, I deplore its passing, for as a basically old-fashioned machine, it enshrines a basically old-fashioned idea: freedom. In terms of pollution, noise and human life, the price of that freedom may be high, but perhaps the car, by the very muddle and confusion it causes, may be holding back the remorseless spread of the regimented, electronic society.

  J. G. Ballard

  Life, Ideas, Confusion

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• Human life in common is only made possible when a majority comes together which is stronger than any separate individual and which remains united against all separate individuals. The power of this community is then set up as right in opposition to the power of the individual, which is condemned as brute force.

  Sigmund Freud

  Life, Community, Together

  Sigmund Freud, James Strachey, Anna Freud, Carrie Lee Rothgeb (1961). “The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud”

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• One of the fundamental reasons why so many doctors become cynical and disillusioned is precisely because, when the abstract idealism has worn thin, they are uncertain about the value of the actual lives of the patients they are treating. This is not because they are callous or personally inhuman: it is because they live in and accept a society which is incapable of knowing what a human life is worth.

  John Berger

  Life, Doctors, Knowing

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• Civilization...is a matter of imponderables, of delight in the thins of the mind, of love of beauty, of honor, grace, courtesy, delicate feeling. Where imponderables, are things of first importance, there is the height of civilization, and, if at the same time, the power of art exists unimpaired, human life has reached a level seldom attained and very seldom surpassed.

  Edith Hamilton

  Love, Art, Civilization

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• Unsatisfied desire is the characteristic feature of human life. That is the common fact out of which both pessimism and optimism are constructed. Dwell on the impossibility of ever getting a state of complete and permanent satisfaction with what you have, and you become a pessimist. Dwell on the opportunity for endless growth and conquest which this same fact makes possible, and you become an optimist.

  William DeWitt Hyde

  Opportunity, Optimism, Growth

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• A birthday:-and now a day that rose
  With much of hope, with meaning rife-
  A thoughtful day from dawn to close:
  The middle day of human life.

  Jean Ingelow

  Birthday, Thoughtful, Rose

  Jean Ingelow (1871). “The Monitions of the Unseen: And Poems of Love and Childhood”, p.33

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• People who have no respect for human life or for freedom or justice have taken over this beautiful country of ours. It will be up to the American people to take it back.

  Howard Zinn

  Beautiful, Country, Taken

  Howard Zinn (2012). “The Historic Unfulfilled Promise”, p.110, City Lights Publishers

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• Art is the way to the absolute and to the essence of human life. The aim of art is not the one-sided promotion of spirit, soul and senses, but the opening of all human capacities – thought, feeling, will – to the life rhythm of the world of nature. So will the voiceless voice be heard and the self be brought into harmony with it.

  Bruce Lee

  Art, Philosophical, Self

  Bruce Lee (1975). “Tao of Jeet Kune Do”, Black Belt Communications Incorporated

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• The twentieth century has exhibited a barbarism and lack of respect for human life on a massive scale just about unknown before

  Ron Silver

  Respect, Century, Scales

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• 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

  Philosophy, Believe, Reality

  "Patricia Heaton receives mixed responses for pro-life tweet". www.foxnews.com. May 19, 2016.

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• My films are expressive of a culture that has had the possibility of attaining material fulfillment while at the same time finding itself unable to accomplish the simple business of conducting human lives. We have been sold a bill of goods as a substitute for life. What is needed is reassurance in human emotions; a re-evaluation of our emotional capacities.

  John Cassavetes

  Simple, Emotional, Culture

  "Savages: Silence Yourself" by Lindsay Zoladz, pitchfork.com. May 6, 2013.

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• Memory, faith, and the natural world as both witness to the cycle of human life and healer to a questioning heart are at the core of this lovely and lyrical collection of poems. The weather changes, people come and go from cities and towns, babies are born, grow up and depart from their parents’ arms, but still, the countryside and its rituals sustain the people and creatures who know how to read the signs of the seasons. In these pages, Laura Grace Weldon shares those signs with us; her poems are the fruit of a wonderful harvest.

  Eleanor Lerman

  Baby, Growing Up, Memories

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• 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

  Loneliness, Compassion, Soul

  "The Guillotining of John Derbyshire". Interview with Alex Kurtagic, www.amren.com. April 12, 2012.

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• What is saving my life now is the conviction that there is no spiritual treasure to be found apart from the bodily experiences of human life on earth. My life depends on engaging the most ordinary physical activities with the most exquisite attention I can give them. My life depends on ignoring all touted distinctions between the secular and the sacred, the physical and the spiritual, the body and the soul. What is saving my life now is becoming more fully human, trusting that there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world.

  Barbara Brown Taylor

  Spiritual, Real, Giving

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• Military cemeteries in every corner of the world are silent testimony to the failure of national leaders to sanctify human life.

  Yitzhak Rabin

  Military, Leader, World

  Yitzhak Rabin (1996). “The Rabin Memoirs”, p.423, Univ of California Press

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• The land is like poetry:   it is inexplicably coherent, it is transcendent in its meaning, and it has the power to elevate a consideration of human life.

  Barry Lopez

  Land, Consideration, Humans

  Barry Lopez (2013). “Arctic Dreams”, p.356, Open Road Media

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• Your life is a kind of laboratory where you're constantly experimenting with your own higher knowing, always increasing your capacity to design the life you choose. Human beings must create; it's hardwired. The question is, are you consciously creating or only sleepwalking through your human life?

  David Emerald Womeldorff

  Life, Creating, Knowing

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• Want and boredom are indeed the twin poles of human life.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Blessing, Boredom, Want

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2004). “On the Suffering of the World”, p.11, Penguin UK

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• The great subversive works of children's literature suggest that there are other views of human life besides those of the shopping mall and the corporation. They mock current assumptions and express the imaginative, unconventional, noncommercial view of the world in its simplest and purest form. They appeal to the imaginative, questioning, rebellious child within all of us, renew our instinctive energy, and act as a force for change. This is why such literature is worthy of our attention and will endure long after more conventional tales have been forgotten.

  Alison Lurie

  Children, Views, Shopping

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• The decision to give an indicative date for a return is a mistake. It degrades the process. It degrades human life.

  David Trimble

  Mistake, Giving, Decision

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• I speak as a man of the world to men of the world; and I say to you, Search the Scriptures! The Bible is the book of all others, to be read at all ages, and in all conditions of human life; not to be read once or twice or thrice through, and then laid aside, but to be read in small portions of one or two chapters every day, and never to be intermitted, unless by some overruling necessity.

  John Quincy Adams

  Life, Book, Men

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• We don't all dig Shakespeare uniformly, or even 'Little Red Riding Hood.' The understanding of art depends finally upon one's willingness to extend one's humanity and one's knowledge of human life.

  Ralph Ellison

  Art, Understanding, Humanity

  Ralph Ellison, Maryemma Graham, Amritjit Singh (1995). “Conversations with Ralph Ellison”, p.13, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life -- the unborn -- without diminishing the value of all human life . . . there is no cause more important.

  Ronald Reagan

  Important, Causes, Categories

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