Human Life Quotes - Page 39

• Genius is a sovereign power; it forms schools; it lays hold on the spirits of men, with irresistible might; and it exercises an immeasurable influence on the whole condition of human life. This sovereignty of genius is a gift of God, possessed only by his grace. It is subject to no one and is responsible to him alone who has granted it this ascendancy.

  Abraham Kuyper

  School, Exercise, Men

  Abraham Kuyper (2007). “Lectures on Calvinism”, p.95, Cosimo, Inc.

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• What is the importance of human lives? Is it their continuing alive for so many years like animals in a menagerie? The value of a man cannot be judged by the number of diseases from which he escapes. The value of a man is in his human qualities: in his character, in his conscience, in the nobility and magnanimity, of his soul. Torturing animals to prolong human life has separated science from the most important thing that life has produced - the human conscience.

  John Cowper Powys

  Character, Animal, Men

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• Those who try to make room for sex as mere casual enjoyment pay the penalty: they become shallow. At any rate the talk that reflects and commends this attitude is always shallow. They dishonour their own bodies; holding cheap what is naturally connected with the origination of human life.

  G. E. M. Anscombe

  Sex, Attitude, Trying

  G.E.M. Anscombe (2012). “Faith in a Hard Ground: Essays on Religion, Philosophy and Ethics by G.E.M. Anscombe”, p.208, Andrews UK Limited

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• Of the gladdest moments in human life...is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands.

  Richard Francis Burton

  Inspirational, Travel, Journey

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• I have come to the conclusion that the most important element in human life is faith.

  Rose Kennedy

  Important, Elements, Life Is

  Stanley Weintraub, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, John McDonald Burke, Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward (1974). “Whistler”

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• What can the redwoods tell us about ourselves? Well, I think they can tell us something about human time. The flickering, transitory quality of human time and the brevity of human life - the necessity to love.

  Richard Preston

  Motivation, Inspiration, Thinking

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• The Yogic sages say that all the pain of a human life is caused by words, as is all the joy. We create words to define our experience and those words bring attendant emotions that jerk us around like dogs on a leash. We get seduced by our own mantras (I'm a failure I'm lonely I'm a failure I'm lonely) and we become monuments to them. To stop talking for a while, then, is to attempt to strip away the power of words, to stop choking ourselves with words, to liberate ourselves from our suffocating mantras.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Dog, Lonely, Pain

  Elizabeth Gilbert (2010). “The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love; Committed; The Last American Man; Stern Men & Pilgrims”, p.304, A&C Black

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• This was Shakespeare's form ; Who walk'd in every path of human life, Felt every passion ; and to all mankind Doth now, will ever, that experience yield Which his own genius only could acquire.

  Mark Akenside

  Passion, Yield, Genius

  Mark Akenside, Mrs. Barbauld (Anna Letitia) (1808). “The Works of Mark Akenside, M.D.: In Verse and Prose : with His Life, a Fac Simile of His Hand-writing, and an Essay on the First Poem”

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• If human lives be,
  for their very brevity, sweet,
  then beast lives are sweeter still...

  Isobelle Carmody

  Sweet, Life Is, Beast

  Isobelle Carmody (2007). “Winter Door: The Gateway Trilogy Book Two”, p.9, Random House Books for Young Readers

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• 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

  Kindness, Healing, What If

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• Buddhism is a path of supreme optimism, for one of its basic tenets is that no human life or experience is to be wasted or forgotten, but all should be transformed into a source of wisdom and compassionate living.

  Taitetsu Unno

  Buddhism, Optimism, Path

  Taitetsu Unno (2002). “Shin Buddhism: Bits of Rubble Turn into Gold”, p.17, Harmony

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• The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.

  George Orwell

  Running, War, Intelligent

  George Orwell, A.M. Heath (2003). “Animal Farm and 1984”, p.283, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Many of you would like to take evil and step on it, destroying it like you would a bug. Squish, smash! Begone into another reality! This practice of eliminating human life because it is perceived as evil does you no good. In the end your history and experience are filled with war of one kind or another; humans fighting one another for the right to speak their truth and share their perception.And one human or another is always wanting to suppress someone else's ideas, someone else's thinking.

  Barbara Marciniak

  War, Fighting, Reality

  Barbara Marciniak (1998). “Family of Light: Pleiadian Tales and Lessons in Living”, p.70, Inner Traditions / Bear & Co

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• The aim of human life is to know thyself. Think for yourself. Question authority. Think with your friends. Create, create new realities. Philosophy is a team sport. Philosophy is the ultimate, the ultimate aphrodisiac pleasure. Learning how to operate your brain, learning how to operate your mind, learning how to redesign chaos

  Timothy Leary

  Sports, Philosophy, Team

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• Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is a great matter. Art is an organ of human life, transmitting man's reasonable perception into feeling.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Art, Men, Feelings

  Leo Tolstoy (2016). “WHAT IS ART? & WHEREIN IS TRUTH IN ART? (Meditations on Aesthetics & Literature): On the Significance of Science and Art, Shakespeare and the Drama, The Works of Guy De Maupassant, A. Stockham'sTokology, Amiel's Diary, S. T. Seménov's Peasant Stories, Stop and Think!...”, p.175, e-artnow

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• Human life runs its course in the metamorphosis between receiving and giving.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Running, Giving, Receiving

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• The greatest privilege of a human life is to become a
  midwife to the awakening of the Soul in another person.

  Plato

  Soul, Awakening, Privilege

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• I love energy. I love it. And I pursue it, and I want more of it. Physical and mental energy, to me, are the greatest riches of human life. And TM is like a free account of an endless amount of it.

  Jerry Seinfeld

  Energy, Want, Riches

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• The Arts and Sciences, essential to the prosperity of the State and to the ornament of human life, have a primary claim to the encouragement of every lover of his country and mankind.

  George Washington

  Country, Encouragement, Art

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1839). “The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts”, p.467

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• I am one of those who believe that spiritual progress is a rule of human life, but the approach to perfection is slow and painful. If a woman elevates herself in one respect and is retarded in another, it is because the rough trail that leads to the mountain peak is not free of ambushes of thieves and lairs of wolves.

  Khalil Gibran

  Spiritual, Believe, Mountain Peaks

  Khalil Gibran (2007). “Kahlil Gibran: Masterpieces”

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• Every time a man is begotten and born, the clock of human life is wound up anew to repeat once more its same old tune that has already been played innumerable times, movement by movement and measure by measure, with insignificant variations.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Men, Tunes, Variation

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2012). “The World as Will and Representation”, p.322, Courier Corporation

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• 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

  Stupid, Humorous, Sacrifice

  Al Gore (2013). “Earth in the Balance: Forging a New Common Purpose”, p.119, Routledge

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• O beautiful human life! Tears come to my eyes as I think of it. So beautiful, so inexpressibly beautiful! The song should never be silent, the dance never still, the laugh should sound like water which runs forever.

  Richard Jefferies

  Life, Beautiful, Running

  Richard Jefferies (1883). “The Story of My Heart: My Autobiography”

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• To get any reason out of the mass of incongruity we call human life, we have to transcend our reason, but we must do it scientifically, slowly, by regular practice, and we must cast off all superstition.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Practice, Superstitions, Reason

  Swami Vivekananda (2016). “Raja Yoga: Conquering the Internal Nature”, p.52, Advaita Ashrama

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• Human life, from the cradle to the grave, is a school. At every period of his existence man wants a teacher. His pilgrimage upon earth is but a term of childhood, in which he is to be educated for the manhood of a brighter world. As the child must be educated for manhood upon earth, so the man must be educated upon earth, for heaven; and finally that where the foundation is not laid in time, the superstructure can not rise for eternity.

  John Quincy Adams

  Education, Teacher, Children

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