Being Human Quotes - Page 6

• Interpretation is a task that we repeatedly have to take up and start again from the beginning, Sisyphus-like. But, as Camus said, we must always imagine Sisyphus happy, and this is not so difficult when it's a matter of texts that reveal important truths about being human.

  George Pattison

  Important, Tasks, Matter

  "Towards hope". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. July 18, 2014.

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• Depression, suffering and anger are all part of being human.

  Janet Fitch

  Suffering, Humans

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• Our thoughts, our language, are always at a distance from whatever they're trying to describe. We're dreamers and - since we only have one life, and if we screw up we can get in a world of trouble - we're very intense dreamers. That's the beauty and the terror of being human beings: We just have these symbolic languages, these dreams, and that's all it ever is. There is no American or Frenchhistory. There are all these dreams that are floating around. People construct them and fight with them and criticize them, and the world goes on. I don't think the stars pay much attention.

  John Edgar Wideman

  Dream, Distance, Fighting

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• The audience will make you feel like a demigod. But when you leave the stage, get back to being human.

  David Coverdale

  Demigods, Stage, Feels

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• Being human signifies, for each one of us, belonging to a class, a society, a country, a continent and a civilization; and for us European earth-dwellers, the adventure played out in the heart of the New World signifies in the first place that it was not our world and that we bear responsibility for the crime of its destruction.

  Claude Levi-Strauss

  Country, Heart, Adventure

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• Being creative is at the heart of being human and of all cultural progress.

  Ken Robinson

  Heart, Creative, Progress

  Ken Robinson Ph.D., Lou Aronica (2015). “Creative Schools: The Grassroots Revolution That's Transforming Education”, p.94, Penguin

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• Stop being Jews and start being human beings.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Jew, Humans, Human Beings

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• Peace is something that we can bring about if we can actually learn to wake up a bit more as individuals and a lot more as a species; if we can learn to be fully what we actually already are; to reside in the inherent potential of what is possible for us, being human.

  Jon Kabat-Zinn

  Wake Up, Individual, Inherent

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• Looking at the world today, we might easily forget that the main purpose of our life - you could call it the heart of being human - is to be happy. All of us share the same wish, and the same right, to seek happiness and avoid suffering. Even following a spiritual path, or the religious life, is a quest for happiness.

  Sogyal Rinpoche

  Spiritual, Religious, Heart

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• I think there is a tendency for people to get rigid and caught up in their beliefs of what is right and wrong, and they lose sight of humanity. Being human has to come first before right or wrong.

  Matisyahu

  Thinking, Sight, People

  "Q&A:Singer Matisyahu exorcises his demons in 'the possession'". Interview with Robert Desalvo, www.mtv.com. August 30, 2012.

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• In film, there are two ways of including human beings. One is depicting human beings. Another is to create a film form which, in itself, has all the qualities of being human: tenderness, observation, fear, relaxation, the sense of stepping into the world and pulling back, expansion, contraction, changing, softening, tenderness of heart. The first is a form of theater and the latter is a form of poetry.

  Nathaniel Dorsky

  Heart, Two, Relaxation

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• I think that the whole idea of ‘no regrets’ was always a silly idea to me, because of course I regret all the places I went wrong, but that’s what creating anything, and being human, is all about. Of course if I could go back and knew what I know now, I absolutely would do it differently, I’d do it the right way, but part of being human is that we can’t go back, we can only hope that if we come across that moment again, we’ll do it the right way.

  Jesse Lacey

  Regret, Silly, Thinking

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• Human nature must not be altered in order to have a problem-free world. Man is not just a problem-solving being, as behaviorists would wish us to believe, but a problem-recognizing and -accepting being.

  Allan Bloom

  Believe, Men, Order

  "The Closing of the American Mind". Book by Allan Bloom, p. 229, 1987.

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• Often what we take for a kindness is just someone acting in their capacity as a human being.

  Robert Breault

  Kindness, Acting, Capacity

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• Ramana Maharshi and Rumi would agree: the joy of being human is in uncovering the core we already are, the treasure buried in the ruin.

  Coleman Barks

  Joy, Treasure, Ruins

  Coleman Barks (2010). “The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems”, p.11, Harper Collins

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• Realizing our society as it is, without theology dogmatically telling us how we should react to it, and being humane toward that society, that is all that we're sure of.

  Vidal Sassoon

  Our Society, Realizing, Should

  "Vital Vidal". Interview with Matt Smith, archives.sfweekly.com. October 15, 1997.

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• The music can tell people everything they need to know about being human beings. It's not my information, it's not mine. I didn't make it. I just discovered it.

  Jeff Buckley

  People, Needs, Information

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• No, no, it's not all random, if it really was all random, the universe would abandon us completely. and the universe doesn't. it takes care of its most fragile creations in ways we can't see. like with parents who adore you blindly. and a big sister who feels guilty for being human over you. and a little gravelly-voiced kid whose friends have left him over you. and even a pink-haired girl who carries your picture in her wallet. maybe it is a lottery, but the universe makes it all even out in the end. the universe takes care of all its birds.

  R. J. Palacio

  Girl, Kids, Bird

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• Africans believe in something that is difficult to render in English. We call it ubuntu, botho. It means the essence of being human. You know when it is there and when it is absent. It speaks about humaneness, gentleness, hospitality, putting yourself out on behalf of others, being vulnerable. It embraces compassion and toughness. It recognizes that my humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

  Desmond Tutu

  Believe, Mean, Compassion

  Desmond Tutu, Naomi Tutu (1989). “The words of Desmond Tutu”, Newmarket Pr

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• One of the most powerful aspects of drumming and the reason people have done it since the beginning of being human is that it changes people's consciousness. Through rhythmic repetition of ritual sounds, the body, the brain and the nervous system are energized and transformed. When a group of people play a rhythm for an extended period of time, their brain waves become entrained to the rhythm and they have a shared brain wave state. The longer the drumming goes on, the more powerful the entrainment becomes. It's really the oldest holy communion.

  Layne Redmond

  Powerful, Play, People

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• There are times when you have to choose between being human and having good taste.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Taste, Human Nature, Humans

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• There's a lot of kids who look up to me, and that's humbling. Because being human, I don't want to fail them. But being human, I will. That's why it's so important to have your faith put in something that won't fail you. And that means the Son of God's kingdom.

  Si Robertson

  Mean, Kids, Son

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• Stories are the only thing that I can be bothered with. Its the only way that I can do anything, even if Im quite useless. Its the only area in being human where I could be a little useful.

  Alice Englert

  Stories, Useless, Littles

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• As women's leadership qualities come to play a more dominant role in the public sphere, their particular aptitudes for long-term negotiating, analytic listening, and creating an ambiance in which people work with zest and spirit will help reconcile the split between the ideals of being efficient and being humane. This integration of female values is already producing a more collaborative kind of leadership, and changing the very ideal of what strong leadership actually is.

  Sally Helgesen

  Leadership, Strong, Creating

  Sally Helgesen (2011). “The Female Advantage: Women's Ways of Leadership”, p.249, Crown Business

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• A big sister who cries over being human over you. A gravelly voiced kid who's friends left him over you. And a pink-haired girl who keeps your picture in her wallet.

  R. J. Palacio

  Girl, Kids, Big Sister

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