Human Life Quotes - Page 9

• Man has existed for about a million years. He has possessed writing for about 6,000 years, agriculture somewhat longer, but perhaps not much longer. Science, as a dominant factor in determining the belief of educated men, has existed for about 300 years; as a source of economic technique, for about 150 years. In this brief period it has proved itself an incredibly powerful revolutionary force. When we consider how recently it has risen to power, we find ourselves forced to believe that we are at the very beginning of its work in transforming human life.

  Bertrand Russell

  Powerful, Believe, Writing

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Impact of Science on Society”, p.1, Routledge

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• You, your families, your friends and your countries are to be exterminated by the common decision of a few brutal but powerful men. To please these men, all the private affections, all the public hopes, all that has been achieved in art, and knowledge and thought and all that might be achieved hereafter is to be wiped out forever. Our ruined lifeless planet will continue for countless ages to circle aimlessly round the sun unredeemed by the joys and loves, the occasional wisdom and the power to create beauty which have given value to human life.

  Bertrand Russell

  Country, Art, Powerful

  7 Copy quote

• As the Deity has given us Greeks all other blessings in moderation, so our moderation gives us a kind of wisdom which is timid, in all likelihood, and fit for common people, not one which is kingly and splendid. This wisdom, such as it is, observing that human life is ever subject to all sorts of vicissitudes, forbids us to be puffed up by the good things we have, or to admire a man's felicity while there is still time for it to change.

  Solon

  Men, Blessing, Giving

  "Solon". Book by Plutarch, ch. 27; translation by Bernadotte Perrin, 1497.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is a consolation of human life that the sick forget what it is like to feel well, or the miserable to be happy.

  Cyril Connolly

  Sick, Misery, Forget

  4 Copy quote

• Human life without some form of poetry is not human life but animal existence.

  Randall Jarrell

  Animal, Form, Existence

  "Poetry and the Age" by Randall Jarrell, Vintage paperback, (p. 22), 1955.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In the nature of things, I must soon lose sight of this sense of constant metamorphosis whose limits bound our human life.

  Julia Ward Howe

  Sight, Limits, Metamorphosis

  "Beyond the Veil". Essay in "In After Days: Thoughts on the Future Life", book by Henry James and William Dean Howells, 1910.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• What had really caused the women's movement was the additional years of human life. At the turn of the century women's life expectancy was forty-six; now it was nearly eighty. Our groping sense that we couldn't live all those years in terms of motherhood alone was "the problem that had no name." Realizing that it was not some freakish personal fault but our common problem as women had enabled us to take the first steps to change our lives.

  Betty Friedan

  Motherhood, Years, Names

  "The Fountain of Age". Book by Betty Friedan, Preface, 1993.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• What we are accustomed to decry as great social evils, will, for the most part, be found to be only the out-growth of our own perverted life; and though we may endeavor to cut them down and extirpate them by means of law, they will only spring up again with fresh luxuriance in some other form, unless the conditions of human life and character are radically improved.

  Samuel Smiles

  Spring, Character, Mean

  Samuel Smiles (2014). “Self-Help”, p.2, Cambridge University Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Art is the one form of human energy in the whole world, which really works for union, and destroys the barriers between man and man. It is the continual, unconscious replacement, however fleeting, of oneself by another; the real cement of human life; the everlasting refreshment and renewal. For, what is grievous, dompting, grim, about our lives is that we are shut up within ourselves, with an itch to get outside ourselves. And to be stolen away from ourselves by Art is a momentary relaxation from that itching, a minute's profound, and as it were secret, enfranchisement.

  John Galsworthy

  Art, Real, Men

  John Galsworthy (2008). “The Complete Essays of John Galsworthy: Easyread Super Large 20pt Edition”, p.338, ReadHowYouWant.com

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• The most evident quality of human life is its loneliness.

  Austin O'Malley

  Loneliness, Quality, Life Is

  8 Copy quote

• Whenever a man talks he lies, and so far as he talks to himself - that is to say, so far as he thinks, knowing that he thinks - he lies to himself. The only truth in human life is that which is physiological. Speech - this thing that they call a social product - was made for lying.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  Lying, Men, Thinking

  Miguel de Unamuno, Warner Fite (1928). “Mist: A Tragicomic Novel”, p.172, University of Illinois Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• When the record of any human life is set down, there are three pairs of eyes who see it in a different light. There is the life as I see it. as others see it, and as God sees it.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Eye, Light, Different

  Fulton J. Sheen (2009). “Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen”, p.1, Image

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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... how we enjoy ourselves... Yet it is an illusion that is constantly being undermined by change and death.

  Victoria Finlay

  Space, Trying, Next

  Victoria Finlay (2006). “Jewels: A Secret History”, p.343, Ballantine Books

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The notion that human life has greater value than any other form of life is both unjustifiable and arrogant.

  Wei Wu Wei

  Arrogant, Life Is, Form

  17 Copy quote

• I have seen that community and a close relationship with the land can enrich human life beyond all comparison with material wealth or technological sophistication. I have learned that another way is possible.

  Helena Norberg-Hodge

  Land, Community, Way

  Helena Norberg-Hodge (2017). “Ancient Futures, 3rd Edition”, p.172, Chelsea Green Publishing

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Because of lack of moral principle, human life becomes worthless. Moral principle, truthfulness, is a key factor. If we lose that, then there is no future.

  Dalai Lama

  Keys, Principles, Moral

  6 Copy quote

• Mistaken
  regard for what are believed to be divine laws and a sentimental belief in the sanctity of human
  life tend to prevent both the elimination of defective infants and the sterilization of such adults as
  are themselves of no value to the community. The laws of nature require the obliteration of the
  unfit and human life is valuable only when it is of use to the community or race.

  Madison Grant

  Law, Race, Community

  Madison Grant (1922). “The Passing of the Great Race: Or, The Racial Basis of European History”

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• In order to correctly define art, it is necessary, first of all, to cease to consider it as a means to pleasure and consider it as one of the conditions of human life. ...Reflecting on it in this way, we cannot fail to observe that art is one of the means of effective communication between people.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Art, Communication, Mean

  "What is Art?". Book by Leo Tolstoy, 1896.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The highest perfection of human life consists in the mind of man being detached from care, for the sake of God.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Men, Perfection, Mind

  Saint Thomas (Aquinas) (1956). “On the Truth of the Catholic Faith: pts. 1-2. Providence”

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• Where human life needs most sympathy, where usually it is the most barren, there it is that Christ is more likely to be found than anywhere else.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Jesus, Needs, Christ

  Henry Ward Beecher, William Drysdale (1887). “Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• That beauty which is meant by art is no mere accident of human life which people can take or leave, but a positive necessity of life if we are to live as nature meant us to, that is to say unless we are content to be less than men.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Men, People

  Oscar Wilde (2016). “Essays and Lectures”, p.86, Xist Publishing

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am pro-life, I believe human life begins at conception. I also believe that embryonic stem cell research should be encouraged and supported.

  Bill Frist

  Believe, Cells, Pro Life

  "Bush ally to back stem cell bill". news.bbc.co.uk. July 29, 2005.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Law intends indeed to do service to human life, but it is not able when men do not choose to accept her services; for it is only in those who are obedient to her that she displays her special virtue.

  Epictetus

  Men, Law, Special

  Epictetus (2012). “Enchiridion”, p.54, Courier Corporation

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• As a brave man goes into fire or flood or pestilence to save a human life, so a generous mind follows after truth and love, and is not frightened from the pursuit by danger or toil or obloquy.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Men, Fire, Brave

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Human life [is] ... a process of filling in time until the arrival of death, or Santa Claus, with very little choice, if any, of what kind of business one is going to transact during the long wait.

  Eric Berne

  Life, Long, Waiting

  'Games People Play' (1964) ch. 18

  27 Copy quote

  Show source