Human Spirit Quotes - Page 5

• Only the human spirit can act with volition and consciously change itself; it is the only thing in all creation that is not entirely at the mercy of forces outside itself.

  Dean Koontz

  Spirit, Mercy, Creation

  Dean Koontz (2007). “Sole Survivor: A Novel”, p.402, Bantam

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we reconstructed human spirituality painstakingly, we would end up with a mangnificent tree whose branches go in so many directions, yet all trying to touch the heavens.

  Henryk Skolimowski

  Tree, Heaven, Trying

  8 Copy quote

• Aeschylus and Plato are remembered today long after the triumphs of Imperial Athens are gone. Dante outlived the ambitions of thirteenth century Florence. Goethe stands serenely above the politics of Germany, and I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over cities, we too will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.

  John F. Kennedy

  Plato, Ambition, Carpe Diem

  9 Copy quote

• I am proud to be a Christian. I believe not only as a Christian, but as a scientist as well. A wireless device can deliver a message through the wilderness. In prayer the human spirit can send invisible waves to eternity, waves that achieve their goal in front of God.

  Guglielmo Marconi

  Christian, Prayer, Believe

  129 Copy quote

• It has always seemed to me that the social order was implicit in the very nature of things, and required nothing more from the human spirit than care in arranging the various elements; that a people could be governed without being made thralls or libertines or victims thereby; that man was born for peace and liberty, and became miserable and cruel only through the action of insidious and oppressive laws. And I believe therefore that if man be given laws which harmonize with the dictates of nature and of his heart he will cease to be unhappy and corrupt.

  Louis Antoine de Saint-Just

  Believe, Heart, Men

  Louis Antoine de Saint-Just's speech to the National Convention, April 24, 1793.

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• I used to be like "Why are we doing a remake? What are remakes being done for?" But then, we do that all the time in the theater. Retelling stories is what we've done since we were sitting around campfires. It's a part of the human spirit. It doesn't have to be negative to creativity. It can be completely opposite.

  Joel Kinnaman

  Creativity, Opposites, Stories

  Source: collider.com

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• When knowledge becomes formulated into a science, then it does take on a life of it's own, often alien to the human spirit that conceived it.

  Brian Aldiss

  Doe, Spirit, Aliens

  Brian Wilson Aldiss (1974). “Frankenstein Unbound”, Random House (NY)

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The human spirit is resilient and truth - no matter how long you abuse it and how long you try to crush it - will, as Dr. King would say, rise up again, and in the final analysis will prevail.

  Harry Belafonte

  Crush, Kings, Long

  Source: www.yesmagazine.org

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Art and the triumph of the human spirit - the two combined thrill me. It's the "Braveheart" moment, the stuff Joseph Campbell talks about, "the heroes journey," a beautiful documentary on a poignant topic, the fireman saving a kitten from a burning building. It's the combo of heroism and kindness against the odds or even good reason. It implies immortality because it is the domain of the soul. That evidence of the spirit of life is what makes me get out of bed in the morning.

  Kristin Bauer van Straten

  Beautiful, Art, Morning

  4 Copy quote

• Yet there is a dignity in the human spirit which can become most clearly visible in the moment of defeat and disaster.

  Bruce Catton

  Spirit, Dignity, Defeat

  6 Copy quote

• In its broad sense, civilization means not only comfort in daily necessities but also the refining of knowledge and the cultivation of virtue so as to elevate human life to a higher plane... It refers to the attainment of both material well-being and the elevation of the human spirit, [but] since what produces man's well-being and refinement is knowledge and virtue, civilization ultimately means the progress of man's knowledge and virtue.

  Fukuzawa Yukichi

  Mean, Men, Civilization

  "An encouragement of learning". Book by Fukuzawa Yukichi and Obata Tokujirō, 1872-1876.

  30 Copy quote

  Show source

• It's never been true, not anywhere at any time, that the value of a soul, of a human spirit, is dependent on a number on a scale. We are unrepeatable beings of light and space and water who need these physical vehicles to get around. When we start defining ourselves by that which can be measured or weighed, something deep within us rebels. We don't want to EAT hot fudge sundaes as much as we want our lives to BE hot fudge sundaes. We want to come home to ourselves.

  Geneen Roth

  Inspiring, Home, Journey

  FaceBook post by Geneen Roth from May 12, 2014

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Immediate knowledge tells us only that God is, not what he is. But if God is not an empty Being beyond the stars, he must be present in the communion of human spirits, and, in his relation to these, he is the One Spirit who pervades reality and thought. Hence there can be no final separation between our immediate consciousness of him and our mediated knowledge of reality.

  Joseph Alexander Leighton

  Stars, Reality, Finals

  Joseph Alexander Leighton (1901). “Typical Modern Conceptions of God: Or, The Absolute of German Romantic Idealism and of English Evolutionary Agnosticism, with a Constructive Essay”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Poverty is mean and degrading to the human spirit, whereas a life of conscious simplicity can have both a beauty and a functional integrity that elevates the human spirit.

  Duane Elgin

  Integrity, Mean, Simple

  Duane Elgin (2010). “Voluntary Simplicity Second Revised Edition: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich”, p.19, Harper Collins

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• War is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents the total failure of the human spirit.

  Robert Fisk

  War, Victory, Spirit

  "The Great War for Civilization". Book by Robert Fisk, 2005.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• In philosophical inquiry, the human spirit, imitating the movement of the stars, must follow a curve which brings it back to its point of departure. To conclude is to close a circle.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Stars, Philosophical, Thinking

  6 Copy quote

• We are living through a remarkably privileged era when certain deep truths about the cosmos are still within reach of the human spirit of exploration.

  Brian Greene

  Cosmos, Eras, Spirit

  "Is our universe the only universe?". TED Talks, www.ted.com. February 2012.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Contrary to popular belief, conventional wisdom would have one believe that it is insane to resist this, the mightiest of empires… But what history really shows is that today`s empire is tomorrow`s ashes, that nothing lasts forever, and that to not resist is to acquiesce in your own oppression. The greatest form of sanity that anyone can exercise is to resist that force that is trying to repress, oppress, and fight down the human spirit.

  Mumia Abu-Jamal

  Believe, Fighting, Exercise

  177 Copy quote

• Humble, honest, ignorance is one of the finest flowers of the human spirit

  Kenneth E. Boulding

  Flower, Humble, Ignorance

  4 Copy quote

• No one enjoys feeling weak, whether it is emotionally, spiritually or physically. There is something within the human spirit that wants to resist the thought of weakness. Many times this is nothing more than our human pride at work. Just as weakness carries a great potential for strength, pride carries an equally great potential for defeat.

  Charles Stanley

  Strength, Christian, Pride

  16 Copy quote

• His [Ben Okri's] work poses very serious questions for the twenty-first century. Among them: To what extent will we allow the indefinable dynamics of something called "destiny" to maintain grief and horror in the world? How hard are human beings willing to fight to achieve and sustain justice, equanimity, or joy? And should progress be called such when it devours what is best within the human spirit?

  Aberjhani

  Grief, Fighting, Destiny

  4 Copy quote

• We surely stand at the threshold of a great adventure of the human spiritó a new synthesis of knowledge, a potential integration of art and science, a deeper grasp of human psychology, a deepening of the symbolic representations of our existence and feelings as given in religion and culture, the formation of an international order based on cooperation and nonviolent competition. It seems not too much to hope for these things.

  Heinz Pagels

  Art, Adventure, Order

  8 Copy quote

• Only that which points the human spirit beyond its own limitations into what is universally human gives the individual strength superior to his own. Only in suprahuman demands which can hardly be fulfilled do human beings and peoples feel their true and sacred measure.

  Stefan Zweig

  Inspirational, Individual Strength, Giving

  25 Copy quote

• No limit, no definition, may restrict the range or depth of the human spirit's passage into its own secrets or the world's.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Secret, Depth, World

  4 Copy quote

• When the Pleiades and the wind in the grass are no longer a part of the human spirit, a part of very flesh and bone, man becomes, as it were, a kind of cosmic outlaw, having neither the completeness nor integrity of the animal nor the birthright of a true humanity.

  Henry Beston

  Nature, Integrity, Animal

  Henry Beston (1956). “The Outermost House”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source