Humanism Quotes

• To embrace humanism is to embrace the concept that caring for our fellow human beings is our highest calling.

  Sean Faircloth

  Caring, Calling, Embrace

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• The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.

  E. M. Forster

  Race, Curiosity, Mind

  E.M. Forster (1951). “Two Cheers for Democracy”

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• Humanism is an approach to life which encourages ethical and fulfilling living on the basis of reason and humanity, and rejects superstition and religion. The most immediate impact of living as a Humanist is that we believe this life is all there is - so what we do and the choices we make really count.

  Stephen Fry

  Believe, Impact, Choices

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• Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Inspirational, Motivational, Atheist

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• Humanism is a philosophy of joyous service for the greater good of all humanity, of application of new ideas of scientific progress for the benefit of all.

  Linus Pauling

  Philosophy, Ideas, Humanity

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  Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Life, Beauty

  Albert Einstein (2015). “Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century”, p.15, St. Martin's Press

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• Humanists recognize that it is only when people feel free to think for themselves, using reason as their guide, that they are best capable of developing values that succeed in satisfying human needs and serving human interests.

  Isaac Asimov

  Thinking, People, Needs

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  For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

  Carl Sagan

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  Carl Sagan (1997). “Contact”, p.430, Simon and Schuster

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• Morality comes from humanism and is stolen by religion for its own purposes.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Purpose, Morality, Stolen

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• Faith in God means believing absolutely in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers.

  Joss Whedon

  Believe, Mean, Humanity

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• Humanism is the only - I would go so far as saying the final- resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history.

  Edward Said

  Practice, Finals, Resistance

  Edward W. Said (2014). “Orientalism”, p.29, Vintage

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• Humanism believes that the individual attains the good life by harmoniously combining personal satisfactions and continuous self-development with significant work and other activities that contribute to the welfare of the community.

  Corliss Lamont

  Good Life, Believe, Self

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  When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.

  Jimi Hendrix

  Love, Inspirational, Life

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• Humanism involves far more than the negation of supernaturalism. It requires an affirmative philosophy . . . translated into a life devoted to one's own improvement and the service of all mankind.

  Corliss Lamont

  Philosophy, Improvement, Humanist

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• Humanism is the philosophy that you should be a good guest at the dinner table of life.

  A.C. Grayling

  Philosophy, Dinner Table, Guests

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• Secular humanism does not have the essential attributes of a religion: belief in a deity, the wish for some sort of afterlife, sacred dogma or texts, or an absolutist moral creed. Instead, it expresses a philosophical and ethical point of view, and it draws upon the scientific method in formulationg its naturalistic view of the nature.

  Paul Kurtz

  Philosophical, Views, Afterlife

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• What the world needs is not redemption from sin but redemption from hunger and oppression; it has no need to pin its hopes upon Heaven, it has everything to hope for from this earth.

  Friedrich Durrenmatt

  Heaven, Needs, Redemption

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• Does religion fill a much needed gap? It is often said that there is a God-shaped gap in the brain which needs to be filled: we have a psychological need for God -- imaginary friend, father, big brother, confessor, confidant -- and the need has to be satisfied whether God really exists or not. But could it be that God clutters up a gap that we'd be better off filling with something else? Science, perhaps? Art? Human friendship? Humanism? Love of this life in the real world, giving no credence to other lives beyond the grave?

  Richard Dawkins

  Art, Brother, Father

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• Humanism inspires a lot of enthusiasm for everyday life and urges people to be better to one another, to work towards a better future and a common good. If I believed there was an afterlife I would have so much less motive for filling this life with every experience that is offered up to me.

  Stephen Fry

  Afterlife, People, Inspire

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• Since Humanism as a functioning credo is so closely bound up with the methods of reason and science, plainly free speech and democracy are its very lifeblood. For reason and scientific method can flourish only in an atmosphere of civil liberties.

  Corliss Lamont

  Atmosphere, Democracy, Liberty

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• Humanism . . . is not a single hypothesis or theorem, and it dwells on no new facts. It is rather a slow shifting in the philosophic perspective, making things appear as from a new centre of interest or point of sight.

  William James

  Sight, Perspective, Shifting

  Dr. William James (2013). “The William James Reader”, p.102, Simon and Schuster

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• A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Party, Men, Thinking

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2014). “The Heart of Emerson's Journals”, p.49, Courier Corporation

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• There is nothing new about humanism. It is the yielding to Satan's first temptation of Adam and Eve: "Ye shall be as gods." (Gen. 3:5)

  Billy Graham

  Temptation, Firsts, Satan

  Billy Graham, Franklin Graham, Donna Lee Toney (2011). “Billy Graham in Quotes”, Thomas Nelson Inc

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  In the end anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing: anti-humanism.

  Shirley Chisholm

  Black, Female, Social Justice

  Shirley Chisholm (1970). “Unbought and Unbossed”

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• Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace.

  Simone Weil

  Beauty, Equality, Men

  Simone Weil (2015). “Selected Essays, 1934-1943: Historical, Political, and Moral Writings”, p.53, Wipf and Stock Publishers

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