Humanist Quotes - Page 5

• It does not matter to the killers if their victims are Christian or Muslim, Hindu or Humanist; what matters is that they show that they can kill where they please.

  Rowan Williams

  Christian, What Matters, Doe

  "Today is not an occasion for us to focus on fear" by Rowan Williams, www.theguardian.com. November 1, 2005.

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• Man is the measure of all things.

  Protagoras

  Philosophical, Men, Greek

  Quoted in Plato, Theaetetus

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• I am a humanist not a feminist. Theres a big difference.

  Lydia Lunch

  Differences, Feminist, Bigs

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• The cloning procedure is similar to IVF. The only difference is that the DNA of sperm and egg would be replaced by DNA from an adult cell. What law or principle - secular, humanist, or religious - says that one combination of genetic material in a flask is OK, but another is not?

  Nathan Myhrvold

  Religious, Ivf, Dna

  "Human Clones: Why Not?" by Nathan Myhrvold, www.slate.com. March 14, 1997.

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• What I say should always be prefaced with this: I'm not really politically articulate. I just try to be like Thomas Paine: what is common sense? So when I say these things to you, I am speaking from a humanist point of view. I just look around and see what's wrong.

  Patti Smith

  Views, Common Sense, Trying

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• To be shockingly original with your first novel, you don’t have to discover a new technique: Simply write about people as they are and not as the predominantly liberal and humanist literary establishment believes that they ought to be.

  John Braine

  Believe, Writing, People

  John Braine (1975). “Writing a Novel”, McGraw-Hill Companies

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• When people say to me, 'Why are you so good at writing at women?' I say, 'Why isn't everybody?' Obviously there are differences between men and women - that's what makes it all fun. But we're all people. There's a lot of good writers who are very humanist, but still manage to kind of skip fifty-five per cent of the race. And I just don't get that. Not to be able to write an entire gender? To me, the question isn't how do you do it? It's how can you possibly avoid doing it?

  Joss Whedon

  Fun, Writing, Men

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• Bertrand Russell started off as a mathematician and then degenerated into a philosopher and finally into a humanist; he went downhill rapidly!

  Gregory Chaitin

  Philosopher, Mathematician

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• I'm a humanist. I'm an observer. I have a very scientific mind. I believe metaphysics and science absolutely blended are more the truth for me. It doesn't work just believing in what somebody says.

  Meredith Brooks

  Believe, Mind, Metaphysics

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• [Walt] Whitman and [humanist educator John] Dewey tried to substitute hope for knowledge. They wanted to put shared utopian dreams - dreams of an ideally decent and civilized society - in the place of knowledge of God's Will, Moral Law, the Laws of History, or the Facts of Science.... As long as we have a functioning political left, we still have a chance to achieve our country, to make it the country of Whitman's and Dewey's dreams.

  Richard Rorty

  Dream, Country, Law

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• And I guess, I guess it's a humanist film. It's not really a spiritual film and it's, you know, it's saying that we're all one tribe of humans and we're on this little rock, floating through the universe and (Amenabar) has these (transitional shots of) POVs where you see humans like ants.

  Rachel Weisz

  Spiritual, Rocks, Ants

  "Rachel Weisz Interview AGORA: The Oscar-Winning Star gets Deep about Religion, Movie Blogs and her Desire to be in J.J. Abrams' STAR TREK Sequel". Interview with Ron Messer, collider.com. May 28, 2010.

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• I see that not everyone in the West has understood that the Soviet Union has disappeared from the political map of the world and that a new country has emerged with new humanist and ideological principles at the foundation of its existence.

  Vladimir Putin

  Country, Political, Foundation

  Interview with TF-1 Television Channel (France), en.kremlin.ru. July 12, 2006.

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• I consider myself spiritual and I'm married to a man who is both an atheist and a humanist, and my kids have been raised with the traditions of different religions, but they do not go to church or temple. My feeling is that everyone should be able to believe what they want or need to believe.

  Jodi Picoult

  Spiritual, Atheist, Believe

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• If you're living with a scientist, you see the world differently than you do with a humanist. It's in some ways very subtle, the differences in perceiving reality.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Reality, Differences, World

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• I am an atheist. There, I said it. Are you happy, all you atheists out there who have remonstrated with me for adopting the agnostic moniker? If "atheist" means someone who does not believe in God, then an atheist is what I am. But I detest all such labels. Call me what you like - humanist, secular humanist, agnostic, nonbeliever, nontheist, freethinker, heretic, or even bright. I prefer skeptic.

  Michael Shermer

  Atheist, Believe, Mean

  "Why I Am An Atheist" by Michael Shermer, michaelshermer.com. June 23, 2005.

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• The secular humanist, although he would never dream of committing the social faux pas of calling a black man a negro, feels perfectly free to castigate Christians and their leaders in any way he likes.

  Frank Schaeffer

  Christian, Dream, Men

  Frank Schaeffer (1982). “A time for anger: the myth of neutrality”, Good News Publishers

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• From the failure of the humanist tradition to participate fully or to act decisively, civilizations may perhaps crumble or perish at the hands of barbarians. But unless the humanist tradition itself in some form survives, there can really be no civilization at all.

  Louis Kronenberger

  Philosophy, Hands, Civilization

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• I don't consider myself as a feminist but more a humanist.

  Marjane Satrapi

  Feminist

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• In spite of all the yearnings of men, no one can produce a single fact or reason to support the belief in God and in personal immortality.

  Clarence Darrow

  Men, Support, Religion

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• The most glorious vision of the intellectual life is still that which is loosely called humanist: the idea of a mind committed yet dispassionate, ready to stand alone, curious, eager, skeptical. The banner of critical independence, ragged and torn though it may be, is still the best we have.

  Irving Howe

  Intellectual, Independence, Mind

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

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• If terrorism is to be defeated, the world of Islam must take on board the secularist-humanist principles on which the modern is based, and without which their countries' freedom will remain a distant dream.

  Salman Rushdie

  Dream, Country, Islam

  Salman Rushdie (2008). “Step Across This Line”, p.219, Random House

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• There is humanist enterprise of the book, and amongst that there are many, many stories. And that is why at the end, when he says that the stories are so illuminating that they must be engraved and encased in gold and put in the palace library, the people who compile the book are telling us that this is a collection of human wisdom.

  Marina Warner

  Book, People, Library

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Ramadan is, in its essence, a month of humanist spirituality.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Essence, Ramadan, Months

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• Happiness is not synonymous with pleasure. It is, instead, a deeper emotion that originates from within. . . . Happiness results from a sense of mental and moral contentment with who we are, what we value, and how we invest our time and resources for purposes beyond ourselves.

  David Shi

  Contentment, Purpose, Who We Are

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• I never use the words HUMANIST or HUMANITARIAN, as it seems to me that to be human is to be capable of the most heinous crimes in nature.

  Gregory Maguire

  Use, Crime, Humanitarian

  Gregory Maguire (2013). “The Wicked Years Complete Collection: Wicked, Son of a Witch, A Lion Among Men, and Out of Oz”, p.164, Harper Collins

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