I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze
than it should be stifled by dry rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor,
every atom of me in magnificent glow,
than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.
- Jack London
It is never good dwelling on good-byes ...
it is not the being together that it prolongs, it is the parting.
- Elizabeth Bibesco
Walking takes longer...
than any other known form of locomotion except crawling.
Thus it stretches time and prolongs life.
Life is already too short to waste on speed.
- Edward Abbey
If the human race wishes to have a
prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity,
they have only got to behave in a
peaceful and helpful way toward one another.
- Winston Churchill
I'm not used to feeling so human.
Is it always like this?
- Edward, from Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer
Two things are infinite:
the universe and human stupidity;
and I'm not sure about the universe.
- Albert Einstein
The savage in man is never quite eradicated.
- Henry David Thoreau
The most difficult thing in the world
is to know how to do a thing
and to watch somebody else doing it wrong,
without comment.
- Theodore. H. White
The natural cause of the human mind
is certainly from credulity to skepticism.
- Thomas Jefferson
Science may have found a cure for most evils;
but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -
the apathy of human beings.
- Helen Keller
The end of the human race will be that
it will eventually die of civilization.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Human beings are the only creatures on the planet
who tell time and think they have to earn a living.
- Buckminster Fuller
Morality is the theory that every human act
must be either right or wrong,
and that 99 % of them are wrong.
- H. L. Mencken
Human salvation lies in the hands
of the creatively maladjusted.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Human beings must have action;
and they will make it if they cannot find it.
- Albert Einstein
Only two things are infinite,
the universe and human stupidity,
and I'm not sure about the former.
- Albert Einstein
Man's nature is not essentially evil.
Brute nature has been known to
yield to the influence of love.
You must never despair of human nature.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
- Walter Bagehot
I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another
and I know there are people in the world
that do not love their fellow human beings
and I HATE people like that.
- Tom Lehrer
The very essence of instinct is that
it's followed independently of reason.
- Charles Darwin
Our honorable and worthy ancestors knew that the world was flat,
motionless, and the center of the universe.
They knew the human body could not withstand
the forces of traveling faster than 19 mph.
They knew that the way to salvation was
exorcising witches and slaying non-believers.
They knew that it was a mortal sin to marry
someone of a different skin color.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
There are only two or three human stories,
and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely
as if they had never happened before.
- Willa Cather
Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil,
no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads.
This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world.
The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The more laws and order are made prominent,
the more thieves and robbers there will be.
- Lao Tzu
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
- Robert A. Heinlein
The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy.
- John Galsworthy
If you were a warrior,
you would know that the worst thing
one can do is confront human beings directly.
- Carlos Castaneda
Human nature is potentially aggressive and destructive
and potentially orderly and constructive.
- Margaret Mead
Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man.
And man can be as big as he wants.
No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
- John F. Kennedy
As human beings, our greatness lies
not so much in being able to remake the world -
as in being able to remake ourselves.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
The human spirit ranges across a truly amazing
diversity of experiences and emotions -
the highest peaks and the lowest valleys.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The problem with making assumptions
is that we believe they are the truth
- don Miguel Ruiz
The human mind is our fundamental resource.
- John F. Kennedy
If you fear making anyone mad,
then you ultimately probe for
the lowest common denominator of human achievement.
- Jimmy Carter
Mostly, it is human to dislike surprises -
often with great intensity.
Be open to new ways;
sometimes newness just knocks on our door;
welcome it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect,
but of all human contemplations,
the most abhorrent is body without mind.
- Thomas Jefferson
Each man is afraid of his neighbor's disapproval -
a thing which, to the general run of the human race,
is more dreaded than wolves and death.
- Mark Twain
In the arena of human life,
the honors and rewards fall to those
who show their good qualities in action.
- Aristotle
The purpose of human life is to serve,
and to show compassion and the will to help others.
- Albert Schweitzer
In human intercourse the tragedy begins,
not when there is misunderstanding about words,
but when silence is not understood.
- Henry David Thoreau
Being angry is as close as a human being
can come to experiencing hell on earth.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Every human life contains a potential,
if that potential is not fulfilled,
then that life was wasted...
- Carl Jung
NO ONE is really different;
each of us is actually a member of the human race.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The human mind treats a new idea the way the body
treats a strange protein; it rejects it.
- Peter Medawar
Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy
between the genius and his human qualities
that one has to ask oneself whether
a little less talent might not have been better.
- Carl Jung
What is human warfare but just this;
an effort to make the laws of God and
nature take sides with one party.
- Henry David Thoreau
Seriousness is a sickness; your sense of humor
makes you more human, more humble.
The sense of humor - according to me -
is one of the most essential parts of religiousness.
- Osho
Man's enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself.
- Lao Tzu
To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake
is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
- Pema Chodron
Action is no less necessary than thought
to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities...
because it is the quality which guarantees all others.
- Winston Churchill
One of the oldest human needs is having someone
to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.
- Margaret Mead
Few are the giants of the soul that actually feel
that the human race is their family circle.
- Freya Stark
It is against everything we stand for to take a human life.
Making an exception to that code is a bleak thing.
- Sam, from Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer
The essence of being human is that one
does not seek perfection.
- George Orwell
To deal with individual human needs
at the everyday level can be noble sometimes.
- Jimmy Carter
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary.
It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body.
It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
- Winston Churchill
We may have different religions, different
languages, different colored skin,
but we all belong to one human race.
- Kofi Annan
Being human, we are imperfect. That's why we need each other.
To catch each other when we falter.
To encourage each other when we lose heart.
Some may lead; others may follow; but none of us can go it alone.
- Hilary Clinton
Be a Human BEing Rather Than a Human DOing.
- Anonymous
Divine love will meet all human needs
- Mary Baker Eddy
Is the system going to flatten you out
and deny you your humanity,
or are you going to be able to make use of the system
to the attainment of human purposes?
- Joseph Campbell
Whenever I look at a human face,
I say to myself: "That Is The Face Of God."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
As far as we can discern,
the sole purpose of human existence
is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
- Carl Jung
Let freedom reign. The sun never set
on so glorious a human achievement.
- Nelson Mandela
When will our consciences grow so tender
that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Government is a contrivance
of human wisdom to provide for human wants.
People have the right to expect that these wants
will be provided for by this wisdom.
- Jimmy Carter
I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes
the objects of his creation
and is but a reflection of human frailty.
- Albert Einstein
America did not invent human rights.
In a very real sense, it is the other way around.
Human rights invented America.
- Jimmy Carter
It's humbling to think that all animals,
including human beings,
are parasites of the plant world.
- Isaac Asimov
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars,
or sailed to an uncharted land,
or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
- Helen Keller
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.