#humanit

I tried to map the cultural trends leading up to it but as I did they grew, interconnecting and weaving backwards and sideways out to everything. Next to the megalithic institutionalized shredding of people's humanity, marked by tombstone malls and scabby hills, the Styrofoam gullets and flag-waving god-chatterers casting their votes for eternal paternity on the lap rapists - next to all of that, the intimacy between a terrorist and his target was almost a beautiful thing but I still couldn't solve that moment when they did it anyway so I grabbed more paper and widened my field of vision. ↗

— Vanessa Veselka

#humanity #terror #beauty

I thought: this is how you make a human being. A human being is beautiful and sick. A human being glitters and starves. ↗

— Catherynne M. Valente

#pain #beauty

Then at once they reached and hovered upon the imminent verge of sleep - but an intruder came, now, that would not "down". It was conscience. They began to feel a vague fear that they had been doing wrong to run away; and next they thought of the stolen meat, and then the real torture came [...] So they inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in the business, their piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing. Then conscience granted a truce, and these curiously inconsistent pirates fell peacefully to sleep. ↗

— Mark Twain

#childhood #conscience #human-nature #humanity #sleep

Self-talk reflects your innermost feelings. ↗

— Asa Don Brown

#counsellor #counselor #humanity #joy #kindness

She was utterly unlike what she had been when he first saw her. Both morally and physically she had changed for the worse. [...] He looked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has gathered, with difficulty recognizing in it the beauty for which he picked and ruined it. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#relevant #truth #beauty

Es ist wichtig zu begreifen, dass wir der Toleranz nicht dienen, wenn wir unser Profil verwässern, sondern indem wir uns umgekehrt unserer eigenen Werte wieder vergewissern. [...] Wir tun der Toleranz auch nichts Böses an, wenn wir die Menschenrechte verteidigen, wie sie in den letzten Jahrhunderten und Jahrzehnten entwickelt und niedergeschrieben wurden in der Allgemeinen Erklärung der Menschenrechte der Vereinten Nationen und einer Vielzahl von Konventionen, die detailliert den Schutz einzelner Menschenrechte regeln - etwa zum Schutz von Flüchtlingen, zur Verhinderung von Völkermord, gegen die Diskriminierung der Frau etc. Fast alle Staaten der Welt haben sich nach tiefer leidvoller Erfahrung, nach nationaler Hybris und nach ideologischem oder religösem Fanatismus im Prinzip auf diese Grundrechte und die Rule of Law als Minimum einer Überlebensordnung geeinigt. Die als universell, unveräußerlich und unteilbar angesehenen Menschenrechte sind daher ein gemeinsames Gut der Menschheit. Und wir dürfen und müssen gegenüber kommunistischen, fanatisch-islamistischen oder despotischen Staaten über ihre Verletzung sprechen; denn als Menschen sind wir verpflichtet, die Menschenrechte unserer Mitmenschen zu respektieren und zu verteidigen. ↗

— Joachim Gauck

#courage #democracy #empowerment #human-rights #humanity

We should listen to the voice of conscience. It does not take nearly as much courage as one might think to admit to our mistakes and learn from them. Human beings are in this world to learn and to change themselves in learning. ↗

— Traudl Junge

#change

I will never be able to go back to Sweden without knowing inside myself that I'd done all a man could do to save as many Jews as possible ↗

— Raoul Wallenberg

#humanitarianism #the-holocaust #world-war-ii #courage

It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way, even by death, and we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment. ↗

— Bram Stoker

#humanity #people #resilience #death

No hizo falta mucho para reducir el castillo de naipes de la civilización. Solo unas pocas ráfagas y pasó, la balanza se inclinó, se rompió el encanto. Los buenos ciudadanos se dieron cuenta de que las líneas que habían dado forma a sus vidas eran imaginarias y se cruzaban con facilidad. Tenían deseos y necesidades y el poder para satisfacerlas, así que lo hicieron. En el momento en que se apagaron las luces, todo el mundo dejó de fingir. ↗

— Isaac Marion

#death #humanity #death