#humanity

Ah! how little knowledge does a man acquire in his life. He gathers it up like water, but like water it runs between his fingers, and yet, if his hands be but wet as though with dew, behold a generation of fools call out, 'See, he is a wise man!' Is it not so? ↗

— H. Rider Haggard

#foolishness #futility #humanity #intelligence #knowledge

They live forever. But many of them are even more lonely and miserable than we are. Why do you think they bother with us? We teach them life's value. ↗

— N.K. Jemisin

#humanity #immortality #life #mortality #life

Love is wise; hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don't like. We can only live together in that way. But if we are to live together, and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance, which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#disagreement #foolishness #hatred #humanity #interconnectedness

This history of culture will explain to us the motives, the conditions of life, and the thought of the writer or reformer. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#history #humanity #life #motives #life

Literature deals with morality but does not necessarily, does not, qua literature, help you to be more moral, either by precept or example. It makes you more aware. Which is to say that it makes you more human by making life more, not less, difficult. When you become more aware, the area of moral choice is widened. You can be a better man; you can also be a worse. Literature will not determine which. It is the equivalent of neither grace nor good works. ↗

— Eric Bentley

#literature #life

Why does it seem easier for us to accept reality when it is within the confinement of the animal kingdom yet so hard for us to face it in our? ↗

— Aysha Taryam

#culture #humanity-and-society #philosophical-musings #philosophy-of-life #life

There occurs the beautiful feeling that only humanity together is the true human being, and that the individual can be cheerful and happy only if he has the courage to feel himself in the Whole. ↗

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

#happiness #humanity #memoir #whole #beauty

When the nettle is young, the leaves make excellent greens; when it grows old it has filaments and fibers like hemp and flax. Cloth made from the nettle is as good as that made from hemp. Chopped up, the nettle is good for poultry; pounded, it is good for horned cattle. The seed of the nettle mixed with the fodder of animals gives a luster to their skin; the root, mixed with salt, produces a beautiful yellow dye. It makes, however, excellent hay, as it can be cut twice in a season. And what does the nettle need? very little soil, no care, no culture; except that the seeds fall as fast as they ripen, and it is difficult to gather them; that is all. If we would take a little pains, the nettle would be useful; we neglect it, and it becomes harmful. Then we kill it. How much men are like the nettle! My friends, remember this, that there are no weeds, and no worthless men, there are only bad farmers. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#les-miserables #nettle #worthiness #beauty

But he was sick of this charade. Sick of watching people lose a little more of their humanity each day, and sick to death of seeing people tortured in the name of God. What had happened to these people? ↗

— Brom

#seeing #sick #torture #what-had-happened #death

Once someone asked me, "What do you want to be your epitaph?" So I said, "Paulo Coelho died when he was alive. ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#humanity #life #philosophy #death