And the purpose of small talk is not to be controversial, clever or even interesting. It’s simply to fill the silent void with a small gesture of common humanity. It’s a spoken smile, a verbal handshake.
The novelist must look on humanity without partiality or prejudice. His sympathy, like that of the historian, must be unbounded, and untainted by sect or party.
One of the challenges of the church is to accept humanity for all it is.
The discovery of a new dish confers more happiness on humanity, than the discovery of a new star.
I wanted to answer big questions about humanity, about how it is that we understand about the world, how we can know as much as we do, why human nature is the way that it is. And it always seemed to me that you find answers to those questions by looking at children.
The United States fully accepts the profound truth that our own progress, prosperity, and peace are interlocked with the progress, prosperity, and peace of all humanity.
If you can capture the humanity of a family struggling in an economic crisis you can make a difference. You can raise awareness just of the simple humanity.
I worked in the NHS as a hospital orderly during my national service, and people thought it was a noble service. But over the years it’s lost its humanity.
There’s a road that runs through our humanity and it traverses political and partisan lines, and my job as a U.S. senator is to do everything I can to point to that road that connects our collective humanity and to push forward legislation that’s good for everybody.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned during my time on ‘Oprah’ is that everyone wants to be heard. We all want to have our humanity acknowledged – to have others see us for who we truly are. We all want to know that we are valued, we are heard, we are understood.
We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.
We must learn to understand humanity better so that we can create an environment that is more beneficial to people, more rewarding, more pleasant to experience.
The right of each individual in any relation to secure to himself the full benefits of his intelligence, his capacity, his industry and skill are among the inalienable inheritances of humanity.
I saw science as being in harmony with humanity.
While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities, and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them.
Where consumption is both conspicuous and competitive, humanity will never run out of new wishes. All the while, industry creates new desires that are marketed, in the great fashion paradox, as both novelty and need.
In the kind of world we have today, transformation of humanity might well be our only real hope for survival.
Someone once asked me if I was gay. I said, ‘Do you think a three-letter word defines the complexity of my humanity?’ I avoid the trap of easy definition.
Following the devastating India Ocean tsunami of 2004, I founded Chefs for Humanity, modeled after Doctors Without Borders, but comprised of chefs. There wasn’t anything out there like it, and there was a definite need for chefs to be able to offer assistance and aid.
My only job is to write in such a way that the reader gets a new handle on humanity.
The biological evolutionary perception of life and of human qualities is radically different from that of traditional religion, whether it’s Southern Baptist or Islam or any religion that believes in a supernatural supervalance over humanity.
Giving gifts to others is a fundamental activity, as old as humanity itself. Yet in the modern, complex world, the particulars of gift-giving can be extraordinarily challenging.
My faith in humanity leads me to believe that people are looking for something more elevating than the sordid details of the intimate aspects of one’s personal life.
‘Falling Skies’ is not just about aliens attacking. It’s also about humanity, survival, hope and the determination to rebuild our world, starting from pretty much nothing.
We cannot sacrifice our humanity in the name of security – or we risk losing both.
Prometheus – trickster, rebel and hero – links the realm of the gods with the world of humanity, with which he had such close affinity. His act of stealing fire has been viewed as the foundation of all man’s technologies.
I have a great identification with Judaism as a religion and as a culture, and all the values that created such a great history, and the Jewish contribution to the betterment of all humanity.
Oblivion is the rule and fame the exception, of humanity.
Actors have an innate sense of self and humanity, the good ones do, and of being generous of heart and generous of spirit.
Theologically, the creation of chocolate demonstrates both the unity and the diversity of humanity. Wherever you taste it, in every country of the world, it is immediately recognizable. Other things, in every cuisine, are just food, but chocolate is chocolate.
On the contrary, if they are treated with justice and humanity, proper example and the advantages of education given them, the coming years will be as bright and prosperous to the unfortunate race as the past has been dark and painful.
Let me make a solemn pledge before all of you, before the whole world and before God, that I will devote all my energy and all I possess in my power to serve the people of Nigeria and humanity.
Humanity is about to face perhaps its greatest challenge ever, which is finding meaning in life after the end of ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.’
When you have a situation that’s destructive, when there’s tremendous inhumanity everywhere, you see how humanity survives in all of its different permutations.
We talk about, you know, diet and that we shouldn’t give our kids big things and obesity and fast food. Well, you know there are people who don’t have that problem because they’re not getting any food! We have so many deep problems and issues facing humanity.
War is the greatest plague that can afflict humanity, it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it.
If any difference should be made by law between husband and wife, reason, justice and humanity, if their voices were heard, would dictate that it should be in her favor.
A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us worthy of using it.
If someone asked, ‘What are your films like?,’ the best I can come up with is that they’re, like, a fine balance between comedy and drama. And they deal mainly with the clumsiness of humanity.
The Internet is the most liberating tool for humanity ever invented, and also the best for surveillance. It’s not one or the other. It’s both.
In ancient times, we were users; we used the commodities in accordance to our needs. Using is not sufficient for the modern market; it needs consumers. Consuming means consuming things much more than the natural need of humanity or of any living being.
Our best hope for the future is not to get people to think of all humanity as family – that’s impossible. It lies, instead, in an appreciation of the fact that, even if we don’t empathize with distant strangers, their lives have the same value as the lives of those we love.
Show me the person you honor, for I know better by that the kind of person you are. For you show me what your idea of humanity is.
Human beings may well be unable to break free of the dictatorship of greed that spreads like a miasma over the world, but no longer will we be an inarticulate and ignorant humanity, confused by our enslavement to superior cruelty and weaponry.
I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music.
The important thing is for the characters to feel real, and to be given the humanity they are due. That granting of humanity is what separates a full portrait from a stereotype.
If humanity doesn’t land on Mars in my lifetime, I would be very disappointed.
Humanity appreciates truth about as much as a squirrel appreciates silver.
I think of my gender as a part of my complex humanity.
Having read the histories of other countries, I saw that expansion was everything, and that the world’s surface being limited, the great object of present humanity should be to take as much of the world as it possibly could.
The problem with generalizations and judgments, the words we hurl as insults, is that they deny our humanity and our stories.
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?
As far as I’m concerned, ageing is humanity’s worst problem, by some serious distance.
The progress of India is the destiny of one-sixth of humanity. And it will also mean a world more confident of its prosperity and more secure about its future.
Science is a beautiful gift to humanity; we should not distort it.
I have a grim outlook on the world, and in particular on humanity. Spent years denying it, but I am very misanthropic. And I live alone on a mountain for a reason.
