More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.
George EliotI believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.
Maya AngelouWhat is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?
Henry David ThoreauWhen I look upon seamen, men of science and philosophers, man is the wisest of all beings; when I look upon priests and prophets nothing is as contemptible as man.
DiogenesOne thing that I find very unmotivating is the kind of Plan B argument: when Earth gets destroyed, you want to be somewhere else. That doesn’t work for me. We have sent robotic probes now to every place in the solar system, and this is the best one.
Jeff BezosLife is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.
James BaldwinI sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
Oscar WildeI’ve got all the money I’ll ever need, if I die by four o’clock.
Henny YoungmanDespise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else.
Marcus AureliusI have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else – God is in this person’s life. You can – you must – try to seek God in every human life.
Pope FrancisWe are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man.
Jean-Jacques RousseauIn order to exist, man must rebel, but rebellion must respect the limits that it discovers in itself – limits where minds meet, and in meeting, begin to exist.
Albert CamusMeaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things, they were in them, in all of them.
Hermann HesseWhat I’ve discovered is that in art, as in music, there’s a lot of truth-and then there’s a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It’s the moment that the audience falls in love.
Lady GagaCreation is a miracle of daily recurrence. ‚A miracle a minute‘ would not be a bad slogan for God.
George Bernard ShawThe earth is bountiful, and where her bounty fails, nitrogen drawn from the air will refertilize her womb. I developed a process for this purpose in 1900. It was perfected fourteen years later under the stress of war by German chemists.
Nikola TeslaIt suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
Neil ArmstrongEach life makes its own immitation of immortality.
Stephen KingDoes wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?
Friedrich NietzscheIf it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.
George CarlinEarth might one day soon resemble the planet Venus.
Stephen HawkingI refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
Martin Luther King, Jr.There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He.
Friedrich NietzscheI do not believe that any man fears to be dead, but only the stroke of death.
Francis BaconWe must accept what science tells us, that man was born from the earth. But, more logical than the scientists who lecture us, we must carry this lesson to its conclusion: that is to say, accept that man was born entirely from the world – not only his flesh and bones but his incredible power of thought.
Pierre Teilhard de ChardinA large part of mankind is angry not with the sins, but with the sinners.
Lucius Annaeus SenecaConfront a corpse at least once. The absolute absence of life is the most disturbing and challenging confrontation you will ever have.
David BowieAs soon as there is life there is danger.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThe fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.
Joseph AddisonLike anything else that happens on its own, the act of writing is beyond currency. Money is great stuff to have, but when it comes to the act of creation, the best thing is not to think of money too much. It constipates the whole process.
Stephen KingEvery time I think that I’m getting old, and gradually going to the grave, something else happens.
Elvis PresleyProtecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.
Ronald ReaganWhile the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving the quality of man’s humanity to man.
Maya AngelouIndependence? That’s middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.
George Bernard ShawPeople should not make me out to be like Jesus; I don’t walk on water.
Jurgen KloppLong before the awakening of thought on earth, manifestations of cosmic energy must have been produced which have no parallel today.
Pierre Teilhard de ChardinOur daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity’s belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul, and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for all.
Nelson MandelaSooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you’re gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It’s yours. Seize your space.
Margaret AtwoodFor if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.
Albert CamusWe cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from… Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements.
William ShakespeareWhat is the Tao Te Ching? Five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a God-realized being named Lao-tzu in ancient China dictated 81 verses which are regarded by many as the ultimate commentary on the nature of existence.
Wayne DyerAll things in the world come from being. And being comes from non-being.
Lao TzuMusic is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.
Ludwig van BeethovenReligion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.
Pope FrancisThe whole aspect of cinema and film festivals should be a moment to come together and celebrate art and humanity. It would be a shame if there was such a divide.
Keanu ReevesI imagine that yes is the only living thing.
E. E. CummingsIn the brute physical world, and the one encompassed by medicine, there are all too many things that could kill you, don’t kill you, and then leave you considerably weaker.
Christopher HitchensTo err is human; to forgive, divine.
Alexander PopeThe only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
Albert CamusMan is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.
Carl JungFill the earth with your songs of gratitude.
Charles SpurgeonSurely our job while we’re here on Earth is to learn about the world, not to create parallel universes.
David HareThere may not be one Truth – there may be several truths – but saying that is not to say that reality doesn’t exist.
Margaret AtwoodWe all die, we all get sick, we all feel hunger and lust and pain, and therefore human life is consistent from one generation to the other. We all – most of us, anyway – want connections with other people and spend our lives looking for them.
Paul AusterThe man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time.
George Bernard ShawWhen the human race neglects its weaker members, when the family neglects its weakest one – it’s the first blow in a suicidal movement. I see the neglect in cities around the country, in poor white children in West Virginia and Virginia and Kentucky – in the big cities, too, for that matter.
Maya AngelouReligion, born of the earth’s need for the disclosing of a god, is related to and co-extensive with not the individual man, but the whole of mankind.
Pierre Teilhard de ChardinI’m not resigned, but I’m realistic too. The statistics in my case are very poor. Not many people come through esophageal cancer and live to talk about it, or not for long. And the other wager is, the part of the wager, it’s a certainty you’ll have a terrible time and you may wish you were dying because it’s an awful process.
Christopher HitchensI am for people. I can’t help it.
Charlie ChaplinTo create something you must be something.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe