98 Quotes Tagged: humanism

Many things in this period have been hard to bear, or hard to take seriously. My own profession went into a protracted swoon during the Reagan-Bush-Thatcher decade, and shows scant sign of recovering a critical faculty — or indeed any faculty whatever, unless it is one of induced enthusiasm for a plausible consensus President. (We shall see whether it counts as progress for the same parrots to learn a new word.) And my own cohort, the left, shared in the general dispiriting move towards apolitical, atonal postmodernism. Regarding something magnificent, like the long-overdue and still endangered South African revolution (a jagged fit in the supposedly smooth pattern of axiomatic progress), one could see that Ariadne’s thread had a robust reddish tinge, and that potential citizens had not all deconstructed themselves into Xhosa, Zulu, Cape Coloured or ‘Eurocentric’; had in other words resisted the sectarian lesson that the masters of apartheid tried to teach them. Elsewhere, though, it seemed all at once as if competitive solipsism was the signifier of the ‘radical’; a stress on the salience not even of the individual, but of the trait, and from that atomization into the lump of the category. Surely one thing to be learned from the lapsed totalitarian system was the unwholesome relationship between the cult of the masses and the adoration of the supreme personality. Yet introspective voyaging seemed to coexist with dull group-think wherever one peered about among the formerly ‘committed’.

Traditionally then, or tediously as some will think, I saw no reason to discard the Orwellian standard in considering modern literature. While a sort of etiolation, tricked out as playfulness, had its way among the non-judgemental, much good work was still done by those who weighed words as if they meant what they said. Some authors, indeed, stood by their works as if they had composed them in solitude and out of conviction. Of these, an encouraging number spoke for the ironic again

And, substantially they hope to supplant the "disciplining of the higher faculty of the imagination" by what they call "education for democracy." ...

The very banality of the expression helps to ensure its triumph. Who could be against education? Who could be against democracy? Yet the phrase begs two questions: What do you mean by "education"? And what do you mean by "democracy"? The school of Dewey has long been fond of capturing words and turning them to their own purposes: they tried hard to capture "humanism", and even laid siege to "religion" Now I am convinced that if, by "education," the champions of this slogan mean merely recreation, socialization, and a kind of custodial jurisdiction over young people, then they are deliberately perverting a word with a reasonably distinct historical meaning and making it into what Mr. Richard Weaver, in his book, "Ethics of Rhetoric", calls a "god-term" — that is, a charismatic expression drained dry of any objective significance, but remaining an empty symbol intended to win unthinking applause

And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things.

If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot the unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President's performance be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism.

You are not white,
but a rainbow of colors.
You are not black,
but golden.
You are not just a nationality,
but a citizen of the world.
You are not just for the right or left,
but for what is right over the wrong.
You are not just rich or poor,
but always wealthy in the mind and heart.
You are not perfect, but flawed.
You are flawed, but you are just.
You may just be conscious human,
but you are also a magnificent
reflection of God.

Any man who neglects his conscience is a dangerous animal.

Allow your hearts to be driven by principle, not bias. Love, not hate. Unity, not division. The fire of your dreams, not the rain of your sorrows.

As I see it the world is undoubtedly in need of a new religion, and that religion must be founded on humanist principles. When I say religion, I do not mean merely a theology involving belief in a supernatural god or gods; nor do I mean merely a system of ethics, however exalted; nor only scientific knowledge, however extensive; nor just a practical social morality, however admirable or efficient. I mean an organized system of ideas and emotions which relate man to his destiny, beyond and above the practical affairs of every day, transcending the present and the existing systems of law and social structure. The prerequisite today is that any such religion shall appeal potentially to all mankind; and that its intellectual and rational sides shall not be incompatible with scientific knowledge but on the contrary based on it.

The problem I want to talk to you about tonight is the problem of belief. What does it mean to believe? We use this word all the time, and I think behind it lurk some really extraordinary taboos and confusions. What I want to argue tonight is that how we talk about belief- how we fail to criticize or criticize the beliefs of others, has more importance to us personally, more consequence to us personally and to civilization than perhaps anything else that is in our power to influence.

Eliminate the concept of division by class, skills, race, income, and nationality. We are all equals with a common pulse to survive. Every human requires food and water. Every human has a dream and desire to be happy. Every human responds to love, suffering and pain. Every human bleeds the same color and occupies the same world. Let us recognize that we are all part of each other. We are all human. We are all one.

If faith is what you have to go on, if faith is the link between your beliefs and the world at large, your beliefs are very likely to be wrong. Beliefs can be right or wrong. If you believe you can fly, that belief is only true if indeed you can fly. Somebody who thinks he can fly, and is wrong about it, will eventually discover there's a problem with his view of the world.

Act so as to elicit the best in others and thereby in thyself.

I long to get away, sometimes, from my own generation. I don't care whether it's into the past, or into the future, so long as it's away from the patter into simple realities again. I hate being a slave to my own age.
...
We are so afraid of sentimentality that we're losing the power of human feeling. Our writers today understand all the brutalities and cynicisms; but how many of them understand the simple human affections that hold decent human beings together and make the world worth living in?

We are not sheep or cows. God didn’t create fences for us or boundaries to contain our nationalities. Man did. God didn’t draw up religious barriers to separate us from each other. Man did. And on top of that, no father would like to see his children fighting or killing each other. The Creator favors the man who spreads loves over the man who spreads hate. A religious title does not make anyone more superior over another. If a kind man stands by his conscience and exhibits truth in his words and actions, he will stand by God regardless of his faith. If mankind wants to evolve, we must learn from our past mistakes. If not, our technology will evolve without us.

I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishments after I am dead.