At this point I reveal myself in my true colours as a stick-in-the-mud. I hold a number of beliefs that have been repudiated by the liveliest intellects of our time. I believe that order is better than chaos. Creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence. Forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance. And I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than an ideology. I believe that in spite of recent triumphs of science men haven’t changed much in the last two thousand years. And in consequence we must still try to learn from history: history is ourselves ... I believe in courtesy ... And I think we should remember that we are part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature. All living things are our brothers and sisters. Above all, I believe in the God-given genius of certain individuals. And I value a society that makes their existence possible. ibid.
I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole. Malcolm X
We declare our right on this Earth to be a man. To be a human being. To be respected as a human being. To be given the rights of a human being. In this society, on this Earth this day which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary. Malcolm X
I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being – neither white, black, brown, or red; and when you are dealing with humanity as a family there’s no question of integration or intermarriage. It’s just one human being marrying another human being or one human being living around and with another human being. Malcolm X
A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumor. Aldous Huxley
Why is it that in most children education seems to destroy the creative urge? Why do so many boys and girls leave school with blunted perceptions and a closed mind? A majority of young people seem to develop mental arteriosclerosis forty years before they get the physical kind. Another question: why do some people remain open and elastic into extreme old age, whereas others become rigid and unproductive before they’re fifty? It’s a problem in biochemistry and adult education. Aldous Huxley, interview
I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death. Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity. Nelson Mandela
I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work. Or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s-worth. Banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do. And there’s no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe. And our food is unfit to eat. And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We know things are bad. Worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy so we don’t go out any more. We sit in the house and slowly the world we’re living in is getting smaller. And all we say is, Please, at least leave us alone in our living-rooms. Let me have my toaster, and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone. Well I’m not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad. I don’t want you to protest. I won’t want you to ride. I don’t want you to write to your Congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is first you’ve got to get mad. You’ve got to say, I’m a human being. Goddammit. My life has value! Network 1976 starring Faye Dunaway & Peter Finch & William Holden & Robert Duvall & Wesley Addy & Ned Beatty & Beatrice Straight & Jordan Charney & William Prince & Lane Smith et al, director Sidney Lumet
It is the individual that’s finished. It is the single solitary human being that’s finished. It is every single one of you out there that’s finished. Because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals. It’s a nation of some two-hundred-odd million transistorised, deodorised, whiter-than-white, steel-belted bodies ... The whole world is becoming humanoid, creatures that look human but aren’t ... The whole world’s people are becoming mass-produced, programmed, numbered ... ibid.
You are television incarnate, Diana. Indifferent to suffering. Insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death. All the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of Time & Space into split seconds, instant replays. You are madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure, pain. And love. ibid.
Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. John F Kennedy
The eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding ... I do not say the we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours. John F Kennedy, speech Rice University 1962
We all inhabit this small planet; we all breathe the same air; we all cherish our children’s futures; and we are all human. John F Kennedy
Man will be what he was born to be: free and independent. John F Kennedy
The sole Meaning of Life is to serve humanity. Leo Tolstoy
I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are – or, at all events, that I must try and become one. Henrik Ibsen, The Doll’s House: A Play
Humanists recognize that it is only when people feel free to think for themselves, using reason as their guide, that they are best capable of developing values that succeed in satisfying human needs and serving human interests. Isaac Asimov
There are so many benefits to be derived from space exploration and exploitation; why not take what seems to me the only chance of escaping what is otherwise the sure destruction of all that humanity has struggled to achieve for 50,000 years? Isaac Asimov
Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition. Isaac Asimov
When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity. Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
The open society, the unrestricted access to knowledge, the unplanned and uninhibited association of men for its furtherance – these are what may make a vast, complex, ever growing, ever changing, ever more specialized and expert technological world, nevertheless a world of human community. J Robert Oppenheimer
I am utterly convinced that Science and Peace will triumph over Ignorance and War, that nations will eventually unite not to destroy but to edify, and that the future will belong to those who have done the most for the sake of suffering humanity. Louis Pasteur, cited Rene Jules Dubos, ‘Louis Pasteur, Free Lance of Science’, 1960
Man is a singular creature. He has certain gifts which make him unique among the animals. Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man 1/13: Lower Than the Angels, BBC 1973
Every landscape in the world is full of these exact and beautiful adaptations. ibid.
But Nature, that is evolution, has not fitted man into any specific environment. ibid.
His imagination, his reason, his emotional subtlety and toughness make it possible for him not to accept the environment but to change it. ibid.
I call that brilliant series of cultural peaks The Ascent of Man. ibid.
It’s almost certain now that man first evolved in Africa near the Equator. ibid.
Grant’s gazelle: yet that lovely leap never took it out of the savannah. ibid.
Two million years ago the first certain ancestor of man walked with a foot which is almost indistinguishable from the foot of modern man. ibid.
The human being is a mosaic of animal and angel. ibid.
With that larger brain, the ancestors of man made two inventions ... stone tools ... [and] social organisation. ibid.
The changes in homo erectus are substantial over a million years but they seem gradual. ibid.
He has what no other possesses: a jigsaw of faculties which alone over three thousand millions years of life make him creative. ibid.
Hunting requires conscious planning and organisation by means of language as well as special weapons. ibid.