- “Brandon, until this very moment, the world and the people in it have always been dark and incomprehensible to me, and I’ve tried to clear my way with logic and superior intellect, and you’ve thrown by own words right back in my face; you’ve given my words a meaning that I never dreamed of, and you tried to twist them into a cold logical excuse for your ugly murder! Tonight you’ve made me ashamed of every concept I’ve ever had, of superior or inferior beings, but I thank you for that shame, because now I know that we’re each of us a separate human being, Brandon, with the right to live and work and think as individuals, but with an obligation to the society that we live in. By what right do you dare say that there’s a superior few to which you belong? By what right did you dare decide that that boy in there [he’s referencing the dead body of “David,” lying in a trunk in the middle of the room] was inferior and therefore could be killed? Did you think you were God Brandon? Is that what you thought when you choked the life out of him? Is that what you thought when you served food from his grave! I don’t know what you thought or what you are, but I know what you’ve done—YOU’VE MURDERED! You’ve strangled the life of a fellow human being who could live and love as you never could… and never will again!”
―
Arthur Laurents
- “After all, Paul Robeson said, ‘Artists are the radical voice of civilization.’ Each and every one of you in this room, with your gifts and your power and your skills, could perhaps change the way in which our global humanity mistrusts itself. Perhaps we as artists and as visionaries, for what’s better in the human heart and the human soul, could influence citizens everywhere in the world to see the better side of who and what we are as a species.”
―
Harry Belafonte
- “Societies that lack respect for animals eventually lose respect for human beings.”
―
Wayne Gerard Trotman
- “…and when the tension receded there was calm, the calm that is called before the storm, but is in reality the foundation of a human life, waiting there for us between the steps of our march to our mortality, when we are compelled to pause and not act but be.”
―
Mohsin Hamid,
Exit West
- “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.”
―
Suzy Kassem,
Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
- “The world doesn’t need a good woman who is meekly obedient to the uncivilized social norms that advocate female inferiority. The world needs those bad women who can think for themselves, to break the primeval norms of the society that consistently drag the human civilization back to the stone-age.”
―
Abhijit Naskar,
The Bengal Tigress: A Treatise on Gender Equality
- “Yet tell me, my brothers: if a goal for humanity is still lacking, is there not still lacking–humanity itself?”
―
Friedrich Nietzsche,
A Nietzsche Reader
- “But it is the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthword, downword, into the dark, the deep – into evil.”
―
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
- “Saviour Lord Jesus Christ save us, Amen!”
―
Lailah Gifty Akita
- “We were all born to be peaceful citizens of the world. Take care of your global garden and do not allow evil gardeners to try and convince you which flowers are ugly and which should be destroyed. This is God’s universe and he is the master gardener of all. If you see ugliness in his creations, then you see ugliness in our Creator. Wake up. If we eliminate all colors in his garden, then what would be a rainbow with only one color? And what would be a garden with only one kind of flower? Why would the Creator create a vast assortment of plants, ethnicities, and animals, if only one beast or seed is to dominate all of existence?”
―
Suzy Kassem,
Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
- “You do not have to be beautiful.You do not even have to be intelligent.All you have to do is practice kindness,for that is our purpose.”
―
Kamand Kojouri
- “Man is the most irrational of beings, because his imagination is always deceiving him about reality.”
―
Marty Rubin
- “The Creator created all things. In him all things hold together.”
―
Lailah Gifty Akita
- “You are an amazing girl who bedazzles the world with the flames of soulful intensity. A diamond never ever gets to know that it is a diamond. You are that diamond who bedazzles humanity!”
―
Avijeet Das
- “When there are more people who hate than people who love, then there are wars, which make hate grow until it destroys everything.”
―
Mario Escobar,
Children of the Stars
- “Without the errors which are active in every psychical pleasure and displeasrue a humanity would never have come into existence–whose fundamental feeling is and remains that man is the free being in a world of unfreedom, the external miracle worker whether he does good or ill, the astonishing exception, the superbeast and almost-god, the meaning of creation which cannot be thought away, the solution of the cosmic riddle, the mighty ruler over nature and the despiser of it, the creature which calls its history world history!–Vanitas vanitatum homo.”
―
Friedrich Nietzsche,
A Nietzsche Reader
- “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
―
Mother Teresa
- “I think we’re closest to our deepest nature, our true being, when we’re not thinking but just doing things.”
―
Marty Rubin
- “The truth is, we are all beautiful exactly how we are but as long as you believe the lies cast upon you saying otherwise, your self esteem will stay low which keeps you easily controlled.”
―
Shanna Star,
The Entertainment Industry: Part of a Larger Plan
- “Is humanity a lost cause? History seems to say so.”
―
Marty Rubin
- “…his size drew attentionfrom everyone who happened to glance downwards. But Mulch quickly discovered that MudPeople could find a reason to distrust almost anyone. Height, weight, skin colour, religion. It wasalmost safer to be different in some way.”
―
Eoin Colfer,
The Eternity Code
- “- ‘Well?’ asked Adam, turning back from his dismissal. – ‘We were only going to say,’ said God shyly, twisting Their hands together. ‘Well, we were just going to say, God bless you.”
―
T.H. White,
The Once and Future King
- “Falling in love with humans is like walking into a pantry and realizing you’re trapped in it without Whip Cream, and Cherries.”
―
AainaA-Ridtz A R
- “It is the mythic experience, the mythic imagination that opens, reveals depth and mystery, which places the human in the context of the nonhuman, and so, forces retreat, humility, and awe, in the presence of spaces beyond our will.”
―
Tom Cheetham,
Green Man, Earth Angel: The Prophetic Tradition and the Battle for the Soul of the World
- “[L]et the edifices of religions crumble, let a blind fire consume all the bricks in temples, mosques, and gurudwaras and churches, and on those ruins let us grow enchanting gardens of sweet-smelling flowers and build schools and libraries. Let places of worship be used for the good of people and be turned into hospitals, orphanages, schools and universities. Our new places of worship should be academies of art and cultures, centres of creativity and institutes of scientific research. Let the rice fields with golden grain bathed by the early rays of the sun, the open fields and rivers, and the deep sea be our new places of prayer. Let humanity be the other name for religion.”
―
Taslima Nasrin
- “Everybody is talented because everybody who is human has something to express.”
―
Brenda Ueland
- “My allegiance is to the light of human consciousness.”
―
Visakan Veerasamy
- “May we find more grace to do good deeds.”
―
Lailah Gifty Akita,
Think Great: Be Great!
- “It’s the idea that people living close to nature tend to be noble. It’s seeing all those sunsets that does it. You can’t watch a sunset and then go off and set fire to your neighbor’s tepee. Living close to nature is wonderful for your mental health.”
―
Daniel Quinn,
Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
- “No one is going to bring the world to your doorstep. It is up to you to see the varieties of the human condition.”
―
Zachariah Renfro