99 Compassionate Quotes About The Value of Humanity
The entire humankind has historically resorted to actions that can clearly make us question our humanity. Whether the motive was war, envy, blind faith or mere cruelty, there are a lot of examples when people around the world forgot or oversaw what it truly means to be human.
Humanists throughout history have stressed the importance of being humane, which often involves empathy, compassion and forgiveness. What really remains even after life itself has vanished – but, most importantly, while we all live our lives together is a person’s effort to make everyone’s life easy. This collection of humanity quotes by prominent personalities will inspire you, give you courage and remind us all of just that.
Table of Contents
- Beautiful Humanity Quotes
- Kindness is Humanity Quotes
- Serving Humanity Quotes
- Inspirational Humanity Quotes and the Meaning of Being Human
- Humanity and Civil Rights
- Faith in Humanity Quotes
- Important Quotes that Teach us to Respect Humanity
- A Closing Thought By Bertrand Russell
Beautiful Humanity Quotes
- No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
John Donne - My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. Desmond Tutu
- Humanity should be our race. Love should be our religion. Unknown
- To err is human, to forgive, divine. Alexander Pope
- Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive. Dalai Lama
- He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool. Albert Camus
- What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly – that is the first law of nature. Voltaire
- The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane. Mahatma Gandhi
- The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy, we can all sense a mysterious connection to each other. Meryl Streep
- All wars are civil wars because all men are brothers… Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born. François Fénelon
- My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. Thomas Paine
- Every single time you help somebody stand up you are helping humanity rise. Steve Maraboli
- Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire. Thomas Keneally
- Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another. Carl Sagan
- If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. Mother Teresa
- The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection. George Orwell
- The human spirit must prevail over technology. Albert Einstein
- Moral courage is the highest expression of humanity. Ralph Nader
- The next evolutionary step for humankind is to move from man to kind. Unknown
- We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane. Kurt Vonnegut
- Each of us is a unique strand in the intricate web of life and here to make a contribution. Deepak Chopra
- Each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity. Marie Curie
- Courage. Kindness. Friendship. Character. These are the qualities that define us as human beings, and propel us, on occasion, to greatness. R.J. Palacio
- I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains. Anne Frank
- Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious, one should preserve it. Anais Nin
- Everybody is talented because everybody who is human has something to express. Brenda Ueland
- There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher. Victor Hugo
- To be a man is to feel that one’s own stone contributes to building the edifice of the world. Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. William Shakespeare
- The main facts in human life are five: birth, food, sleep, love and death. E. M. Forster
- Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature. Tom Robbins
- What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable. Joseph Addison
- Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man. Henry Adams
- I don’t want to be a genius-I have enough problems just trying to be a man. Albert Camus
- If you treat people right they will treat you right … ninety percent of the time. Franklin D. Roosevelt
- No religion is higher than humanity. Abdul Sattar Edhi
- An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. Martin Luther King Jr
Kindness is Humanity Quotes
- Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. Desmond Tutu
- Kindness is the best form of humanity. Doris Lee
- Politeness is the flower of humanity. Joseph Joubert
- Find the sweetness in your own heart, then you may find the sweetness in every heart. Rumi
- Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. Mark Twain
- Compassion is the chief law of human existence. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. Albert Camus
- Love life and life will love you back. Love people and they will love you back. Arthur Rubinstein
Serving Humanity Quotes
- The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity. Leo Tolstoy
- Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves. Horace Mann
- If you judge people, you have no time to love them. Mother Teresa
- Empty is the argument of the philosopher which does not relieve any human suffering. Epicurus
- The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others. Albert Schweitzer
- Strong people stand up for themselves, but stronger people stand up for others. Unknown
- The simplest way to be happy is to do good. Helen Keller
- All I have is a sense of duty toward all people and an attachment to those with whom I have become intimate. Albert Einstein
Inspirational Humanity Quotes and the Meaning of Being Human
- Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions. Charles Darwin
- Be a good human being, a warm hearted, affectionate person. That is my fundamental belief. 14th Dalai Lama
- We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond. Gwendolyn Brooks
- We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects. Herman Melville
- When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others. Desmond Tutu
- We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers. Martin Luther King Jr
- We are very, very small, but we are profoundly capable of very, very big things. Stephen Hawking
- My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it. Ursula K. Le Guin
- We must laugh and cry, enjoy and suffer, in a word, vibrate to our full capacity … I think that’s what being really human means. Gustave Flaubert
- An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. Martin Luther King, Jr.
- One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that. Joseph Campbell
- The mistake ninety-nine percent of humanity made, as far as Fats could see, was being ashamed of what they were; lying about it, trying to be somebody else. J.K. Rowling
- Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. Horace Mann
- The longing for Paradise is man’s longing not to be man. Milan Kundera
- We all are men, in our own natures frail, and capable of our flesh; few are angels. William Shakespeare, Henry VII
- All great things must first wear terrifying and monstrous masks in order to inscribe themselves on the hearts of humanity. Friedrich Nietzsche
- We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don’t know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can’t accept it for what it is. Stanisław Lem, Solaris
- Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed. Stanisław Lem, Solaris
- It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil. Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
- If we wish to know about a man, we ask ‘what is his story–his real, inmost story?’–for each of us is a biography, a story. Each of us is a singular narrative, which is constructed, continually, unconsciously, by, through, and in us–through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions; and, not least, our discourse, our spoken narrations. Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as narratives–we are each of us unique. Oliver Sacks
Humanity and Civil Rights
- To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity. Nelson Mandela
- World belongs to humanity, not this leader, that leader or that king or prince or religious leader. World belongs to humanity. Dalai Lama
- You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right. Rosa Parks
- The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life. Jane Addams
- Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Martin Luther King Jr
- 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
Faith in Humanity Quotes
- We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings. Albert Einstein
- The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man. T.S. Eliot
- In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. Anne Frank
- You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. Mahatma Gandhi
Important Quotes that Teach us to Respect Humanity
- The more we take, the less there is for future generations. Phil Kingston
- During bad circumstances, which is the human inheritance, you must decide not to be reduced. You have your humanity, and you must not allow anything to reduce that. We are obliged to know we are global citizens. Disasters remind us we are world citizens, whether we like it or not. Maya Angelou
- I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one ‘race’ – the human race – and that we are all members of it. Margaret Atwood
- Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity. Pema Chodron
- I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me… All I ask is that you respect me as a human being. Jackie Robinson
- Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat. Ralph Ellison
- Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end. Immanuel Kant
- In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute. Thurgood Marshall
A Closing Thought By Bertrand Russell
Love is wise; hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way. But if we are to live together, and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance, which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet. Bertrand Russell
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