Top 85 Quotes About What It Means To Be Human
#1. We're just floating in space trying to figure out what it means to be human.
John Corey Whaley
#2. Like all art, nonfiction film should invite, seduce, or force us to confront the most difficult, frightening or mysterious aspects of what it means to be human.
Joshua Oppenheimer
#3. I just think that fiction that isn't exploring what it means to be human today isn't art.
David Foster Wallace
#4. Religion has been an important part of my understanding, my inquiry into what it means to be human.
Ayad Akhtar
#5. Because I can't seem to escape it. It's a way for me to address and counter my questions about what it means to be human, or, in my case a Dominican human who grew up in New Jersey.
Junot Diaz
#6. You are your own stories and therefore free to imagine and experience what it means to be human ... And although you don't have complete control over the narrative (no author does, I can tell you), you could nevertheless create it.
Toni Morrison
#7. If you knew the immensity of what it means to be human, you would not talk about God or Heaven.
Jaggi Vasudev
#8. Can we simply address what it means to be human? What is available to us in this brief moment when the universe lifts up in the form of a human sentient body and being and we live out our seventy, eighty, or ninety years (if that) and then dissolve back into the undifferentiated ocean of potential?
Jon Kabat-Zinn
#9. All of the great writers and sages we are so quick to quote have simply given their interpretation of what it means to be human.
Chris Matakas
#10. I suppose one of the things that interest me about acting is unpicking what makes people tick and why they do what they do and what it means to be human.
Hattie Morahan
#11. There's no such thing as a limit on being the best. You can always go for more. That's what it means to be human. No... That's what it means to be me. - Claire Stanfield
Ryohgo Narita
#12. What is literature, really? Boiled down to a single sentence, I'd say it's this: an endless conversation about what it means to be human. And to read literature is to engage in that conversation.
Nicole Krauss
#13. But free will is what it means to be human, and no one can determine the path you take through this universe. Choice is our greatest right, our greatest gift-and our greatest responsibility.
Amie Kaufman
#14. Philanthropy simply means love of what it means to be human.
Valaida Fullwood
#16. I not only have my secrets, I am my secrets. And you are yours. Our secrets are human secrets, and our trusting each other enough to share them with each other has much to do with the secret of what it means to be human.
Frederick Buechner
#17. Church is a place where you get to practice what it means to be human.
James Luther Adams
#18. So how on earth can I bring a child into the world, knowing that such sorrow lies ahead, that it is such a large part of what it means to be human?
I'm not sure. That's my answer: I'm not sure.
Anne Lamott
#19. Ultimately, the transgender question is about more than just sex. It's about what it means to be human.
Russell D. Moore
#20. Everyone, no matter how historically famous or modernly praised, has no idea about the ultimate truth of what it means to be human.
Chris Matakas
#21. You do have a Dream. It's part of what it means to be human, created in the image of God.
Bruce Wilkinson
#22. Our main problem is a lack of understanding of what it means to be human and that we are not separate from nature.
Jacque Fresco
#23. One purpose in my writing is to help people expand their own understanding of what it means to be human.
Foster Laverne Harding
#25. I feel most people's sexuality is enormously complicated. That's what it means to be human. Wouldn't it be great if we honored that complexity rather than turn it into gossip or ridicule? Wouldn't it be great if we accepted sexual diversity, in ourselves and others, without condemning it?
Janet Jackson
#26. I like to put my characters through a lot, so, in 'Talon,' my fans will find familiar themes of bravery and sacrifice, and what it means to be human ... even if you're not human.
Julie Kagawa
#27. Who hasn't asked himself, am I a monster or is this what it means to be human?
Clarice Lispector
#28. The moon understands what it means to be human. Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.
Tahereh Mafi
#29. I can't remember the last book that taught me so much, and so well, about what it means to be human.
James Gleick
#30. I think acting is revealing to people what it means to be human.
Nick Enright
#31. He taught me to be a Da Vinci
and I sit here, with his portraits
waiting for him to return
I do not think he will
Is that what it means to be human
to be all powerful,
to build a temple to yourself
and leave
only the walls to pray
Phil Kaye
#32. This is what it means to be human "in the image of God." It means being free to make choices instead of doing whatever our instincts
would tell us to do. It means knowing that some choices are good, and others are bad, and it is our job to know the difference.
Harold S. Kushner
#33. The development of willpower -I will, I won't and I want- may define what it means to be human.
Kelly McGonigal
#34. The most exciting breakthrough of the twenty-first century will occur not because of technology, but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human," said the futurist John Naisbitt.
Keith Ferrazzi
#35. You've certainly mellowed out ... you used to be fun, full of life and emotion. Lust, Greed, Sloth, Gluttony, Envy, Wrath, and Pride. Of course, excessive want will destroy anyone, but those same desires are necessary to understand what it means to be human. Why did you rid yourself of them?
Hiromu Arakawa
#36. This is in fact what shamanism is all about, what the end of history is all about, what psychedelic drugs are all about, we are edge-walking on an ontological transformation of what it means to be human.
Terence McKenna
#37. Art and music is part of what it means to be a human being. And if you're neglecting that, you're basically ignoring a huge side of the brain and a huge side of what it means to be human.
Joshua Bell
#38. Fast food, fast money, shallow thinking, shallow interpretations. This is now what I deal with everyday. Art was meant to be about freedom, about having the courage to explore what it means to be human.
Emma Raveling
#39. Our species is on the verge of changes that will fundamentally alter what it means to be human ... and we are the people driving that change.
Daniel Keys Moran
#40. Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human.
Henri Nouwen
#41. Artifacts are alive. Each has a voice. They remind us what it means to be human - that it is our nature to survive, to create works of beauty to be resourceful, to be attentive to the world we live in.
Terry Tempest Williams
#42. I got into pastoring because of the art form. I started a church, but I felt the art form needed to be freed for all people. A particular religion over others was never interesting to me. I wanted to talk to people about what it means to be alive and what it means to be human.
Rob Bell
#43. The most exciting breakthroughs of the 21st century will not occur because of technology but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human.
John Naisbitt
#44. Art and culture are nonetheless vital, essential even, to what it means to be human, yet digital abundance has diminished our sense of their worth.
Astra Taylor
#45. Science fiction is very well suited to asking philosophical questions; questions about the nature of reality, what it means to be human, how do we know the things that we think we know.
Ted Chiang
#46. If the purpose of literature is to illuminate human nature, the purpose of fantastic literature is to do that from a wider perspective. You can say different things about what it means to be human if you can contrast that to what it means to be a robot, or an alien, or an elf.
Jo Walton
#47. Qabalah is a portrait of what it means to be human, what it means to be divine and exist. That is what the theory of Qabalah is meant to accomplish. And tarot is that same exact portrait, done as a deck of cards. It is a portrait of the workings of the invisible universe.
Wald Amberstone
#48. But life isn't something that should be edited. Life shouldn't be cut. The only way you'll ever discover what it truly means to be alive and human is by sharing the full experience of what it means to be human and each blemish and freckle that comes with it.
Iain Thomas
#49. To gain an understanding of the mind leads on to an appreciation of what it means to be human.
Steven Mithen
#50. Science fiction, because it ventures into no man's lands, tends to meet some of the requirements posed by Jung in his explorations of archetypes, myth structures and self-understanding. It may be that the primary attraction of science fiction is that it helps us understand what it means to be human.
Frank Herbert
#51. To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.
Terry Tempest Williams
#52. This is a debate about our understanding of human dignity, what it means to be a member of the human family, even though tiny, powerless and unwanted
Henry Hyde
#53. Tonglen means "taking in and sending out". This meditation practice is designed to help ordinary people like ourselves connect with the openness and softness of our hearts. Instead of shielding and protecting our soft spot, with tonglen we could let ourselves feel what it is to be human.
Pema Chodron
#54. If we could carry an awareness of being with us into each day, allowing it to influence the way we do things, and how we relate to others, we might find ourselves living a very different kind of life; maybe then we would fully embrace the deeper truth of what it means to be a human being.
Stephen Denham
#55. ...Each of you will begin to be truly human when, in spite of your natural dislike of one another, you still respect one another. That is what it means to be civilized.
William, Saroyan
#56. We're at a great transition point in terms of population, demographics, and what it means to be a human being.
Grace Lee Boggs
#57. As far as I am concerned, the greatest suffering is to feel alone, unwanted, unloved. The greatest suffering is also having no one, forgetting what an intimate, truly human relationship is, not knowing what it means to be loved, not having a family or friends.
Mother Teresa
#58. the soul said, "Is this what you think it means to be human?
C. G. Jung
#59. Oh, I would not want a knight with no dents. It means he has never been to battle, never fought for his honor, the things he believes in, or for sheer survival. Without the dents, sir, I would not trust my knight to be fully human.
Kathleen Bittner Roth
#60. We, the human beings, are meant to live life to its fullest. We are meant to experience it all - sadness, disappointment, rage, kindness, joy, love. We are meant to test ourselves. It is painful and frightening, but this is what it means to be alive.
Ilona Andrews
#61. I feel it respectful to observe and practice new customs, if I am to ever understand what it truly means to be human.
Jacob D. Lochner
#62. Whiteness, Fanon asserts, has become a symbol of purity, of Justice, Truth, Virginity. It defi nes what it means to be civilized, modern and human
Anonymous
#63. I'm gonna make music, and I'm gonna capture every aspect of being a human being. That's really all I'm trying to do. I think that artists and pop culture identities are used to simplify what it means to be a human and pigeon-hole people into looking up to one role model.
Mac Miller
#64. Admittedly, a book about pro-life apologetics may not appeal to some lay Christians. It seems many believers would rather focus on end times rather than these times. That's a mistake. Humans who ignore questions about truth and human value may soon learn what it really means to be left behind.
Scott Klusendorf
#65. If you weren't scared,
you wouldn't be human,
you wouldn't be brave."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"If you were fearless,
you wouldn't
need to overcome it.
Bravery means being scared
and going forward
anyway," Fia says.
"That's courage.
Leza Lowitz
#66. What does it mean to be human? It means we are created in the image of God for the glorious reality of being in permanent fellowship with Him.
Ravi Zacharias
#67. Jesus, as the one perfect person who fully embodied what it meant to be human and is the new Adam, is the definition of what it means to be a man. Everything else is false.
Nate Pyle
#68. We all know about love, faith, sadness, despair, hope, hopelessness, longing, desire ... those are things we all have inside of us, and that's what my songs are about ... what it means to be a human being.
Ron Pope
#69. The foregrounding of health may be one part of the mission of fashion, but on a more ambitious level, this art form also provides women with clothes that support a range of views about what it means to be an interesting and desirable human being.
Alain De Botton
#70. The right to evaluate risk for oneself is part of what it means to be a functioning human being.
Mark Steyn
#71. But as with so may diagnoses it is, in the end, the symptoms that matter, not the cause, because this is what being alive means, this is what being a person means, to be sickened by an illness known as you.
Heidi Julavits
#72. You know when ubuntu is there, and it is obvious when it is absent. It has to do with what it means to be truly human, to know that you are bound up with others in the bundle of life.
Desmond Tutu
#73. I love theater. I love sitting in an audience and having the actors right there, playing out what it means to be a human being.
Elizabeth Strout
#74. Caring for others is an expression of what it means to be fully human.
Hillary Clinton
#75. As our closest relatives, they (chimpanzees) tell us special things about what it means to be a primate and, ultimately, what it means to be a human at the DNA level.
Francis Collins
#76. Art is the act of triggering deep memories of what it means to be fully human.
David Whyte
#77. I'm interested in everything about what it means to be a human being, so every role is an excuse to delve into a different way of life, a different socio-economic background, and a different tragic or comedic circumstance.
Rachelle Lefevre
#78. Classical music is a wonderful 1200 year-old tradition that witnesses everything that it has meant and what it means right now to be human.
Michael Tilson Thomas
#79. Making a film means, first of all, to tell a story. That story can be an improbable one, but it should never be banal. It must be dramatic and human. What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out?
Alfred Hitchcock
#80. Religion is never going to go away, and anyone who thinks it will doesn't understand what religion is. It is a language to describe the experience of human nature, so for as long as people struggle to describe what it means to be alive, it will be a ready-made language to express those feelings.
Reza Aslan
#81. The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#82. As authors, most - most authors, our art is portraying the human condition. Trying to show you what it's like to be somebody else, trying to make you feel for somebody else. That means you have to have a high degree of empathy.
Patrick Rothfuss
#83. It would be really wonderful if people connected to the loneliness of what it means to be a human being in the world today.
Elisabeth Shue
#84. The aim of great books is ethical: to teach what it means to be a man. Every major form of literary art has taken for its deeper themes what T.S. Eliot called "the permanent things"-the norms of human action.
Russell Kirk
#85. The physical threat posed by climate change represents a crisis that is not only material but also profoundly spiritual at its core because it challenges us to think seriously about the future of the human race and what it means to be a human being.
Grace Lee Boggs
