Humanity

Love, hope, fear, faith — these make humanity;
These are its sign and note and character. ~ Robert Browning

Humanity may refer to mankind as a group, and to the human condition, but also the human quality of being benevolent.

Quotes

• [...] Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
  • Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See (1990)

• An inadvertent step may crush the snail
  That crawls at evening in the public path.
  But he that has humanity, forewarned,
  Will turn aside and let the reptile live.
  • William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book VI.

• I've helped him into an act of humanity. Anyone else like the sound of that: act of humanity?
  • The Doctor, speaking of his inspiration of a replicant of a human being to care about the fate of the original human, in The Almost People episode of Doctor Who (28 May 2011), written by Matthew Graham

• The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.
  • Eric Hoffer, in The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955), Section 124.

• It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor. … Some of the worst tyrannies of our day genuinely are "vowed" to the service of mankind, yet can function only by pitting neighbor against neighbor. The all-seeing eye of a totalitarian regime is usually the watchful eye of the next-door neighbor. In a Communist state love of neighbor may be classed as counter-revolutionary.
  • Eric Hoffer, in The Ordeal of Change (1963), Ch. 11: Brotherhood

• The impulse of power is to turn every variable into a constant, and give to commands the inexorableness and relentlessness of laws of nature. Hence absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.
  • Eric Hoffer, in The Ordeal of Change (1963), Ch. 15 : The Unnaturalness Of Human Nature

• Laborin' man an' laborin' woman
  Hev one glory an' one shame;
  Ev'ythin' thet's done inhuman
  Injers all on 'em the same.
  • James Russell Lowell, The Biglow Papers (1848), First Series. No. 1, Stanza 10.

• My mistakes are my own, but over the ages humans have proven to be violent, short sighted and hostile. Is this really something I can do anything about?
  • James Wong, through Thomas, a fictional character in the television show The Event (2010-2011). He is the leader of an alien species which lives on Earth.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 380.

• Love, hope, fear, faith — these make humanity;
  These are its sign and note and character.
  • Robert Browning, Paracelsus, scene 3.

• W'en you see a man in woe,
  Walk right up and say "hullo."
  Say "hullo" and "how d'ye do,"
  "How's the world a-usin' you?"
  . . . . .
  W'en you travel through the strange
  Country t'other side the range,
  Then the souls you've cheered will know
  Who you be, an' say "hullo."
  • Sam Walter Foss, Hullo.

• He held his seat; a friend to human race.
  • Homer, The Iliad, Book VI, line 18. Pope's translation.

• Respect us, human, and relieve us, poor.
  • Homer, The Odyssey, Book IX, line 338. Pope's translation.

• Over the brink of it
  Picture it—think of it,
  Dissolute man.
  Lave in it—drink of it
  Then, if you can.
  • Thomas Hood, Bridge of Sighs.

• Oh, God! that bread should be so dear,
  And flesh and blood so cheap!
  • Thomas Hood, Song of a Shirt.

• For He, who gave this vast machine to roll,
  Breathed Life in them, in us a Reasoning Soul;
  That kindred feelings might our state improve,
  And mutual wants conduct to mutual love.
  • Juvenal, Satire XV, line 203.

• Every human heart is human.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hiawatha, Introduction, line 91.

• It is good to be often reminded of the inconsistency of human nature, and to learn to look without wonder or disgust on the weaknesses which are found in the strongest minds.
  • Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, Warren Hastings.

• For nothing human foreign was to him.
  • James Thomson, To the Memory of Lord Talbot, translation of "Humani nihil a me alienum puto".

• For the interesting and inspiring thing about America, gentlemen, is that she asks nothing for herself except what she has a right to ask for humanity itself.
  • Woodrow Wilson, speech at the luncheon of the Mayor of New York, May 17, 1915.

• Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
  With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.
  • William Wordsworth, Hart-leap Well, Part II.

• But hearing oftentimes
  The still, sad music of humanity.
  • William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey.