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H Quotes

Browse famous quotes beginning with H. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.

All H Quotes

“Human life is but of brief duration. 'All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God shall stand forever' (Isa. 40:6, 8). Let us hold fast to the commandment that abides, and despise the unreality that passes away.”

“Human life is fragile: we live in the space between one breath and the next. We often try to maintain an illusion of permanence, through what we do, say, wear, buy, and how we enjoy ourselves and who and how we love. Yet it is an illusion that is constantly being undermined by change and death. We can use diamonds in whatever way we like. They are empty things, pretty as water, yet within them—if we want to see it—there is blood, dust, love, curses, and suffering. There is desire to make someone happy, there is admiration, there is ostentation…and there is a company’s profit curve.”

“Human life is inherently dualistic. It consists of or is explicable as two fundamental entities, including rivalries between subject and object, mind and matter, and conflict between the benevolent and the malevolent forces. Opposition in the universe creates a dynamic living universe composed of good and evil, body and soul. Human thoughts and feelings are the communal products of the conscious and unconscious mind’s interpretation of a constant flow of coded and symbolic dialogue.”

“Human life is not some sort of race or game in which each person should start from an identical mark. It is an attempt by each man to be as happy as possible. And each person could not begin from the same point, for the world has not just come into being; it is diverse and infinitely varied in its parts. The mere fact that one individual is necessarily born in a different place from someone else immediately insures that his inherited opportunity cannot be the same as his neighbor's.”

“Human life is precious; the life of a child even more so. Knowing that your grasp is the only thing that separates a child from life and death is a heavy burden. Although it may take a split second, those times feel like hours when you are praying that you are making the right choice. Should I wait for more help? Can she hang on long enough? What if the river pulls her from me? What if she can’t hold her breath long enough? What if she panics and tries to break free? These types of questions and fears run through a person’s mind when they are trying to save someone. For a police officer, the decision has an even greater impact. He will be judged. If he can’t hold on, if she can’t hold her breath or the river takes her, he will be judged. He will be stupid for not waiting, he will be weak for not holding on tight enough, and he will be prosecuted in the court of public opinion without being able to defend himself. His picture will be displayed on the news alongside the image of the dead, innocent child. You have seconds to decide. What will it be? Will you risk your life, your reputation, and your future to save this child or do you wait? If you wait and she is lost, you still lose. This is the riddle of law enforcement: finding a way to do the right thing and succeeding at it, without upsetting or injuring anyone.”

“Human life is precious, sublime and meaningful. But by involvement in purely worldly pursuits, the greatness of human birth is forgotten. Without human values, life is meaningless. When there is purity in thought, word and deed, human values are practised. The unity of the three H's is essential. 'Heart, Head and Hand. ' But today this unity is absent among people, with the result that men are becoming inhuman.”

“Human life is so full of pain, that once past the youthful delusion that a sad countenance is interesting, and an incurable woe the most delightful thing possible, the mind instinctively turns where it can get rest, and cheer and sunshine. And the friend who can bring to it the largest portion of these is, of a natural necessity, the most useful, the most welcome, and the most dear.”

“Human life is so strangely constituted that even perfected intellectual understanding combined with the richest experience is incapable of conquering innate weaknesses. Even if it thoroughly analyzes itself, psychology (and this is one of the dubious aspects of psychoanalysis) can, to be sure, recognize its flawed native characteristics, but it cannot eliminate them. Understanding (them) is not the same as overcoming (them) and, again and again, we see the wisest of human beings helpless in the fact of their small follies which everyone else observes with a smile.”

“Human life is thus only a perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity and without passion.”

“Human life might be predestined or susceptible to a modicum of alteration through a determined act of free will. Who is the warden controlling my fate? Can I create a new self-governing overseer to guide me through an underground tunnel of repressed desire? Can I inculcate myself from a diseased mind by discovering freedom from suffering? Can I chisel out a paradigmatic way to live righteously? Can I cut a groove in my heart and discover the lightness of soul that I seek? Can I discover a hidden key of enlightenment that allows me to manumit my enslaved spirit? Can I put an end to the atrocious evilness that haunts my existence? Can I burn a neural route through my brain that releases the intolerable pressure searing my tattered soul?”

“Human life, Rousseau understood, begins not in democracy but in monarchy. The baby, on whom caregivers ardently dote, has no way of surviving except by making slaves of others. Babies are so weak that they must either rule or die. Incapable of shared work or reciprocity, they can get things only by commands and threats, and by exploiting the worshipful love given them by others. (In letters, Rousseau made it clear that this was why he abandoned his children: he just didn’t have time to be at a baby’s beck and call.)”

“Human life, from the cradle to the grave, is a school. At every period of his existence man wants a teacher. His pilgrimage upon earth is but a term of childhood, in which he is to be educated for the manhood of a brighter world. As the child must be educated for manhood upon earth, so the man must be educated upon earth, for heaven; and finally that where the foundation is not laid in time, the superstructure can not rise for eternity.”