W Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“We human beings are not only the beneficiaries but also the stewards of other creatures. Thanks to our bodies, God has joined us so closely to the world around us that we can feel the desertification of the soil almost as a physical ailment, and the extinction of a species as a painful disfigurement. Let us not leave in our wake a swatch of destruction and death which will affect our own lives and those of future generations.”
“We human beings are only a part of something very much larger. When we walk along, we may crush a beetle or simply cause a change in the air so that a fly ends up where it might never have gone otherwise. And if we think of the same example but with ourselves in the role of the insect, and the larger universe in the role we've just played, it's perfectly clear that we're affected every day by forces over which we have no more control than the poor beetle has over our gigantic foot as it descends upon it. What are we to do? We must use whatever methods we can to understand the movement of the universe around us and time our actions so that we are not fighting the currents, but moving with them.”
“We human beings are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others’ activities. For this reason, it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others.”
“We human beings are spiritual beings. We have soul. We have spirit. We have mind. We have consciousness. We want fulfillment, we want happiness, we want satisfaction, we want joy. We want imagination. We want art, culture, music.”
“We human beings are story-tellers, we pass on our values through the stories we tell. This is particularly true of Catholics, who get their identity through their histories, which they see as salvation history linking them to the saving actions of Christ. So, for Catholics, doing history – passing on the values by telling stories – is a pastoral imperative. We must look where we have been in order to know where we are going.”
Source: Australian Catholic Lives
“We human beings are strange creatures and still reserve the right to think for ourselves.”
“We, human beings , are strong because we are capable of change .”
“We human beings are tuned such that we crave great melody and great lyrics. And if somebody writes a great song, it's timeless that we as humans are going to feel something for that and there's going to be a real appreciation.”
“We human beings build houses because we're alive but we write books because we're mortal. We live in groups because we're sociable but we read because we know we're alone. Reading offers a kind of companionship that takes no one's place but that no one can replace either. It offers no definitive explanation of our destiny but links us inextricably to life. Its tiny secret links remind us of how paradoxically happy we are to be alive while illuminating how tragically absurd life is.”
“We, human beings, can get to experience life in its totality by the practice of spirituality.”
“We human beings can survive the most difficult of circumstances if we are not forced to stand alone.”
Source: What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women
“We human beings cause monstrous conditions, but precisely because we cause them we soon learn to adapt ourselves to them. Only if we become such that we can no longer adapt ourselves, only if, deep inside, we rebel against every kind of evil, will we be able to put a stop to it. ... while everything within us does not yet scream out in protest, so long will we find ways of adapting ourselves, and the horrors will continue.”
Source: Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943
“We human beings constitute and reconstitute ourselves through cultural traditions, which we experience as our own development in a historical time that spans the generations. To investigate the life-world as horizon and ground of all experience therefore requires investigating none other than generativity - the processes of becoming, of making and remaking, that occur over the generations and within which any individual genesis is always already situated. ... Individual subjectivity is intersubjectively and culturally embodied, embedded, and emergent.”
Source: Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind
“We human beings do have some genuine freedom of choice and therefore some effective control over our own destinies. I am not a determinist. But I also believe that the decisive choice is seldom the latest choice in the series. More often than not, it will turn out to be some choice made relatively far back in the past.”
“We, human beings don't always need an intelligent mind that speaks, but a patient heart that listens. Supportive relationships are very much needed. Know that, the small acts of kindness can be as powerful as very big donations.”
Source: The Mystic Soul
“We human beings don't realize how great God is. He has given us an extraordinary brain and a sensitive loving heart. He has blessed us with two lips to talk and express our feelings, two eyes which see a world of colors and beauty, two feet which walk on the road of life, two hands to work for us, a nose which smells the beauty of fragrance, and two ears to hear the words of love.”
“We human beings grow through our failures, not our virtues.”
“We human beings have a remarkable way of growing accustomed to things.”
Source: Memoirs Of A Geisha
“We human beings have always known that our eyes reveal our true nature. It’s nearly impossible to hide emotions in them. “Look me in the eye and tell me the truth,” the questioner will say to the accused, because both parties know that while words can mask the truth, our eyes will invariably reveal it.”
“We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better.... or else we think about the future, about what we're going to do.... But at this precise moment, you also realize that you can change your future by bringing the past into the present. Past and future only exist in our mind. The present moment, though, is outside of time, it's Eternity.... It isn't what you did in the past the will affect the present. It's what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future.”
“We human beings have not secured happiness; on the contrary, science gives us catastrophes. We are like travelers losing their way in a desert. They see a big black shadow ahead and desperately run to it, thinking it may lead them somewhere. But after running a long way, they no longer see the shadow and fall into the slough of despond. What is that shadow? It is this ""Mr. Science.”
“We human beings instinctively regard the seen world as the "real" world and the unseen world as the "unreal" world, but the Bible calls for almost the opposite.”
Source: Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud
“We human beings regard ourselves as (or compare ourselves to) animals only when it suits us.”
“We human beings seem always to have found it comforting to have someone to look down on—a bottom level of fellow creatures who are very vulnerable, but who can somehow be blamed and punished for all or any troubles. We need this lowest class as much as we need equals to team with and to compete against and superiors to look to for direction and help.”
Source: Parable of the Talents
“We Humanists behave as well as we can, without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an Afterlife. We serve as best we can the only abstraction with which we have any real familiarity, which is our community.”
“We humanists try to behave as decently, as fairly, and as honorably as we can without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife.”
Source: A Man Without a Country
“we, Humans, ain't superior by harming other species; though we might qualify by living in harmony.”
“We humans appear on the cosmic calendar so recently that our recorded history occupies only the last few seconds of the last minute of December 31st.”
“We humans are a complex interwoven system of the body, the mind, and the spirit. We are formed and informed by the interplay of these systems. Our health care, to be truly effective, must acknowledge and address this complexity and interconnectedness – and also the effect we have on each other.”
“We humans are a fairly barbarous bunch.”
“We humans are a frightening animal. Throughout our species existence, we have used each new technology we have developed to boost the destructive power of our ancient predisposition for killing members of our own species.”
Source: Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World
“We humans are a hungry lot. We are driven by a craving to know who we are. Yet who we are is embedded in the heart of a holy God. Unless we seek for ourselves in the epicenter of God's grace, we will be forever condemned to walk the arid edges of self-understanding.”
Source: A Hunger for the Holy: Nuturing Intimacy with Christ
“we humans are always seeking inspiration, motivation, and strength from outside elements, which actually takes us away from our inner strengths and abilities.”
“We humans are an extremely important manifestation of the replication bomb, because it is through us - through our brains, our symbolic culture and our technology - that the explosion may proceed to the next stage and reverberate through deep space.”
Source: River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
“We humans are basically content with a two-dimensional world, which is what we-ve always occupied. We travel mostly on the ground, have traffic jams, parking problems , and we-d do a lot better to look up a little bit because there is that great aerial highway that-s always ready to go, you Don't have to pave it and the benefits are very great.”
“We humans are born egocentric. The sky thunders and children believe that God is mad at them for something they've done - parents divorce and children believe it's their fault for not being good enough. Growing up means putting aside our egocentricity for truth. Still, some people cling to this childish mind-set. As painful as their self-flagellation may be, they'd rather believe their crises are their fault so they can believe they have control. In doing so they make fools and false gods of themselves.”
Source: Miles to Go: The Second Journal of the Walk Series
“We humans are complex creatures and we live multifaceted lives; there is rarely a single reason for any aspect of what we feel or for how we behave.”
Source: Evolutionary Psychiatry: Current Perspectives on Evolution and Mental Health
“We humans are complicated creatures. There are so many in-betweens within us.”
Source: Isle of Blood and Stone
“We humans are conflicted beings. Our beliefs don’t always harmonize with our instincts, and our behavior doesn’t always reflect our beliefs. We constantly struggle with right and wrong. We wage war between the person we are and the person we hope to become. We have a lot of practice wrestling with ourselves. As a result, compared to nonmagical creatures, we humans are much more able to suppress our natural inclinations in order to deliberately choose our identities.”
Source: Grip of the Shadow Plague
“We humans are conflicted beings. Our beliefs don't always harmonize with our instincts, and our behavior doesn't always reflect our beliefs. ... We wage war between the person we are and the person we hope to become.”
Source: Grip of the Shadow Plague
“We humans are constantly on the move around the world, and when we migrate we take our eating habits with us. We do so to use our agricultural and culinary knowledge, and because eating familiar food maintains our link with home and eases our homesickness. We may have to substitute ingredients and adapt our cooking methods, but even after several generations, our heritage is still evident in the food we serve at home.”
Source: Pie: A Global History
“We humans are destined to live with our feet on the earth and our heads in the heavens, and we can never be at peace because we are pulled both ways.”
Source: Letters to My Son: A Father's Wisdom on Manhood, Life, and Love
“We humans are different - our brains are built not to fix memories in stone but rather to transform them, our recollections in their retelling.”
Source: The Memory Palace: A Memoir
“We humans are herd animals of the monkey tribe, not natural individuals as lions are. Our individuality is partial and restless; the stream of consciousness that we call 'I' is made of shifting elements that flow from our group and back to our group again. Always we seek to be ourselves and the herd together, not One against the herd.”
“We humans are herd animals. When several gather to browse in one spot, more will come. Few places offer more eloquent testimony to this fact than does a library, wherein our focus ensures some few books scarcely touch the shelves from the moments of their binding until the day they fall apart from overuse. Whiles all around, in sullen silence, the unloved show their spines in endless rows, aching for the touch that never comes”
“We humans are here because nothing can be perfect. There always have to be some living things that are unsatisfied, itchy, trying too hard. If it was all just animals and rocks and lettuce, the gods wouldn't feel like they had enough to do.”
“We humans are imperfect, but what makes us human is not are kind but our courage to overcome fear, our ability to turn imagination into reality, our hope to diminish despair, and have a smile on our face although we in a predicament.”
“We humans are in such a strange position—we are still animals whose behavior reflects that of our ancestors, yet we are unique—unlike any other animal on earth. Our distinctiveness separates us and makes it easy to forget where we came from. Perhaps dogs help us remember the depth of our roots, reminding us—the animals at the other end of the leash—that we may be special, but we are not alone. No wonder we call them our best friends.”
Source: The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs
“We humans are more concerned with having than with being.”
“We humans are naturally disposed to worship gods and heroes, to build our pantheons and valhallas. I would rather see that impulse directed into the adoration of daft singers, thicko footballers and air-headed screen actors than into the veneration of dogmatic zealots, fanatical preachers, militant politicians and rabid cultural commentators.”