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Human Connection Quotes

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Human Connection Quotes

“Human connection is based on trust, and it is trust that is continually violated when people do not practice setting aside their narrow self-interests in consideration of the needs and interests of others, such as their coworkers, family, neighbours, and community.”

“Dana had one arm. He'd lost the other one to cancer. Being the film freak I was, I never bothered to ask about it further. Or even what his last name was. Not enough time before or between the films. A one-armed schoolteacher, teaching kids in the shitty L.A. school district, probably full of more stories and personality than the electric fables being projected above us. But I was more focused on the mummies and vampires and dinosaurs and aliens to take a deeper interest in an actual, unique human being sitting right next to me. Such was my addiction, at that point. Cut off from the world. A ghost, but breathing and jacketed with flesh.”

“The reason why Ango and I were able to be by his side was that we understood the solitude that surrounded him, and we never stepped inside it no matter how close we stood. But in that moment, I kind of regretted not stepping in and invading that solitude.”

“...the late Mr. Seymour himself has already served as a cautionary tale that happiness as a matter of course does not follow wealth. We cannot fulfill ourselves by worldly possessions. Wealth is but a tool that can be put to use for better or worse, but material wealth pales next to the bounty of human connection....Without connection this life is meaningless. [Nora Bergen, Letter to brother Finn]”

“It's funny. We meet hundreds of people. We stop to remember them sometimes and they're so far away and we're not a part of them anymore. Makes you realise how important it is to be a part of someone. And stay that way with them. And we have visions of going out into the open world and treating it as our oyster... but it takes a small, mindful moment to make us realise that doesn't really mean anything when you don't have someone to call home.”

“The Reluctant Guest by Stewart Stafford My hand extended to an off-the-grid stray; Yet, still he scowls, And smacks it away. Near-gone from the world, His blindfold horizon quails, That veteran heart stiffens, As frozen asphalt exhales. A ghost at his own funeral, Thwarting hopes of a life— Institutionalised in cement, A fold in warm cardboard strife. Frontal assault to backdoor pivot: Dinner in his mother’s memory. A toothless grin at my tactic, A bridge to nourishing festivity. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

“The Lacandones have no way of saying 'hello' or 'good-bye'; when they meet they just start talking, and when they depart they just walk away. It's as if the bonds of family and friendship are not disconnected by distance and therefore do not need to be reestablished.”

“In a Vietnamese village, as reported in a recent TV program, gas bombs had been thrown into holes and huts to drive out of hiding any remaining Viet Cong. Only women and children came out of the holes. One child, about two, routed out with his mother, sat on her lap looking up at a large Negro marine. The side of the child's face was dirty with the smoke and soot from the smoke bomb; he had been crying. He looked up with an expression of bewilderment, now beyond crying, not knowing what to make of such a world. But the camera shifted immediately to the black American marine looking down at the child, commanding and somewhat hideous in his battle uniform. He had exactly the same expression: bewilderment, his eyes wide as he stared down at the child, his mouth slightly ajar; but his stare did not move, remaining fixed on that child. What should he make of a world in which he does this? While the announcer of the program rattled on about how the gas is harmful for only ten minutes and then leaves no deleterious effects, the cameraman kept his camera focused on the face of the marine. Was the marine recalling that he too had once been a child in some Southern state, driven from caves and huts where he had been playing, recognizing that he too was of a race held to be 'inferior'? That he too was once a child in a world at which he could only look out and up, a world causing pain for reasons no child can begin to fathom? Does he see himself in this child, see his bewilderment as a black child?”

“Meanwhile, increased unhappiness results from our deteriorating social relationships. Relationships with family, peers, colleagues, neighbors, and community members have proven over and over to be the biggest determining factor in our happiness, once our basic needs are met. Yet because we’re working more than ever before to afford and maintain all this Stuff, we’re spending more time alone and less time with family, with friends, with neighbors. We’re also spending less time on civic engagement and community building. In Bowling Alone, Harvard professor Robert Putnam chronicles the decline in participation in social and civic groups, ranging from bowling leagues to parent-teacher associations to political organizations. We end up with a situation in which we have fewer friends, fewer supportive neighbors, less robust communities, and near total apathy about our role within a democratic political system. As a result, our communities can’t provide the things they used to. One-quarter of Americans now say they have no one in their lives with whom they can discuss personal trouble; that number has doubled since 1985, when far fewer people reported being socially isolated. Alongside emotional support, logistical support has dried up too: if you need child care, help moving, a ride to the airport, food delivered to your door when you’re sick, someone to bring in the mail or walk the dog or water your plants when you travel, or a group with whom to play a game of basketball, softball, or poker, you’re likely out of luck. Increasingly we’re all too busy and/or too isolated for these things. Since we still need all these things, the market has filled the void. We can now hire someone to watch our pets, coach us through a rough breakup, or move our Stuff. We pay for child care and activities to entertain our kids. We can even buy computer games that simulate sports with live opponents. This is commodification at work: the process of turning things that were once public amenities, neighborly activities, or the role of friends into privately purchasable Stuff or services—i.e., commodities. Systems thinkers often talk about negative feedback loops—problems that cause an effect that adds to the original problem. For instance, when global temperatures rise, ice caps melt, decreasing the planet’s ability to reflect sunlight off that bright snow, so global temperatures rise further. The same thing is happening with our melting communities. We have to work harder to pay for all the services that neighbors, friends, and public agencies used to provide, so we’re even more harried and less able to contribute to the community. It’s a downward spiral.”

“After Dena hung up she didn’t feel any better. Sookie was wrong. Dena could barely remember any of the girls she went to school with, or at times even the names of the schools. Dena had always been a loner. She did not feel connected to anything. Or anybody. She felt as if everybody else had come into the world with a set of instructions about how to live and someone had forgotten to give them to her. She had no clue what she was supposed to feel, so she had spent her life faking at being a human being, with no idea how other people felt. What was it like to really love someone? To really fit in or belong somewhere? She was quick, and a good mimic, so she learned at an early age to give the impression of a normal, happy girl, but inside she had always been lonely. As a child she had spent hours looking in windows at families, from trains, buses, seeing the people inside that looked so happy and content, longing to get inside but not knowing how to do it. She always thought things might change if she could just find the right apartment, the right house, but she never could. No matter where she lived it never felt like home. In fact, she didn’t even know what “home” felt like. Did everybody feel alone out there in the world or were they all acting? Was she the only one? She had been flying blind all her life and now suddenly she had started to hit the wall. She sat drinking red wine, and thinking and wondering what was the matter with her. What had gone wrong?”

“Everything on this earth is connected!" my father exclaimed. "A better religion, to me, is the practice of noticing that connection, of deepening our understanding of it." In Christianity, there was no need for microscopes or space shuttles or radiocarbon dating. Questions were frowned upon. Everything was already decided. "And that is absolutely maddening," my father said. "If that's the case, why live?”

“Ben and Freda were happy for Cindy. She had recovered from the horrible abuses she had suffered the previous year. Her last bad dream was over five months behind her. Her schoolwork was excellent, and her home and farm chores were done promptly without any supervision. Her face without a smile was a rare sight.”

“Butterfly Kisses Aged imperfections stitched upon my face years and years of wisdom earned by His holy grace. Quiet solitude in a humble home all the family scattered now like nomads do they roam. Then a gift sent from above a memory pure and tangible wrapped in innocence and unquestioning love. A butterfly kiss lands gently upon my cheek from an unseen child a kiss most sweet. Heaven grants grace and tears follow as youth revisits this empty hollow.”

“Play is also a way to be close and, even more important, a way to reconnect after the closeness has been severed. Chimpanzees like to tickle one another's palms, especially after they have had a fight. Thus, the second purpose of play serves our incredible - almost bottomless - need for attachment and affection and closeness.”

“You cannot force a person to see you as someone they want to open up to; you cannot force a person to see you as someone they want to connect with; you cannot force a person to see you as someone they are bound to. None of this can be enforced, none of this is reached through struggling; for the reality of these is in nature and freeflow is the way of nature. The natural opening up, the natural connection and the natural bond: cannot be attained through enforcement; but as the ocean is, it can also not be hindered or stopped. We cannot make people bond with us in ways that we wish them to; but when it does happen, it really happens, and cannot be undone.”

“Building better relationships isn’t rocket science—it’s more like Wi-Fi. Show up, stay connected, and don’t forget to reboot when things get messy!”