Humanitarian Kindness Quotes

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Be nice to people... maybe it'll be unappreciated, unreciprocated, or ignored, but spread the love anyway. We rise by lifting others.
Germany Kent
If origin defines race, then we are all Africans – we are all black.
Abhijit Naskar (We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism (Humanism Series))
Rather than being a human, be a humanitarian
Kowtham Kumar K
Sentiments that glorify humanity know no racial distinction.
Abhijit Naskar (We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism (Humanism Series))
In the biological sense, race does not exist.
Abhijit Naskar (We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism (Humanism Series))
There is nothing so annoying as to be fairly rich, of a fairly good family, pleasing presence, average education, to be "not stupid," kindhearted, and yet to have no talent at all, no originality, not a single idea of one's own—to be, in fact, "just like everyone else." Of such people there are countless numbers in this world—far more even than appear. They can be divided into two classes as all men can—that is, those of limited intellect, and those who are much cleverer. The former of these classes is the happier. To a commonplace man of limited intellect, for instance, nothing is simpler than to imagine himself an original character, and to revel in that belief without the slightest misgiving. Many of our young women have thought fit to cut their hair short, put on blue spectacles, and call themselves Nihilists. By doing this they have been able to persuade themselves, without further trouble, that they have acquired new convictions of their own. Some men have but felt some little qualm of kindness towards their fellow-men, and the fact has been quite enough to persuade them that they stand alone in the van of enlightenment and that no one has such humanitarian feelings as they. Others have but to read an idea of somebody else's, and they can immediately assimilate it and believe that it was a child of their own brain. The "impudence of ignorance," if I may use the expression, is developed to a wonderful extent in such cases;—unlikely as it appears, it is met with at every turn. ... those belonged to the other class—to the "much cleverer" persons, though from head to foot permeated and saturated with the longing to be original. This class, as I have said above, is far less happy. For the "clever commonplace" person, though he may possibly imagine himself a man of genius and originality, none the less has within his heart the deathless worm of suspicion and doubt; and this doubt sometimes brings a clever man to despair. (As a rule, however, nothing tragic happens;—his liver becomes a little damaged in the course of time, nothing more serious. Such men do not give up their aspirations after originality without a severe struggle,—and there have been men who, though good fellows in themselves, and even benefactors to humanity, have sunk to the level of base criminals for the sake of originality)
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Idiot)
The black, the white, the brown, the red, the yellow, the hetero, the homo, the trans, the poor, the rich, the literate, the illiterate, the weak, the strong – all are my sisters and brothers. My life is their life. And till the last breath in my body, I shall be serving you all with all the power in my veins. And beyond death, my ideas shall be serving you for eternity.
Abhijit Naskar (I Am The Thread: My Mission)
Random Acts of Kindness," he said. "You need some in your life. Everybody does." "No, I don't have much of a rak, but hey, this is the twenty-third century, you can get anything fixed if you have enough money.
Peter F. Hamilton (Great North Road)
There are two kinds of people in the world - first those who run away from danger, then there are those who run towards danger, to see if someone needs help.
Abhijit Naskar (The Constitution of The United Peoples of Earth)
They say, love God, for it is the greatest virtue. I say, love humans, for there is no greater virtue, no greater religion, than the love of humanity.
Abhijit Naskar
Forget race, forget gender, forget religion, and become a human my friend. Become a human above everything else, and all great things shall follow.
Abhijit Naskar (Either Civilized or Phobic: A Treatise on Homosexuality)
There are two kinds of people in the world - those who make things happen and those who watch things happen.
Abhijit Naskar (The Constitution of The United Peoples of Earth)
If someone wants to do good they'll do good, whether they have a billion dollars or just one.
Abhijit Naskar (Either Reformist or Terrorist: If You Are Terror I Am Your Grandfather)
As the sun lives on when it sets in the warmth it has given to others, you too will live on in the hearts of those whose lives you have touched.
Matshona Dhliwayo
By serving humanity, I automatically serve myself.
Vironika Tugaleva (The Love Mindset: An Unconventional Guide to Healing and Happiness)
Shred the labels and rise as a human being – a human being of compassion, a human being of kindness, a human being with real psychological freedom.
Abhijit Naskar
Suppose a problem in psychology was set: What can be done to persuade the men of our time — Christians, humanitarians or, simply, kindhearted people — into committing the most abominable crimes with no feeling of guilt? There could be only one way: to do precisely what is being done now, namely, to make them governors, inspectors, officers, policemen, and so forth; which means, first, that they must be convinced of the existence of a kind of organization called ‘government service,’ allowing men to be treated like inanimate objects and banning thereby all human brotherly relations with them; and secondly, that the people entering this ‘government service’ must be so unified that the responsibility for their dealings with men would never fall on any one of them individually.
Leo Tolstoy
Our evolution depends on our memory. If we keep forgetting the mistakes of the past, only to keep repeating them, then we will never change. And if we keep recycling through the exact same kind of leaders— the kind who do not propel us forward, but only hold us back—then perhaps what we really need now is a completely different style of leadership altogether. We need heart-driven leaders, not strictly mind-driven ones. We need compassionate humanitarians, not greedy businessmen. Peacemakers, not war instigators. We need unity, not division. Angels, not devils.
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
If at the present day it has found a warm welcome among certain circles in Europe, it is because all those who hope to derive from humanitarianism a moral code of human kindness for the acceptance of an atheistic society are already implicitly Buddhists.
Jacques Maritain (An Introduction to Philosophy (A Sheed & Ward Classic))
At times we feel outnumbered in our attempts to improve the world—to brighten and beautify, to preserve and heal and do what’s best for humanity. Selfless efforts can start to feel beleaguering, discouraging, even pointless with so little support. It is at these times I remind myself that I would rather be the last Good Samaritan standing than to join the ranks of selfish multitudes creating misery.
Richelle E. Goodrich (Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year)
Practicing a thousand yoga postures, doesn't make a person spiritual, nor does uttering "aum" or "hallelujah" a thousand times - what makes a person spiritual, is plain ordinary everyday act of kindness.
Abhijit Naskar (Lives to Serve Before I Sleep)
Imagine a problem in psychology: to find a way of getting people in our day and age - Christians, humanitarians, nice, kind people - to commit the most heinous crimes without feeling any guilt. There is only one solution - doing just what we do now: you make them governors, superintendents, officers or policemen, a process which, first of all, presupposes acceptance of something that goes by the name of government service and allows people to be treated like inanimate objects, precluding any humane or brotherly relationships, and, secondly, ensures that people working for this government service must be so interdependent that responsibility for any consequences of the way they treat people never devolves on any one of them individually.
Leo Tolstoy (Resurrection)
That war [Bosnian war] in the early 1990s changed a lot for me. I never thought I would see, in Europe, a full-dress reprise of internment camps, the mass murder of civilians, the reinstiutution of torture and rape as acts of policy. And I didn't expect so many of my comrades to be indifferent - or even take the side of the fascists. It was a time when many people on the left were saying 'Don't intervene, we'll only make things worse' or, 'Don't intervene, it might destabilise the region. And I thought - destabilisation of fascist regimes is a good thing. Why should the left care about the stability of undemocratic regimes? Wasn't it a good thing to destabilise the regime of General Franco? It was a time when the left was mostly taking the conservative, status quo position - leave the Balkans alone, leave Milosevic alone, do nothing. And that kind of conservatism can easily mutate into actual support for the aggressors. Weimar-style conservatism can easily mutate into National Socialism. So you had people like Noam Chomsky's co-author Ed Herman go from saying 'Do nothing in the Balkans', to actually supporting Milosevic, the most reactionary force in the region. That's when I began to first find myself on the same side as the neocons. I was signing petitions in favour of action in Bosnia, and I would look down the list of names and I kept finding, there's Richard Perle. There's Paul Wolfowitz. That seemed interesting to me. These people were saying that we had to act. Before, I had avoided them like the plague, especially because of what they said about General Sharon and about Nicaragua. But nobody could say they were interested in oil in the Balkans, or in strategic needs, and the people who tried to say that - like Chomsky - looked ridiculous. So now I was interested.
Christopher Hitchens
The modern world, which denies personal guilt and admits only social crimes, which has no place for personal repentance but only public reforms, has divorced Christ from His Cross; the Bridegroom and Bride have been pulled apart. What God hath joined together, men have torn asunder. As a result, to the left is the Cross; to the right is Christ. Each has awaited new partners who will pick them up in a kind of second and adulterous union. Communism comes along and picks up the meaningless Cross; Western post-Christian civilization chooses the unscarred Christ. Communism has chosen the Cross in the sense that it has brought back to an egotistic world a sense of discipline, self-abnegation, surrender, hard work, study, and dedication to supra-individual goals. But the Cross without Christ is sacrifice without love. Hence, Communism has produced a society that is authoritarian, cruel, oppressive of human freedom, filled with concentration camps, firing squads, and brain-washings. The Western post-Christian civilization has picked up the Christ without His Cross. But a Christ without a sacrifice that reconciles the world to God is a cheap, feminized, colourless, itinerant preacher who deserves to be popular for His great Sermon on the Mount, but also merits unpopularity for what He said about His Divinity on the one hand, and divorce, judgment, and hell on the other. This sentimental Christ is patched together with a thousand commonplaces, sustained sometimes by academic etymologists who cannot see the Word for the letters, or distorted beyond personal recognition by a dogmatic principle that anything which is Divine must necessarily be a myth. Without His Cross, He becomes nothing more than a sultry precursor of democracy or a humanitarian who taught brotherhood without tears.
Fulton J. Sheen (Life of Christ)
Today, somehow in some way, I will manage to help somebody who doesn't look or talk like me, someone who is in need and doesn't care about the outer me, someone who is hopefully able to recognize a sincere gesture of kindness and love.
Germany Kent
from the strictest humanitarian viewpoint, any attempt to stop the processes by which overcrowded cities purge themselves is not a kindness. Plague is a nasty death but a quick one. Starvation also is a nasty death…but a very slow one.
Robert A. Heinlein (Friday)
If you want to be an extremist, be extreme in your acts of kindness - if you want to be a fundamentalist, practice the fundamental principle of acceptance in every walk of your life - if you want to be an intellectual, use your intellect to improve human condition.
Abhijit Naskar (Lives to Serve Before I Sleep)
Act beyond reward - think beyond dogmas - and feel beyond differences.
Abhijit Naskar (The Constitution of The United Peoples of Earth)
I work to make human beings out of human bodies. I work to make conscience out of mindlessness. I work to make Gods out of obedient worshippers.
Abhijit Naskar (I Am The Thread: My Mission)
I haven't come for science, I have come for love.
Abhijit Naskar (Sleepless for Society)
Pray less, help more.
Abhijit Naskar (The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work)
Life is not lived till it's lived for others.
Abhijit Naskar (No Foreigner Only Family)
It's more important to be kind than right.
Abhijit Naskar
If we don't learn to break bread with each other, there'll come a day when none of us will have any bread to break.
Abhijit Naskar (I Vicdansaadet Speaking: No Rest Till The World is Lifted)
A true healer is not the one with magical powers, but the one who does everything in their power to help those in need.
Abhijit Naskar (I Vicdansaadet Speaking: No Rest Till The World is Lifted)
No pilgrimage is holier than compassion, no gospel is truer than kindness, no offering is grander than love.
Abhijit Naskar (Citizens of Peace: Beyond the Savagery of Sovereignty)
There's no healer, only helper.
Abhijit Naskar (Hometown Human: To Live for Soil and Society)
For the next half hour it continued. Dr. Joseph would call on someone who looked half bright, then he would call on someone whom he felt was just the opposite. In the upper grades—fourth, fifth, and sixth—he asked grammatical, mathematical, and geographical questions. And besides looking at hands, now he began inspecting teeth. Open wide, say “Ahhh”—and he would have the poor children spreading out their lips as far as they could while he peered into their mouths. At the university I had read about slave masters who had done the same when buying new slaves, and I had read of cattlemen doing it when purchasing horses and cattle. At least Dr. Joseph had graduated to the level where he let the children spread out their own lips, rather than using some kind of crude metal instrument. I appreciated his humanitarianism.
Ernest J. Gaines (A Lesson Before Dying)
By these days it was a demerit to be muscular. Each infant was examined at birth, and all who promised undue strength were destroyed. Humanitarians may protest, but it would have been no true kindness to let an athlete live; he would never have been happy in that state of life to which the Machine had called him; he would have yearned for trees to climb, rivers to bathe in, meadows and hills against which he might measure his body. Man must be adapted to his surroundings, must he not?
E.M. Forster (The Machine Stops)
For so many years, the official propaganda machinery had denounced humanitarianism as sentimental trash and advocated human relations based entirely on class allegiance. But my personal experience had shown me that most of the Chinese people remained kind, sensitive, and compassionate even though the cruel reality of the system under which they had to live compelled them to lie and pretend.
Nien Cheng (Life and Death in Shanghai)
Heal your kind my friend with your wisdom and warmth transcendent, If not you then who else will unify humanity and rise as sapiens triumphant.
Abhijit Naskar (Fabric of Humanity)
People are what matters and how you treat them determines what kind of a creature you are - a conscientious human being or a mere human-looking animal.
Abhijit Naskar (Build Bridges not Walls: In the name of Americana)
It is your existential responsibility to raise your child as a human being above everything else – catholic, muslim, jew, asian, caucasian or whatever.
Abhijit Naskar
If you are human, you are spiritual - if you are human, you are religious - if you are human, you are alive.
Abhijit Naskar (Lives to Serve Before I Sleep)
When another being is in pain, Only blasphemy is indifference. If we can't be cure to each other, It's not life, but derangement.
Abhijit Naskar (Mucize Misafir Merhaba: The Peace Testament)
If you want to teach real religion to the kids, throw away the Bible, the Vedas, the Quran and all the scriptures, and teach them the religion of love.
Abhijit Naskar (The Education Decree)
It is character that should be the sole measure of judgement in the society of thinking humanity, and nothing short of that would do.
Abhijit Naskar (We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism (Humanism Series))
Without love, all progress is harm.
Abhijit Naskar (Earthquakin' Egalitarian: I Die Everyday So Your Children Can Live)
Vaccinated with love, boosted with reason, mind becomes a powerhouse, putting an end to all discrimination.
Abhijit Naskar (Either Right or Human: 300 Limericks of Inclusion)
I don't care about your religious belief or disbelief, all I care about is your behavior with others.
Abhijit Naskar (Ain't Enough to Look Human)
We're born accompanied; sacrifice is essential. Their pain is real, my pleasure's potential.
Kristian Ventura (Can I Tell You Something?)
A heart that bleeds for others is the only human heart, all others are mere animal hearts.
Abhijit Naskar (I Vicdansaadet Speaking: No Rest Till The World is Lifted)
Human is the one who's kind - human is the one who's gentle - human is the one who's courageous - human is the one with conscience ample.
Abhijit Naskar (All For Acceptance)
How can we make progress? Not with luxury but by lifting the other.
Abhijit Naskar (Gente Mente Adelante: Prejudice Conquered is World Conquered)
Be the glee to those in gloom, Be gentle amidst the genteel. Be the brave amongst the blue, Be the knight amidst them who kneel.
Abhijit Naskar (Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans)
It's a little weird that I'm getting an award for being nice and generous and kind... which is what we're all supposed to do for one another. That's the point of being human. I think that kindness is an innate quality that we all have. We need to see more of it in the world. I want everyone to know that we all really, really love one another. Deep down, we all love one another. We need to get back to that. My wish is that we all try.
Ellen DeGeneres
Lenin thought himself an idealist. He was not a monster, a sadist or vicious. In personal relationships he was invariably kind and behaved in the way he was brought up, like an upper-middle-class gentleman. He was not vain. He could laugh – even, occasionally, at himself. He was not cruel: unlike Stalin, Mao Zedong or Hitler he never asked about the details of his victims’ deaths, savouring the moment. To him, in any case, the deaths were theoretical, mere numbers. He never donned uniforms or military-style tunics as other dictators favoured. But during his years of feuding with other revolutionaries, and then maintaining his grip on power, he never showed generosity to a defeated opponent or performed a humanitarian act unless it was politically expedient.
Victor Sebestyen (Lenin: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror)
Let’s think about the fake sense of urgency that pervades the left-liberal humanitarian discourse on violence: in it, abstraction and graphic (pseudo)concreteness coexist in the staging of the scene of violence-against women, blacks, the homeless, gays . . . “A woman is rpaed every six seconds in this country” and “In the time it takes you to read this paragraph, ten children will die of hunger” are just two examples. Underlying all this is a hypocritical sentiment of moral outrage. Just this kind of pseudo-urgency was exploited by Starbucks a couple of years ago when, at store entrances, posters greeting costumers pointed out that a portion of the chain’s profits went into health-care for the children of Guatemala, the source of their coffee, the inference being that with every cup you drink, you save a child’s life. There is a fundamental anti-theoretical edge to these urgent injunctions. There is no time to reflect: we have to act now. Through this fake sense of urgency, the post-industrial rich, living in their secluded virtual world, not only do not deny or ignore the harsh reality outside the area-they actively refer to it all the time. As Bill Gates recently put it: “What do the computers matter when millions are still unnecessarily dying of dysentery?” Against this fake urgency, we might want to place Marx’s wonderful letter to Engels of 1870, when, for a brief moment, it seemed that a European revolution was again at the gates. Marx’s letter conveys his sheer panic: can’t the revolution wait for a couple of years? He hasn’t yet finished his ‘Capital’.
Slavoj Žižek (Violence: Six Sideways Reflections)
expression “the banality of evil.” In other words, evil loves to work through mediocrity. Evil smiles. Evil will speak with a kind of humanitarianism, all while holding virtue in contempt. It does not believe in the possibility of grace. It considers truth to be only a matter of opinion.
Fr. George W. Rutler (Grace and Truth: Twenty Steps to Embracing Virtue and Saving Civilization)
When you can't live a day without helping others - when you can't breathe without watching someone smile because of you - when you can't even taste the food until you know that someone is able to put food on the table for their family because of your kindness - that day you'd know what it is to be human.
Abhijit Naskar (Servitude is Sanctitude)
There is no greater happiness than in relieving the sorrow of others. There is no greater joy, than being an ingredient in the joy of others. There is no greater patriotism than this - there is no greater humanism than this - there is no greater religion than this - there is no higher divinity than this.
Abhijit Naskar (Every Generation Needs Caretakers: The Gospel of Patriotism)
Serve my would-be patriot - serve your people - your kind – serve your humans like your life depends on it - serve with all the might in your body and brain - serve with your whole being - make your existence a cynosure of service - and then only shall evolution pave the path toward a less wild and more humane world.
Abhijit Naskar (Fabric of Humanity)
But I guess I can't, or my subconscious can't, even imagine a warless world. The best it can do is substitute one kind of war for another. You said, no killing of humans by other humans. So I dreamed up the Aliens. Your own ideas are sane and rational, but this is my unconscious you're trying to use, not my rational mind. Maybe rationally I could conceive of the human species not trying to kill each other off by nations, in fact rationally it's easier to conceive than the motives of war. But you're handling something outside reason. You're trying to reach progressive, humanitarian goals with a tool that isn't suited to the job. Who has humanitarian dreams?
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Lathe of Heaven)
O my brave Almighty Human, with the ever-effulgent flow of courage, conscience and compassion, turn yourself into a vivacious humanizer, and start walking with bold footsteps while eliminating racism, terminating misogyny, destroying homophobia and all other primitiveness that have turned humanity into the most inhuman species on earth.
Abhijit Naskar (I Am The Thread: My Mission)
Love is Simple (The Sonnet) Truth is simple, Lies are complex. Light is simple, Darkness is complex. Honesty is simple, Deceit is complex. Humility is simple, Arrogance is complex. Curiosity is simple, Conspiracy is complex. Acceptance is simple, Discrimination is complex. Peace is simple, war is complex. Love is simple, hate is complex.
Abhijit Naskar (Either Reformist or Terrorist: If You Are Terror I Am Your Grandfather)
In my thirty years of existence I've come to the realization that all talk of truth is nonsense. Because even though we assume truth to be absolute and universal, in reality, in our human world no one truth is universal or absolute, it's all relative. The only force absolute and universal is love - there's nothing higher, braver or wiser.
Abhijit Naskar (High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination)
Sonnet of Sapiens No religion is greater than love, For love is the embodiment of divinity, No church is higher than the self, Cause the self is the manifestation of the Almighty, No worship is greater than help, For helping is the service of God, No prayer is as sacred as kindness, For in kindness lies the real act of the Lord, No scripture is more glorious than the mind, For the mind is the creator of the scriptures, So learn from that scripture within to be of help to your kind, And be the glue to the fabric of humanity healing all ruptures, Heal your kind my friend with your wisdom and warmth transcendent, If not you then who else will unify humanity and rise as sapiens triumphant.
Abhijit Naskar (Fabric of Humanity)
The women don't really believe that their beloved would do such a thing,even if they're shown s severed limb or a headless torso.Or if they believe it,they know down to their bone marrow that lover-boy really had the best of intentions;it must have been some kind of very unfortunate accident,a well-meaning blunder;in fact, even more likely, it was a humanitarian act.
William Blum
The reigning belief today is that closeness between persons is a moral good. The reigning aspiration today is to develop individual personality through experiences of closeness and warmth with others. The reigning myth today is that the evils of society can all be understood as evils of impersonality, alienation, and coldness. The sum of these three is an ideology of intimacy: social relationships of all kinds are real, believable, and authentic the closer they approach the inner psychological concerns of each person. This ideology transmutes political categories into psychological categories. This ideology of intimacy defines the humanitarian spirit of a society without gods: warmth is our god. The history of the rise and fall of public culture at the very least calls this humanitarian spirit into question. The belief in closeness between persons as a moral good is in fact the product of a profound dislocation which capitalism and secular belief produced in the last century. Because of this dislocation, people sought to find personal meanings in impersonal situations, in objects, and in the objective conditions of society itself. They could not find these meanings; as the world became psychomorphic, it became mystifying. They therefore sought to flee, and find in the private realms of life, especially in the family, some principle of order in the perception of personality. Thus the past built a hidden desire for stability in the overt desire for closeness between human beings. Even as we have revolted against the stern sexual rigidities of the Victorian family, we continue to burden close relations with others with these hidden desires for security, rest, and permanence. When the relations cannot bear these burdens, we conclude there is something wrong with the relationship, rather than with the unspoken expectations. Arriving at a feeling of closeness to others is thus often after a process of testing them; the relationship is both close and closed. If it changes, if it must change, there is a feeling of trust betrayed. Closeness burdened with the expectation of stability makes emotional communication—hard enough as it is—one step more difficult. Can intimacy on these terms really be a virtue?
Richard Sennett (The Fall of Public Man)
No judgment, no mockery, no grudge, no assumption - just fall. Fall head over heels for the world, like you did for your first love. Remember the loss of appetite, remember the sleeplessness, remember the constant desire to see them - once you feel that kind of intense attachment to the world, that day the world will have a true lover - that day the society will have a high voltage human.
Abhijit Naskar (High Voltage Habib: Gospel of Undoctrination)
MY DREAM If I could remove one thing from the world and replace it with something else, I would erase politics and put art in its place. That way, art teachers would rule the world. And since art is the most supreme form of love, beautiful colors and imagery would weave bridges for peace wherever there are walls. Artists, who are naturally heart-driven, would decorate the world with their love, and in that love — poverty, hunger, lines of division, and wars would vanish from the earth forever. Children of the earth would then be free to play, imagine, create, build and grow without bloodshed, terror and fear. Our evolution depends on our memory. If we keep forgetting the mistakes of the past, only to keep repeating them, then we will never change. And if we keep recycling through the exact same kind of leaders— the kind who do not propel us forward, but only hold us back—then perhaps what we really need now is a completely different style of leadership altogether. We need heart-driven leaders, not strictly mind-driven ones. We need compassionate humanitarians, not greedy businessmen. Peacemakers, not war instigators. We need unity, not division. Angels, not devils.
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
What kind of civilization is this my friend, where people have to be reminded of their humanhood? Why the heck is it so damn hard for humans to act like humans? Why the heck do the man-made sects get preference over humans? How can a smart species like us be so dumb at the same time? Why can’t we join hands and celebrate our differences instead of turning them into cause of conflict! Why? Why can’t we my friend?
Abhijit Naskar (7 Billion Gods: Humans Above All)
Kant’s ethic is important, because it is anti-utilitarian, a priori, and what is called “noble.” Kant says that if you are kind to your brother because you arc fond of him, you have no moral merit: an act only has moral merit when it is performed because the moral law enjoins it. Although pleasure is not the good, it is nevertheless unjust—so Kant maintains— that the virtuous should suffer. Since this often happens in this world, there must be another world where they are rewarded after death, and there must be a God to secure justice in the life hereafter. He rejects all the old metaphysical arguments for God and immortality, but considers his new ethical argument irrefutable. Kant himself was a man whose outlook on practical affairs was kindly and humanitarian, but the same cannot be said of most of those who rejected happiness as the good.
Bertrand Russell (A History of Western Philosophy: And Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day)
When I was at university, my dorm was in a red light area. Often after class on my way to the dorm, I would sit with those sisters of mine and listen to their stories and struggles for hours - just listening to them pouring their heart out gave me a kind of uncorrupted bliss that couldn't be explained with human words. You don't need to be a practicing physician or psychiatrist to ease the pain of others, listening to them as a human being crossing prejudice is enough.
Abhijit Naskar (I Vicdansaadet Speaking: No Rest Till The World is Lifted)
Later on in Culture and Society, Williams scores a few points by reprinting some absolutist sentences that, taken on their own, represent exaggerations or generalisations. It was a strength and weakness of Orwell’s polemical journalism that he would begin an essay with a bold and bald statement designed to arrest attention—a tactic that, as Williams rightly notices, he borrowed in part from GK Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw. No regular writer can re-read his own output of ephemera without encountering a few wince-making moments of this kind; Williams admits to ‘isolating’ them but has some fun all the same. The flat sentence ‘a humanitarian is always a hypocrite’ may contain a particle of truth—does in fact contain such a particle—but will not quite do on its own. Other passages of Orwell’s, on the failure of the Western socialist movement, read more convincingly now than they did when Williams was mocking them, but are somewhat sweeping for all that. And there are the famous outbursts of ill-temper against cranks and vegetarians and homosexuals, which do indeed disfigure the prose and (even though we still admire Pope and Swift for the heroic unfairness of their invective) probably deserve rebuke. However, Williams betrays his hidden bias even when addressing these relatively easy targets. He upbraids Orwell for the repeated use of the diminutive word ‘little’ as an insult (‘The typical Socialist ... a prim little man,’ ‘the typical little bowlerhatted sneak,’ etc.). Now, it is probable that we all overuse the term ‘little’ and its analogues. Williams does at one point—rather ‘loftily’ perhaps—reproach his New Left colleagues for being too ready to dismiss Orwell as ‘petit-bourgeois.’ But what about (I draw the example at random) Orwell’s disgust at the behaviour of the English crowd in the First World War, when ‘wretched little German bakers and hairdressers had their shops sacked by the mob’?
Christopher Hitchens
Paul Waldman writes: As a white person, I’ll continue to enjoy this [white] privilege almost no matter who I am or what I do. In my heart I could be the most kind-hearted humanitarian or the most vile sociopath. I could be assiduously law-abiding or a serial killer. I can dress in a suit or in torn jeans and a hoodie, and no one will react to me with fear or suspicion, because if they don’t know me they will assume they know nothing. I am myself, nothing more or less. That’s privilege.
George Yancy (Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly about Racism in America)
I only know of one divinity - kindness. Save kindness all else is fiction - from the fundamental facts of physics to the direst doctrines of scripture. Every construct of society must prove its worth in relation to kindness, in relation to uplift. If they can't, they require correction. And despite countless corrections if a construct fails to uphold the uplift of human condition before all else, it is the duty of the civilized beings to leave such construct behind as an appendage of human evolution.
Abhijit Naskar (Divane Dynamite: Only truth in the cosmos is love)
Our evolution depends on our memory. If we keep forgetting the mistakes of the past, only to keep repeating them, we will never change. And if we keep recycling through the exact same kind of leaders— the kind who do not propel us forward, but only hold us back—then perhaps what we really need now is a completely different style of leadership altogether. We need heart-driven leaders, not mind-driven ones. We need compassionate humanitarians, not greedy businessmen. We need unity, not division. Angels, not devils.
Suzy Kassem
Find The Human (The Sonnet) Find the human in you, and, You'll find the human in everybody. The way things are inside, So they are externally. World is reflection of the self, Outside is reflection of inside. Blind heart maketh the world blind, Kind heart maketh the world kind. We cover our eyes with our hands, And weep as children for it is too dark. We let biases take over our behavior, Then we shout why the world is so unjust. Without heart all fancy exterior is delusion, Only truth in the world is the one internal.
Abhijit Naskar (Either Reformist or Terrorist: If You Are Terror I Am Your Grandfather)
Colonizer of A Different Kind (The Sonnet) Only the shape of colonialism has changed, not the nature. Tendencies are just as filthy, rightful heir to animal disaster. I too am a colonizer, but of a different kind. I colonize no home by force, with words I colonize minds. Humanitarianism is civilized colonialism - simpler still, humanitarianism is civilization. That's the contagion my literature carries, through my proses and sonnetic revelation. First thousand were an accident, Second thousand, a promise. Answer to traditional animosity, Antidote to doting prejudice.
Abhijit Naskar (Little Planet on The Prairie: Dunya Benim, Sorumluluk Benim)
The history of the thing might amuse you," he said. "When first I became one of the New Anarchists I tried all kinds of respectable disguises. I dressed up as a bishop. I read up all about bishops in our anarchist pamphlets, in Superstition the Vampire and Priests of Prey. I certainly understood from them that bishops are strange and terrible old men keeping a cruel secret from mankind. I was misinformed. When on my first appearing in episcopal gaiters in a drawing-room I cried out in a voice of thunder, 'Down! down! presumptuous human reason!' they found out in some way that I was not a bishop at all. I was nabbed at once. Then I made up as a millionaire; but I defended Capital with so much intelligence that a fool could see that I was quite poor. Then I tried being a major. Now I am a humanitarian myself, but I have, I hope, enough intellectual breadth to understand the position of those who, like Nietzsche, admire violence--the proud, mad war of Nature and all that, you know. I threw myself into the major. I drew my sword and waved it constantly. I called out 'Blood!' abstractedly, like a man calling for wine. I often said, 'Let the weak perish; it is the Law.' Well, well, it seems majors don't do this. I was nabbed again. At last I went in despair to the President of the Central Anarchist Council, who is the greatest man in Europe.
G.K. Chesterton
Rise, my thinking sibling, wherever you are right now, and take the eternal pledge with me - "I, a living, breathing and above all, conscientious creature of planet earth, do solemnly swear to none but myself, that no matter the circumstances, I shall always stand by the people of my kind, my humanity, beyond the bounds of race, religion, gender, tradition and sexual orientation - I shall accept differences, but not differentiation - I shall accept both belief and disbelief, but not discrimination - I shall accept both intellect and ignorance, but not arrogance - I shall observe the good and bad from all backgrounds, and accept only the good while discarding the vices and violence.
Abhijit Naskar (The Constitution of The United Peoples of Earth)
The reigning belief today is that closeness between persons is a moral good. The reigning aspiration today is to develop individual personality through experiences of closeness and warmth with others. The reigning myth today is that the evils of society can all be understood as the evils of impersonality, alienation, and coldness. The sum of these three is an ideology of intimacy: social relationships of all kinds are real, believable, and authentic the closer they approach the inner psychological concerns of each person. This ideology transmutes political categories into psychological categories. This ideology of intimacy defines the humanitarian spirit of a society without gods; warmth is our god.
Richard Sennett (The Fall of Public Man)
By these days it was a demerit to be muscular. Each infant was examined at birth, and all who promised undue strength were destroyed. Humanitarians may protest, but it would have been no true kindness to let an athlete live; he would never have been happy in that state of life to which the Machine had called him; he would have yearned for trees to climb, rivers to bathe in, meadows and hills against which he might measure his body. Man must be adapted to his surroundings, must he not? In the dawn of the world our weakly must be exposed on Mount Taygetus, in its twilight our strong will suffer euthanasia, that the Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress eternally.
E.M. Forster (The Machine Stops)
Peacekeeping is a soldier-intensive business in which the quality of troops matters as much as the quantity. It is not just soldiering under a different color helmet; it differs in kind from anything else soldiers do. The are medals and rewards (mainly, the satisfaction of saving lives), but there are also casualties. And no victories. It is not a risk -free enterprise. In Bosnia, mines, snipers, mountainous terrain, extreme weather conditions, and possible civil disturbances were major threats that had to be dealt with from the outset of the operation. Dag Hammarskjold once remarked, "Peacekeeping is a job not suited to soldiers, but a job only soldiers can do." Humanitarianism conflicts with peacekeeping and still more with peace enforcement. The threat of force, if it is to be effective, will sooner or later involve the use of force. For example, the same UN soldiers in Bosnia under a different command and mandate essentially turned belligerence into compliance over night, demonstrating that a credible threat of force can yield results. Unlike, UNPROFOR, the NATO-led Implementation Force was a military success and helped bring stability to the region and to provide an "environment of hope" in which a nation can be reborn. It is now up to a complex array of international civil agencies to assist in putting in place lasting structures for democratic government and the will of the international community to ensure a lasting peace.
Larry Wentz
Letter to My Soldiers I am only the beginning - the beginning of a new kind of humans - humans who belong to not one culture, but many cultures - humans who speak not one language, but many languages - humans who study scriptures and science with equal enthusiasm, yet pledge allegiance to neither, and know how to use both in the benefit of humanity - humans who aim for neither belief nor disbelief, but warmth and understanding - humans who are more concerned with the real hard problem of inhumanity, than the outdated hard problem of consciousness - humans who sacrifice their life treating the real hard question of hate, rather than the mythical hard question of god. I am only the beginning - the first spark, if you may - the best are yet to come.
Abhijit Naskar (Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets)
Kindness No Obligation (The Sonnet) Those who feel kindness is an obligation, Don't really feel but crawl as walking dead. Those who think society ain't their responsibility, Don’t think, they're just specimens of mental midget. Giants are those who lay themselves down, For the welfare of every single soul around. Intellect is a tool for, not a subject of, greatness and glory, The root of all greatness is a gentle heart unbound. Kindness is more than a trait, just like accountability, These things make a human out of an animal. Selfishness is more than a flaw, just like egotism, These things keep an animal from becoming human. Little selfishness is ok so long as your humanity is in charge. We've been animal long enough, now let's be giants on guard.
Abhijit Naskar (The Gentalist: There's No Social Work, Only Family Work)
More specifically, this book will try to establish the following points. First, there are not two great liberal social and political systems but three. One is democracy—political liberalism—by which we decide who is entitled to use force; another is capitalism—economic liberalism—by which we decide how to allocate resources. The third is liberal science, by which we decide who is right. Second, the third system has been astoundingly successful, not merely as a producer of technology but also, far more important, as a peacemaker and builder of social bridges. Its great advantages as a social system for raising and settling differences of opinion are inherent, not incidental. However, its disadvantages—it causes pain and suffering, it creates legions of losers and outsiders, it is disorienting and unsettling, it allows and even thrives on prejudice and bias—are also inherent. And today it is once again under attack. Third, the attackers seek to undermine the two social rules which make liberal science possible. (I’ll outline them in the next chapter and elaborate them in the rest of the book.) For the system to function, people must try to follow those rules even if they would prefer not to. Unfortunately, many people are forgetting them, ignoring them, or carving out exemptions. That trend must be fought, because, fourth, the alternatives to liberal science lead straight to authoritarianism. And intellectual authoritarianism, although once the province of the religious and the political right in America, is now flourishing among the secular and the political left. Fifth, behind the new authoritarian push are three idealistic impulses: Fundamentalists want to protect the truth. Egalitarians want to help the oppressed and let in the excluded. Humanitarians want to stop verbal violence and the pain it causes. The three impulses are now working in concert. Sixth, fundamentalism, properly understood, is not about religion. It is about the inability to seriously entertain the possibility that one might be wrong. In individuals such fundamentalism is natural and, within reason, desirable. But when it becomes the foundation for an intellectual system, it is inherently a threat to freedom of thought. Seventh, there is no way to advance knowledge peacefully and productively by adhering to the principles advocated by egalitarians and humanitarians. Their principles are poisonous to liberal science and ultimately to peace and freedom. Eighth, no social principle in the world is more foolish and dangerous than the rapidly rising notion that hurtful words and ideas are a form of violence or torture (e.g., “harassment”) and that their perpetrators should be treated accordingly. That notion leads to the criminalization of criticism and the empowerment of authorities to regulate it. The new sensitivity is the old authoritarianism in disguise, and it is just as noxious.
Jonathan Rauch (Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought)
If I give you two possible worlds to choose from, in which you would like your children and grandchildren to live, which one would you choose - a world filled with hatred and discrimination, or a world where the humans care about their fellow humans beyond the petty little man-made labels of religion, race, nationality, intellect, gender etc.! We do not need to make efforts and be kind in order to keep Nature running, she can do that quite well and far better than us herself, in fact, it'd benefit Nature, if suddenly the humans were to disappear. It is us who need Nature in order to exist, not the other way around. We must stand on the side of kindness, goodness, compassion and conscience, not to keep the processes in Nature functioning, but because if we don't, the environment that we would be giving our future generations, would be no different than the violent and lethal environment of the wild. Hence, our kindness would make no difference to Nature whatsoever, rather it would simply be a selfish yet humanely necessary act on our part, that we must carry out to create a humane environment for the human species. Upon the kindness of us humans, the fate of humanity is predicated, not the fate of Nature. We are born in a world filled with hatred and discrimination, hence it is our existential responsibility as sentient and conscientious beings to contribute in the elimination of such discrimination and hatred. Kindness of ours in our daily walks of life, shall pave the path for a truly humane society for our children and grandchildren to live in.
Abhijit Naskar
Letter to the tech giants: When fame and abundance kiss somebody’s feet before that person is wise enough, he or she is very likely to lose track of what’s necessity and what’s luxury. And modern society is filled with examples of such intelligent stupidity – stupidity that is carried out by apparently smart humans. Because being smart is not the same as being wise. The world has enough smartness, but not enough wisdom to bring that smartness into proper productive practice – and I mean productive practice not sophisticated practice – there is a difference. A person smart enough to visualize a Falcon rocket engine can easily pinpoint the locations of various organizations that spread terrorism, yet the person chooses to explore the space further instead of prioritizing the technological advantages to first fix real issues of the human society that inflict harm to the humans every walk of the way. The world is a miserable place not because we have lack of resources, but because those who have an abundance of resources do not have the slightest idea of true human need. The resources needed for colonizing Mars if put to proper practice can fix the world’s global warming issues – it can fix the world’s climate change issues – it can fix the world’s terrorism issues, yet people are more interested in the pompous idea of living in Mars for whatever reason, instead of paying attention to improving human condition on earth. I am not against technological advancement, for I am a scientist, but my soul aches when I see smart people are dumb enough to chase after illusory glory of doing something different and innovative instead of focusing the powers of their soul on cleaning up the misery business on earth. You can, yet you don’t. Why? Smartness without wisdom is stupidity. You are smart – yes indeed – but I am sorry – you are stupid at the same time. How can you dream of having a cheese burger on Mars when your own kind on Earth is suffering! How can you think of taking rich kids into the orbit just so they can admire the beauty of earth from the heavens, when that very earth is infested with the primordial evils of human character! Awaken the human within you my friend, and pay attention. Awaken the human within and let it consume all the miseries from the world that you live in. Say a member of your family falls ill, would you ignore his or her misery completely just because you want to make life more comfortable for others than it already is, or would you first try everything in your capacity in order to heal your loved one! Be wise my friend, for it is not enough to be smart. You are smart – there is no doubt about that – so utilize that smartness for humanity and heal your own kind. Heal your kind with your capacity my friend. It is wailing for healers – not some delusional faith healers, but real tangible healers. Would you not do anything! Would you not give your soul to fix the broken soul of this world! Arise my friend, Awake my friend and work for humanity, not to make it sophisticated, but to make it peaceful first. Remember, humanity first, then everything else. Peace first, sophistication later. Harmony first, luxury later.
Abhijit Naskar
The difference between a dictator and a true leader, is in intention. Given enough resources anybody can manipulate the minds of the masses and become their chosen authority, for the masses rarely look past the veil of the candidate's charm. And this is more evident today than ever, as a psychologically unfit misogynistic bully has swayed his way into the oval office with nothing but charm and charisma. So, basically we live in a society where a bully can become the authority of a great nation, the history of which is filled with true leaders who were the forerunners of humanitarian glory and real progress - these leaders were not simply the leaders of a country, or a party, but they were and still remain in the heart of the civilized humans as the leaders of humanity. They were the torch-bearers of egalitarianism and their light spread across the globe and touched countless lives with the warmth of humaneness. They lived among the masses but they didn't let the prejudices of the masses become their own, let alone infect the masses with more prejudices, unlike today's so-called leadership in America. They made America truly a great nation, by turning it into a symbol of liberty and acceptance, and today that very greatness is at stake, as the primitive evils of prejudices and discriminations have once again begun to creep into its backbone, through the words and actions of its very so-called leader. This is not a threat to democracy, for democracy itself at our current evolutionary stage, is a threat to our progress, rather it is a threat to the heritage of every single act of kindness, reasoning and acceptance ever committed in the history of humanity. The masses are existentially allowed to talk nonsense and advocate prejudices, but when an authority of the masses begins to talk nonsense and advocate prejudice and bigotry, it is an existential crisis for not just those masses but all humans around the world, with implications of catastrophic proportions. A leader is to take away prejudices from the psychological edifice of a country - a leader is to uplift a country, that is, a people, while warming their minds with the gentle flames of love, acceptance and reasoning. In fact, that's the only kind of true leadership there is, rest are just uncivilized tribalism that brings along more and more conflicts in the heart of the people within a country as well as outside of it.
Abhijit Naskar (Build Bridges not Walls: In the name of Americana)
... the primary duty of charity does not lie in the toleration of false ideas, however sincere they may be, nor in the theoretical or practical indifference towards the errors and vices in which we see our brethren plunged but in the zeal for their intellectual and moral improvement as well as for their material well-being ... True, Jesus has loved us with an immense, infinite love, and He came on earth to suffer and die so that, gathered around Him in justice and love, motivated by the same sentiments of mutual charity, all men might live in peace and happiness. But for the realization of this temporal and eternal happiness, He has laid down with supreme authority the condition that we must belong to His Flock, that we must accept His doctrine, that we must practice virtue, and that we must accept the teaching and guidance of Peter and his successors. Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them. He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in Heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to one's personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism.
St. Pius X
When we acknowledge our greatness and start living it, when we open our hearts to the natural kindness and caring for all beings that resides within us, all these necessary transformations can begin.
Ilchi Lee (Change: Realizing Your Greatest Potential)
Is it necessary to ask which attitude is more Christian, one that longs to return to the ‘unbroken harmony and unity’ of the Middle Ages, or one that wishes to use reason in order to free mankind from pestilence and oppression? But some part at least of the authoritarian Church of the Middle Ages succeeded in branding such practical humanitarianism as ‘worldly’, as characteristic of ‘Epicureanism’, and of men who desire only to ‘fill their bellies like the beasts’. The terms ‘Epicureanism’, ‘materialism’, and ‘empiricism’, that is to say, the philosophy of Democritus, one of the greatest of the Great Generation, became in this way the synonyms of wickedness, and the tribal Idealism of Plato and Aristotle was exalted as a kind of Christianity before Christ. Indeed, this is the source of the immense authority of Plato and Aristotle, even in our own day, that their philosophy was adopted by medieval authoritarianism. But it must not be forgotten that, outside the totalitarian camp, their fame has outlived their practical influence upon our lives. And although the name of Democritus is seldom remembered, his science as well as his morals still live with us.
Karl Popper (The Open Society and Its Enemies)
For the first time in human history, let’s rewrite the destiny of humanity with our own active conscience, instead of with loyalty towards a certain pompous ideology – let’s slogan for humanity’s interest, and not the interest of a certain ideology, institution, religion or political party – let’s give ourselves to the tireless service of our kind, trumping all toil, agonies and desperation.
Abhijit Naskar (Conscience over Nonsense)
I am the thread of unification that goes through humans of all religions, cultures and ideologies while reinforcing their innate sense of one humanity.
Abhijit Naskar (I Am The Thread: My Mission)
Give me your soul and I will give you a unified humanity replete with courage, conscience and compassion.
Abhijit Naskar (I Am The Thread: My Mission)
It's not enough to simply "be", what's required is to "be human".
Abhijit Naskar (Lives to Serve Before I Sleep)
Forget sleep, forget thirst, forget hunger and just work - work my friend, work for humanity, work for our seven billion sisters, brothers and friends - work, so that our kind can witness the real dawn of civilization.
Abhijit Naskar (Lives to Serve Before I Sleep)
We jokingly queried the phrase because our work did not always feel wonderful but rather difficult, contested, confusing and prone to failure of various kinds.
Hugo Slim (Humanitarian Ethics: A Guide to the Morality of Aid in War and Disaster)