There is no limit to suffering human beings have been willing to inflict on others, no matter how innocent, no matter how young, and no matter how old. This fact must lead all reasonable human beings, that is, all human beings who take evidence seriously, to draw only one possible conclusion: Human nature is not basically good.
Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.
Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives.
Well, I turn people into human beings by not making them into gods.
If human beings can be trained for cruelty and greed and a belief in power which comes through hate and fear and force, certainly we can train equally well for greatness and mercy and the power of love which comes because of the strength of the good qualities to be found in the soul of every human being.
From the moment we are born our culture encourages us to believe that outer well-being is the source of inner fulfillment ... Wherever we turn the principle is confirmed, encouraging us to become 'human havings' and 'human doings' rather than human beings.
The power of nature exists in its silence. Human words cannot encode the meaning because human language has access only to the shadow of meaning.
What sort of power is it that really and truly renders the deity present? Human beings automatically think of God as someone who possesses and wields power. Jesus forces people to consider whether that deeply rooted conviction is true or not. In historical terms it is readily apparent that power, left to its own inertial tendencies, tends to be oppressive in fact. So it cannot be the ultimate meditation of God, though human beings might tend to think so
Considering what human beings do and have done to human beings (and to other living things as well) ... I can never imagine what the devil people think computers can add to the horrors.
In two opposite opinions, if one be perfectly reasonable, the other can't be perfectly right.
We know what makes babies smart and happy and thrive. It's having human beings who are dedicated to caring for them - human beings who are well supported, not stressed out and not poor.
How wonderful, how miraculous, all beings, but all beings, are fully endowed with the wisdom and power of the Tathagat. But, sadly, human beings, due to sticky attachments, are not aware of it
How can we encourage other human beings to extend their moral sympathies beyond a narrow locus? How can we learn to become mere human beings, shorn of any more compelling national, ethnic, or religious identity? We can be reasonable. It is in the very nature of reason to fuse cognitive and moral horizons. Reason is nothing less than the guardian of love.
Human beings have the remarkable ability to turn nothing into something. They can turn weeds into gardens and pennies into fortunes.
There is immense power in acknowledging the contribution of every human being in our life. One must constantly make the effort to absorb this power by getting the blessings of all human beings.
There are novels that end well, but in between there are human beings acting like human beings. And human beings are not perfect. All of the motives a human being may have, which are mixed, that's the novelists' materials. That's where they have to go. And a lot of that just isn't pretty. We like to think of ourselves as really, really good people. But look in the mirror. Really look. Look at your own mixed motives. And then multiply that.