Humanity and Solidarity

The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him: “What are you going through?”

I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is towardsindividuals. . . . I hate and detest that animalcalled man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.

There are those who believe Black people possess the secret of joy and that it is this that will sustain them through any spiritual or moral or physical devastation.

Life is short and we never have enough time for gladdening the hearts of those who travel the way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.

The historian must have some conceptions of how men who are not historians behave.

I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them.

Man would be otherwise. That is the essence of the specifically human.

Who wished to lay the foundations of kindness, Could not ourselves be kind. But you, when at last it comes to pass That man can help his fellow man, Do not judge us Too harshly.

No foreign sky protected me, no stranger’s wing shielded my face. I stand as witness to the common lot, survivor of that time, that place.

Nature has left this tincture in the blood,

Tell me, Muse, of the man of many devices, who wandered far and wide after he had sacked Troy’s sacred city, and saw the towns of many men and knew their mind.

Madness is something rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule.

The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.

So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind Is all the sad world needs.

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!

It would be a master stroke if those great Powers honestly bent on peace would form a league of peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others. The man or statesman who should bring about such a condition would have earned his place in history for all time and his title to the gratitude of all mankind.

The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.

To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is religion. Whatever you do for your own sake is not religion.

I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies but not the madness of people.

I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.

E pluribus unus .

We Bokonists believe that humanity isorganized into teams, teams that do God’s Will without ever discovering what they are doing. Such a team is called a karass by Bokonon.

Alle Menschen werden Briider