51 Inspiring Humanism Quotes

In a world often filled with divisive rhetoric and conflict, humanism offers a refreshing perspective that focuses on the potential for goodness and the inherent worth of every individual. Rooted in a deep respect for humanity and a commitment to personal and collective well-being, humanism transcends religious and cultural boundaries to foster a more compassionate and inclusive society. Today, we've gathered a curated collection of the top 51 Inspiring Humanism Quotes to uplift your spirit, challenge your thinking, and remind you of the power of empathy and reason. Whether you are an avid humanist or just beginning to explore this philosophy, these quotes will inspire you to embrace a more human-centered approach to life.

1. “That which is called humanism, but what would be more correctly called irreligious anthropocentrism, cannot yield answers to the most essential questions of our life” - Aleksander Isajewicz Sołżenicyn

2. “We are intelligent beings: intelligent beings cannot have been formed by a crude, blind, insensible being: there is certainly some difference between the ideas of Newton and the dung of a mule. Newton's intelligence, therefore, came from another intelligence” - Voltaire

3. “Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it.” - George Carlin

4. “Being human means throwing your whole life on the scales of destiny when need be, all the while rejoicing in every sunny day and every beautiful cloud.” - Rosa Luxemburg

5. “This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution. Sex and race because they are easy and visible differences have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap labor on which this system still depends. We are talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned. We are really talking about humanism.” - Gloria Steinem

6. “What I'm asking you to entertain is that there is nothing we need to believe on insufficient evidence in order to have deeply ethical and spiritual lives.” - Sam Harris

7. “What we do in every other area of our lives (other than religion), is, rather than respect somebody's beliefs, we evaluate their reasons.” - Sam Harris

8. “When the stakes are this high- when calling God by the right name can make the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, it is impossible to respect the beliefs of others who don't believe as you do.” - Sam Harris

9. “If faith is what you have to go on, if faith is the link between your beliefs and the world at large, your beliefs are very likely to be wrong. Beliefs can be right or wrong. If you believe you can fly, that belief is only true if indeed you can fly. Somebody who thinks he can fly, and is wrong about it, will eventually discover there's a problem with his view of the world.” - Sam Harris

10. “Faith does not offer a strong link between our beliefs and actual states of the world.” - Sam Harris

11. “Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust.” - bell hooks

12. “If peace is to come to earth through change in man's environment, instead of through change in man himself, it will never come. -- Philip Mauro in "The Number of Man the Climax of Civilization” - Philip Mauro

13. “Faith in God means believing absolutely in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers.” - Joss Whedon

14. “I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishments after I am dead.” - Kurt Vonnegut

15. “The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.” - Mahatma Gandhi

16. “A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

17. “Humanists were people who wanted to return to ideas found in old Greek and Latin writing of Greece and Rome, written many centuries earlier. Christian Humanists also wanted to get back to these ideas, but they were mainly concerned with learning about the early Christian Church, before it had become involved with money-making and superstition. They wanted to read the books of the early Church, especially the gospels of Christ, in the original language of Greek, so that they would know exactly what the writings meant. The leader of the Christian Humanists was Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), who attacked superstitions in the Catholic Church in his writing.” - Michael Mullett

18. “Though he never actually joined it, he was close to some civilian elements of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was the most Communist (and in the rather orthodox sense) of the Palestinian formations. I remember Edward once surprising me by saying, and apropos of nothing: 'Do you know something I have never done in my political career? I have never publicly criticized the Soviet Union. It’s not that I terribly sympathize with them or anything—it's just that the Soviets have never done anything to harm me, or us.' At the time I thought this a rather naïve statement, even perhaps a slightly contemptible one, but by then I had been in parts of the Middle East where it could come as a blessed relief to meet a consecrated Moscow-line atheist-dogmatist, if only for the comparatively rational humanism that he evinced amid so much religious barking and mania. It was only later to occur to me that Edward's pronounced dislike of George Orwell was something to which I ought to have paid more attention.” - Christopher Hitchens

19. “Human rights are not things that are put on the table for people to enjoy. These are things you fight for and then you protect.” - Wangari Maathai

20. “The split in America, rather than simply economic, is between those who embrace reason, who function in the real world of cause and effect, and those who, numbed by isolation and despair, now seek meaning in a mythical world of intuition, a world that is no longer reality-based, a world of magic.” - Chris Hedges

21. “The determination to win is the better part of winning.” - Daisaku Ikeda

22. “People can only live fully by helping others to live. When you give life to friends you truly live. Cultures can only realize their further richness by honoring other traditions. And only by respecting natural life can humanity continue to exist.” - Daisaku Ikeda

23. “Salute to the Smiling Faces of the 21st Century.” - Daisaku Ikeda

24. “The heart is what is important." There is nothing more vulnerable, nothing more corruptible than the human mind; nor is there anything as powerful, steadfast and ennobling.” - Daisaku Ikeda

25. “The economy is after all driven by people. No matter how dire the situation may be, as long as people are firm, a turnaround, revival and progress can be possible.” - Daisaku Ikeda

26. “How aware are we of our own inner life, our spirituality-something so intangible yet so priceless? How much effort do we make to perceive that which is not obvious, which can neither be seen nor heard? I believe the exploration and enrichment of the human spirit is what determines our very humanity. Such enrichment provides an inner compass that can lead civilizations to greatness.” - Daisaku Ikeda

27. “I consider myself a stained-glass window. And this is how I live my life. Closing no doors and covering no windows; I am the multi-colored glass with light filtering through me, in many different shades. Allowing light to shed and fall into many many hues. My job is not to direct anything, but only to filter into many colors. My answer is destiny and my guide is joy. And there you have me.” - C. JoyBell C.

28. “There is something simply beautiful and simply innocent, in being human. It is just so innocent and beautiful. I love it.” - C. JoyBell C.

29. “The downfall of the attempts of governments and leaders to unite mankind is found in this- in the wrong message that we should see everyone as the same. This is the root of the failure of harmony. Because the truth is, we should not all see everyone as the same! We are not the same! We are made of different colours and we have different cultures. We are all different! But the key to this door is to look at these differences, respect these differences, learn from and about these differences, and grow in and with these differences. We are all different. We are not the same. But that's beautiful. And that's okay.In the quest for unity and peace, we cannot blind ourselves and expect to be all the same. Because in this, we all have an underlying belief that everyone should be the same as us at some point. We are not on a journey to become the same or to be the same. But we are on a journey to see that in all of our differences, that is what makes us beautiful as a human race, and if we are ever to grow, we ought to learn and always learn some more.” - C. JoyBell C.

30. “Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.” - Christopher Hitchens

31. “The physician should not treat the disease but the patient who is suffering from it” - Moses Maimonides

32. “It would be perfect if everyone who makes love, is in love, but this is simply an unrealistic expectation. I'd say 75 percent of the population of people who make love, are not in love, this is simply the reality of the human race, and to be idealistic about this is to wait for the stars to aline and Jupiter to change color; for the Heavens to etch your names together in the sky before you make love to someone. But idealism is immaturity, and as a matter of fact, the stars may never aline, Jupiter may never change color, and the Heavens may never ever etch your names together in the sky for you to have the never-ending permission to make endless love to one another. And so the bottom line is, there really is no difference between doing something today, and doing something tomorrow, because today is what you have, and tomorrow may not turn out the way you expect it to. At the end of the day, sex is an animalistic, humanistic, passionate desire.” - C. JoyBell C.

33. “We humans who art on EarthHumanity is specialOur kingdom has comeDo what we innately know to be rightOn earth, because that's all there isShare the bread we haveTry not to screw upWhen others screw up, understandWe can't have everything that tempts usDeliver ourselves from evilBecause this is it, the Earth,The power to do right and the glory to come if we do is oursNow and forever,Hu-man.” - Marcus Brigstocke

34. “I find it odd- the greed of mankind. People only like you for as long as they perceive they can get what they want from you. Or for as long as they perceive you are who they want you to be. But I like people for all of their changing surprises, the thoughts in their heads, the warmth that changes to cold and the cold that changes to warmth... for being human. The rawness of being human delights me.” - C. JoyBell C.

35. “Apalah yang bisa pasti dari perasaan manusia?” - Seno Gumira Ajidarma

36. “If abuses are destroyed, man must destroy them. If slaves are freed, man must free them. If new truths are discovered, man must discover them. If the naked are clothed; if the hungry are fed; if justice is done; if labor is rewarded; if superstition is driven from the mind; if the defenseless are protected and if the right finally triumphs, all must be the work of man. The grand victories of the future must be won by man, and by man alone.” - Robert G. Ingersoll

37. “Humanists recognize that it is only when people feel free to think for themselves, using reason as their guide, that they are best capable of developing values that succeed in satisfying human needs and serving human interests.” - Isaac Asimov

38. “As to the 'Left' I'll say briefly why this was the finish for me. Here is American society, attacked under open skies in broad daylight by the most reactionary and vicious force in the contemporary world, a force which treats Afghans and Algerians and Egyptians far worse than it has yet been able to treat us. The vaunted CIA and FBI are asleep, at best. The working-class heroes move, without orders and at risk to their lives, to fill the moral and political vacuum. The moral idiots, meanwhile, like Falwell and Robertson and Rabbi Lapin, announce that this clerical aggression is a punishment for our secularism. And the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, hitherto considered allies on our 'national security' calculus, prove to be the most friendly to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.Here was a time for the Left to demand a top-to-bottom house-cleaning of the state and of our covert alliances, a full inquiry into the origins of the defeat, and a resolute declaration in favor of a fight to the end for secular and humanist values: a fight which would make friends of the democratic and secular forces in the Muslim world. And instead, the near-majority of 'Left' intellectuals started sounding like Falwell, and bleating that the main problem was Bush's legitimacy. So I don't even muster a hollow laugh when this pathetic faction says that I, and not they, are in bed with the forces of reaction.” - Christopher Hitchens

39. “The matter on which I judge people is their willingness, or ability, to handle contradiction. Thus Paine was better than Burke when it came to the principle of the French revolution, but Burke did and said magnificent things when it came to Ireland, India and America. One of them was in some ways a revolutionary conservative and the other was a conservative revolutionary. It's important to try and contain multitudes. One of my influences was Dr Israel Shahak, a tremendously brave Israeli humanist who had no faith in collectivist change but took a Spinozist line on the importance of individuals. Gore Vidal's admirers, of whom I used to be one and to some extent remain one, hardly notice that his essential critique of America is based on Lindbergh and 'America First'—the most conservative position available. The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.” - Christopher Hitchens

40. “There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we instead choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? I appeal as a human being to human beings; remember your humanity, and forget the rest.” - Bertrand Russell

41. “All men are Prophets or else God does not exist.” - Jean-Paul Sartre

42. “God did not create man in his own image. Evidently, it was quite the other way about, which is the painless explanation for the profusion of gods and religions, and the fratricide both between and among faiths, that we see all about us and that has so retarded the development of civilization.” - Christopher Hitchens

43. “Hope is believing in something that eludes you. It's a desperate feeling in a desperate situation.” - Carroll Bryant

44. “It is arguable that when Humanists, "Shook off," as people say, "the trammels of religion," and discovered things of this world as objects of veneration in their own right... they began to lose the finer appreciation of even the world itself. Thus to the Christian centuries, the flesh was holy (or sacer at least in one sense or the other), and they veiled its awful majesty; to the Humanist centuries it was divine in its own right, and they exhibited it. Now it is the commonplace of the magazine cover. It has lost its numen. So too with the cult of knowledge for its own sake declining from the Revival of Learning to the Brains Trust.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

45. “At the end of the day I have many answers for it. It has to do with my mom, who was an extraordinary woman, and a great feminist. It has to do with the people in my life. It has to do with a lot of different things, but -- I don't know! Because I'm not just writing from the female characters for other people. I have a desire to see them in our culture -- that was not met for most of my childhood. Except occasionally by James Cameron. [From the 2011 San Diego Comic Con, in response to being asked why he writes strong female characters.]” - Joss Whedon

46. “There is no justice in the laws of nature, no term for fairness in the equations of motion. The Universe is neither evil, nor good, it simply does not care. The stars don't care, or the Sun, or the sky. But they don't have to! WE care! There IS light in the world, and it is US!” - Eliezer Yudkowsky

47. “Yes, the human race is a small species in an infinite universe filled with many other planets and many other things, but though small; this race is bearer of very great and big things: Destiny, Virtue, Hope, Love... and that's what makes this species different. That's what makes this species very shiny and very visible and very important, in a whole, whole, big, big, vast, expanding universe!” - C. JoyBell C.

48. “Loss of social standing is an ever-present threat for individuals whose social acceptance is based on behavioral traits rather than unconditional human value.” - Melissa V. Harris-Perry

49. “Humanism is the only - I would go so far as saying the final- resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history.” - Edward W. Said

50. “We are sorry about the way things turned out. We gave, in the phrasing of our words if not literally in the words themselves, the false impression that these pages might hold some small fragment, some slight fragrance of a greater truth. That there might be something here to be learned. Before we go any further the author of this cartoon wishes to make an apology. Such an impression was deliberately cultivated. It is a ruse. It is a lie. We are every bit as lost and afraid as children abandoned in a wood: every bit as lost as you.” - Anders Nilsen

51. “Next year, Equality Now will celebrate - if that’s the word - will clock its twentieth year. Two decades of fighting the good fight, fighting the cause, and in case I haven’t been the clear, the cause is that one half of the human race is given the same basic equal rights that the other half enjoys.Or, not given. Given back.That is not a milestone, twenty years, that I intend to go unnoticed. I want to make some noise. I want to make a joyful noise, I want to make too much noise. I want the neighbors to complain. I’m tired of being polite about something that matters so much.” - Joss Whedon