Human Identity Quotes

You who are so-called “illegal aliens” must know that no human being is illegal.

What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world-and defines himself afterward.

I know that in many things I am not like others, but I do not know what I really am like. Man cannot compare himself with any other creature; he is not a monkey, not a cow, not a tree. I am a man. But what is it to be that? Like every other being, I am a splinter of the infinite deity, but I cannot contrast myself with any animal, any plant or any stone. Only a mythical being has a range greater than man's. How then can man form any definite opinions about himself?.

Culture is not made up but something that evolves which is human.

A fetus is no more a human than an acorn is a tree.

The most profound change that genetics brings about might not be scientific at all. It might be mental and even spiritual enrichment: a more expansive sense of who we humans are, existentially, and where we came from, and how we fit with other life on earth.

After that I could never pass a dead man without stopping to gaze on his face, stripped by death of that earthly patina which masks the living soul. And I would ask, who were you? Where was your home? Who is mourning for you now?

I think the basic thing that happened is we have lost our story. Humans think in stories, and we try to make sense of the world by telling stories.

Being LGBT does not make you less human.

The fact that the apes exist and that we can study them is extremely important and makes us reflect on ourselves and our human nature. In that sense alone, you need to protect the apes.

You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.

My culture comes from everywhere. I'm sick of this notion of nationality, that if you're brought up in the same city or same country you're the same. Even three kids brought up in the same family with the same genes, they are not the same. Just consider a human a human.

Our dream is to one day uncover the essence of what makes us human.

I am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss, and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever.

Rant would tell people: 'You're a different human being to everybody you meet.

Instead of holding on to the Biblical view that we are made in the image of God, we come to realize that we are made in the image of the monkey.

In the long term, artificial intelligence and automation are going to be taking over so much of what gives humans a feeling of purpose.

When we can build something like the Hubble telescope and fathom images of this vast cosmos of which we are a part, it really gives pause to wonder what and who we are within a larger framework than linear adventures at the shopping mall and taxes.

God forbid that the day should ever come when, in the American mind, the thought of man as a consumer shall submerge the old American thought of man as a creature of God, endowed with unalienable rights.

What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature are shot down wholesale.

What is meant here by saying that existence precedes essence? It means first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be.

What does it mean to be human? It means we are created in the image of God for the glorious reality of being in permanent fellowship with Him.

I've always had this fascination with the brain. I'm not really much of a religious person, but like anybody, you are at least fascinated by what some call a soul - what I would call the brain - and who we are and how we work.

We have to articulate ourselves. Otherwise we would be cows in the field.

Biography is to give a man some kind of shape after his death.