“It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.”
Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist
On Dramatic Poetry (1758)
“.. we will continue to despise people until we have recognized, loved, and accepted what is despicable in ourselves. So that, then we go down, what is it that is despicable in ourselves? And there are some elements despicable in ourselves, which we don't want to look at, but which are part of our natures, that we are mortal.”
On Being, The Wisdom of Tenderness (transcript) http://www.onbeing.org/program/wisdom-tenderness/transcript/1369 Interview with Krista Tippett, December 24, 2009 <br class="br">From interviews and talks
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Jean Vanier36
Canadian humanitarian 1928–2019Related quotes
Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer
Source: Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life
Leslie Weatherhead (1893–1976) English theologian
Source: The Christian Agnostic (1965), p.77-78, (Paul Tillich: The Shaking of the Foundations. 1963. Pelican Books. p. 164
Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist
A Declaration of Independence (12 March 1964) http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1148 <br class="br">Variant: We cannot think of uniting with others, until after we have first united among ourselves. We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves. <br class="br">Context: There can be no black-white unity until there is first some black unity. There can be no workers' solidarity until there is first some racial solidarity. We cannot think of uniting with others, until after we have first united among ourselves. We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves. One can't unite bananas with scattered leaves.
“If we go down into ourselves, we find that we possess exactly what we desire.”
Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist
Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Section I, Chap. V.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part I
André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist
Source: Strait is the Gate and The Vatican Cellars
Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist
Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)
Context: All we know is, that even the humblest dead may live along after all trace of the body has disappeared; we see them doing it in the bodies and memories of these that come after them; and not a few live so much longer and more effectually than is desirable, that it has been necessary to get rid of them by Act of Parliament. It is love that alone gives life, and the truest life is that which we live not in ourselves but vicariously in others, and with which we have no concern. Our concern is so to order ourselves that we may be of the number of them that enter into life — although we know it not.
Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist
Quoted in Frankenberry The Faith of Scientists: In Their Own Words (2008), p. 336