“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 Said

Last update Oct. 26, 2025. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Humanism is the only - I would go so far as saying the final- resistance we have against the inhuman practices and inju…" by Edward Said?
Edward Said photo
Edward Said24
Professor of English and literature 1935–2003

Related quotes

“Pacifism, to me, is primarily a way of actively struggling against injustice and inhumanity… My kind of pacifism may be called "non-violent resistance."”

Dwight Macdonald (1906–1982) journalist

Speech, 1947. Quoted in Scott H. Bennett, Radical Pacifism: The War Resisters League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915-1963, Syracuse University Press, 2003.

“A person who is going to commit an inhuman act invariably excuses himself to himself by saying, "I'm only human, after all."”

Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986) American journalist

&quot;Purely Personal Prejudices&quot; http://books.google.com/books?id=DLcEAQAAIAAJ&amp;q=%22A+person+who+is+going+to+commit+an+inhuman+act+invariably+excuses+himself++to+himself+by+saying+I&#x27;m+only+human+after+all%22&amp;pg=PA232#v=onepage <br class="br">Strictly Personal (1953)

Jane Goodall photo

“We have so far to go to realize our human potential for compassion, altruism, and love.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Source: Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating

Fernando Pessoa photo

“We adore perfection because we can't have it; it would disgust us if we had it. Perfect is inhuman, because human is imperfect.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 249
Original: Adoramos a perfeição, porque não a podemos ter; repugná-la-íamos, se a tivéssemos. O perfeito é o desumano, porque o humano é imperfeito.
Source: The Book of Disquiet

John Gray photo

“For a consistent naturalist science can only be a refinement of animal exploration, a practice humans have devised for finding their way in the bit of the universe in which they have so far survived. Instead of thinking of science as a law-seeking activity, we can think of it as a tool humans use to cope with a world they will never understand.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

Sweet Morality (p. 224)
The Immortalization Commission: The Strange Quest to Cheat Death (2011)

Yukio Mishima photo

“History knew the truth. History was the most inhuman product of humanity. It scooped up the whole of human will and, like the goddess Kali in Calcutta, dripped blood from its mouth as it bit and crunched.”

Yukio Mishima book The Decay of the Angel

Source: The Decay of the Angel

Albert Camus photo

“If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be the history of its successive regrets and its impotences.”

Albert Camus book The Myth of Sisyphus

Source: The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Absurd Creation, p. 18

James Fenimore Cooper photo

“It is probable a true history of human events would show that a far larger proportion of our acts are the results of sudden impulses and accident, than of that reason of which we so much boast.”

James Fenimore Cooper book The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea

The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea http://www.amazon.com/The-Pilot-A-Tale-Sea/dp/1490555811 (1829); Preface <br class="br">The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea (1823)

Hassan Rouhani photo

“There is a human tragedy going on in Syria and all must do their utmost to put an end to this travesty. But facts cannot be overlooked. Syria has remained the only country in the region to resist Israeli expansionist policies and practices.”

Hassan Rouhani (1948) 7th President of Islamic Republic of Iran

&quot;In conversation with Hassan Rouhani&quot; http://www.aawsat.net/2013/06/article55305525, Ashraq Al-Awsat, (June 15, 2013)

Stephen Hawking photo

“I think computer viruses should count as life … I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Speech at Macworld Expo in Boston, as quoted in The Daily News (4 August 1994) http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=bD8PAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=IoYDAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=4837%2C5338590. A nearly identical quote can be found at the end of the second paragraph of his lecture Life in the Universe http://hawking.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=65 (1996).

Related topics