„You were born as an ordinary human, but make sure you die as an extraordinary human.“
Related quotes
„Of course, there must be subtleties. Just make sure you make them obvious.“
— Billy Wilder American filmmaker 1906 - 2002
„Drinking lots of Coca-Cola will not make you young, will not make you healthy, and will not make you athletic – rather, it increases your chances of suffering from obesity and diabetes. Yet for decades Coca-Cola has invested billions of dollars in linking itself to youth, health and sports – and billions of humans subconsciously believe in this linkage.“
— Yuval Noah Harari, book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
21 Lessons for the 21st Century
„My dear young friends … I believe in you. I have grown increasingly convinced that your generation has the capacity to transform the dawning century into an era of peace and dialogue. You have the means of reconciling our fractured humanity with itself and with the natural world.… You are the first generation of truly global citizens. The problems that you face today were not created by you. My generation and that of your parents … are the problem generations. You must be the solution finding generation! Make good use of collective intelligence, based on sharing. And above all be the generation that acts. You have the capacity to lead humanity towards a renewed form of fraternity, justice and solidarity….“
— Tenzin Gyatso spiritual leader of Tibet 1935
A Call for Revolution (2017-2018)
„Every once in a blue moon, is born a person, who has the clarity of vision, and the greatness of deed, to make us all recognize the dizzying heights the human spirit can really achieveŠBaba Amte is one of those people.“
— Baba Amte Indian freedom fighter, social worker 1914 - 2008
By Neesha Mirchandani
„It is greed that makes us human as it could be for good or bad.“
— Zaman Ali Pakistani philosopher 1993
"Humanity", Ch.VI "Resources: Need and Desires", Part II
„We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.“
— Richard Dawkins, book Unweaving the Rainbow
Source: Unweaving the Rainbow (1998), Ch. 1 : The Anaesthetic of Familiarity; Dawkins is reported to have stated that this passage will be read at his funeral; it is often quoted with an extension which does not occur in any thus-far-checked editions of the book: "We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?"
„The man was not merely very human; he was humanity. And I reflected that it is only by preserving faith in human dreams that we may, after all, perhaps some day make them come true.“
— James Branch Cabell, book The Cream of the Jest
Source: The Cream of the Jest (1917), Ch. 40 : Which Mr. Flaherty Does Not Quite Explain
„God gives talent so that the ordinary person can become extraordinary. Talent is the only way the poor can become rich. Otherwise, in this world the rich would remain rich and the poor would remain poor. This unfair talent actually creates a balance, helps to make the world fair.“
— Chetan Bhagat, book The 3 Mistakes of My Life
Source: The 3 Mistakes of My Life (2008), P. 61
„For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity, a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.“
— William Blake, The Divine Image
The Divine Image, st. 3
1780s, Songs of Innocence (1789–1790)
„YOU LYING WHORE!!! You used me! You never loved me! I hope you slide under a gas truck and taste your own blood! DIE! DIE! DIE! I want my records back! I want my fucking records back!“
— Sam Kinison American comedian 1953 - 1992
Louder Than Hell (1986)
„My fellow Americans, I am confident we will succeed in this mission because we are on the right side of history. We were founded upon a belief in human dignity — that no matter who you are, or where you come from, or what you look like, or what religion you practice, you are equal in the eyes of God and equal in the eyes of the law. Even in this political season, even as we properly debate what steps I and future Presidents must take to keep our country safe, let’s make sure we never forget what makes us exceptional. Let’s not forget that freedom is more powerful than fear; that we have always met challenges — whether war or depression, natural disasters or terrorist attacks — by coming together around our common ideals as one nation, as one people. So long as we stay true to that tradition, I have no doubt America will prevail.“
— Barack Obama 44th President of the United States of America 1961
We Will Not Be Terrorized (December 2015), Address to the Nation by the President on San Bernardino (December 2015)
„If you want to rely on non-empirical assessment, you have to make really sure that scientists’ judgment is as objective as humanly possible. And the environment in academia presently is absolutely unsuitable for this. You just can’t be sure how much sociology affects judgment. And no physicist I know makes any effort to consciously address cognitive biases, such as wishful thinking, loss aversion, or the use of aesthetic criteria. It’s just not something that they pay attention to because it’s never been necessary before. As long as you have data for guidance, you’ll be swiftly corrected.“
— Sabine Hossenfelder German theoretical physicist 1976
[Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder Fears Theorists, Lacking Data, May Succumb to "Wishful Thinking" (interview of Hossenfelder by John Horgan), Cross-Check, Scientific American blogs, 1 February 2016, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/physicist-sabine-hossenfelder-fears-theorists-lacking-data-may-succumb-to-wishful-thinking/]
„Rufus Wainwright has as true a voice as you can hear and as sweet and acute a sensibility as you can imagine. His musicianship combined with his poetic, intelligent and humane outlook on life make for one of the great performers of our day. I adore his singing, his song-writing, everything about him…“
— Rufus Wainwright American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer 1973
Stephen Fry, [July 28, 2011, http://www.digster.co.uk/playlists/rufus-wainwright-by-stephen-fry/, Rufus by Stephen Fry]
„The… earthquakes, hurricanes, floods…are the result of the wrong thoughts and actions of humanity… All atoms in creation are interconnected. There is no separation anywhere. If, as today, we create conditions in which two-thirds of the world’s population must make do with one-fourth of the world’s food, and therefore starve and die in the millions, then catastrophe is inevitable.“
— Benjamin Creme artist, author, esotericist 1922 - 2016
Maitreya's Mission Vol. I (1986)