"Humanism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in his essay on "Humanism in Education," points out that even less than a hundred years ago the classics still held a virtual monopoly, so far as literary studies were concerned, in the public schools and universities of England. "The culture which they supplied," he argues, ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... be thought that something should have been said about the revolt against authority and tradition which has styled itself variously 'Pragmatism' and 'Humanism', and also about the recent vogue of Bergsonianism. I may in part excuse my silence by the plea that both movements are, in my judgement, already spent forces. If I must say more than this, I would only remark about Pragmatism that I could speak of it with ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... put upon us by the social order, and the dictates of worldly prudence, fall only before a still more fervid humanism, or ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... law, let any really religious man try the plan of substituting in his prayers and in his thoughts the phrase "Universal Law" for "God," and then see how long he will retain his religion. As Mr. Balfour points out ("Theism and Humanism," p. 20), the god of religion and the god of philosophy represent two distinct beings, and it is hard to see how the two can be fused into one. The plain truth is that it is impossible to now make the existence of the god of religion reasonable, and the plan adopted is that of arguing for ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... civilization have been made since both the sexes assumed this attitude of mutual helpfulness, does it not, by that same token, reveal the source of greatest efficiency while indicating that feminism is humanism, and thus foretelling the trend of ...
— The Suffrage Cook Book • L. O. Kleber
... which would have won him universal recognition. His main distinction is that he released the Hebrew language forever from the forms and ideas of the Middle Ages, and connected it with the circle of modern literatures. He bequeathed to posterity a model of classic poetry, which ushered in Hebrew humanism, the return to the style and the manner of the Bible, in the same way as the general humanistic movement led the European mind back upon its own steps along the paths marked out by the classic languages. No sooner did his work become known in the north countries ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... linger for a moment over Pico della Mirandola, before passing on to the general effects of humanism. He was the only man who loudly and vigorously defended the truth and science of all ages against the one-sided worship of classical antiquity. He knew how to value not only Averroes and the Jewish investigators, but also the scholastic writers of the Middle Ages, according to ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... ridiculed the old idea of Divine-right, as attached to the acts of monarch, leaders of the people saw no inconsistency in asserting attributes of political divinity in the doings of the common people. Thus, a species of nebulous politico-religious humanism was pictured as the highest ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... Socialism, that we must pull down before we can build up, and that I hope to do a little building, if only on the foundation. I oppose the Christian religion because I do not think the Christian religion is beneficial to mankind, and because I think it an obstacle in the way of humanism."[988] Another very influential writer says: "Personally I feel called upon to attack Christianity as I would any other harmful delusion. I do not believe in the theology of Jesus any more than I do in his sociology. It is no use pretending that Socialism ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... and smiling scepticism, this profound scholarship, this subtle interest in theological problems, this ironical interest in political problems, this detachment of tone, this urbane humanism, make up an "ensemble" which one feels could only possibly appear in the land of Rabelais ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... the seed-bed, for the english world, of the idealism inspired by Kant and Hegel, has recently become the nursery of a very different way of thinking. Even non-philosophers have begun to take an interest in a controversy over what is known as pluralism or humanism. It looks a little as if the ancient english empirism, so long put out of fashion here by nobler sounding germanic formulas, might be repluming itself and getting ready for a stronger flight than ever. It looks as if foundations were ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... but faint-hearted, and in none is this better seen than in Erasmus. Luther was a narrower man, but his unvarying purpose, never looking to left nor right, was his strength. Humanism is the broad mirror-like Rhine at Bingen. It must grow narrower and wilder before it can break through the mountains to ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... and after humanism the Reformation, and after the Reformation Cartesianism, and after Cartesianism experimental philosophy had banished the old credulity from thoughtful minds. When the Revolution came, the bloom had already long faded from the flower of Gothic legend. It seemed as if ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... the really vital factors of existence, of which the free action of men is one of the most important. The value placed on human freedom, on the creative power of human beings to mould the future, links Bergson again with James, and it is this humanism which is the supremely valuable factor in the philosophies of both thinkers. This has been pointed out in the consideration of the ethical and political implications of Bergson's Philosophy. Nevertheless, although his insistence on Freedom ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... of Geography and History Chapter Seventeen: Science in the Course of Study Chapter Eighteen: Educational Values Chapter Nineteen: Labor and Leisure Chapter Twenty: Intellectual and Practical Studies Chapter Twenty-one: Physical and Social Studies: Naturalism and Humanism Chapter Twenty-two: The Individual and the World Chapter Twenty-Three: Vocational Aspects of Education Chapter Twenty-four: Philosophy of Education Chapter Twenty-five: Theories of Knowledge Chapter ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... last in the marbles of Aegina to a monument, which bears upon it the full expression of this humanism,—to a work, in which the presence of man, realised with complete mastery of hand, and with clear apprehension of how he actually is and moves and looks, [257] is touched with the freshest sense of that new-found, inward ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... however, a positive supplement. The mediaeval mode of thought is discarded and the new one is not yet found. What can more fittingly furnish a support, a preliminary substitute, than antiquity? Thus philosophy, also, joins in that great stream of culture, the Renaissance and humanism, which, starting from Italy, poured forth over the whole civilized world. Plato and Neoplatonism, Epicurus and the Stoa are opposed to Scholasticism, the real Aristotle to the transformed Aristotle of the Church and the distorted ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... they borrowed altars from pagans, and recast the worship so sumptuously in purple and gold the Apostles would not have recognized it. Then, in brief, I began telling thee of the Primitive Church of Christ, now disowned, forgotten or lost in the humanism of religious pride. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... intelligence. There was, I know, one thing wanting in my education, and until that void was filled up I was very cramped in my powers. The one thing lacking was positive science, the idea of a critical search after truth. This superficial humanism kept my reasoning powers fallow for three years, while at the same time it wore away the early candour of my faith. My Christianity was being worn away, though there was nothing as yet in my mind which could be styled doubt. I went every year, during the holidays, ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... speculative metaphysics and on all metaphysics was once again synonymous, as in the eighteenth century, with an attack on theology. Metaphysics succumbed for good and all to materialism, which itself was now perfected by the work of speculation and coincided with humanism. ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... the movement, that is, of revived classical scholarship, had already begun in Germany before what may be termed the sturm und drang of the Renaissance proper. Foremost among the exponents of this older Humanism, which dates from the middle of the fifteenth century, were Nicholas of Cusa and his disciples, Rudolph Agricola, Alexander Hegius, and Jacob Wimpheling. But the new Humanism and the new Renaissance movement generally throughout Northern Europe centred chiefly in two personalities, Johannes ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... religious differences, were very similar at this time. Both countries had replaced a shattered feudal system by an absolute and united monarchy. Both countries owed an immense debt to Italy, and, in both, the Italian influence took a similar form, modified on the one hand by humanism, and on the other by feelings of patriotism, if not of imperialism. Spain and England took the Renaissance fever more coldly, and at the same time more seriously, than did Italy. And in both the new movement eventually assumed the character of intellectual ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... Bodin does not draw this inference. He confines himself to the past and present, and has no word to say about the vicissitudes of the future. But he is not haunted by any vision of the end of the world, or the coming of Antichrist; three centuries of humanism lay between ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... Florence and in Bembo and Sadoleto in Rome. Originality gradually gave place to conventionality, until men actually came to prefer the absurdities of Ciceronianism, and a cold, colorless adherence to hard-and-fast rules of composition, to a work throbbing with the pulsation of virile life. Humanism was beginning to take flight from Italy, to find a home and a welcome ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... study of Roman law would have missed those labours on the Pandects, with which the name of Politian is honourably associated. From the Florentine society of the fifteenth century would have disappeared the commanding central figure of humanism, which now contrasts dramatically with the stern monastic Prior of S. Mark. Benedetto's tragic death gave Poliziano to Italy ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... "Yet where should humanism find more zealous friends than in that very place, among the heads of the Church?" asked Dr. Peutinger. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... like ours is capable of reading in the subtle suggestions of ancient art thoughts which have only now come to be frankly defined or exquisitely analysed. To us, moreover, Botticelli presents not only the poem of the apparition of the young and beautiful manhood of humanism before the brooding and entranced, yet half expectant, maidenhood of mediaevalism, but also the poem of the painter's own peculiar relation to that crisis. For us there is the poetry of the thing itself, and also the poetry of Botticelli's attempt to express it. The work of Botticelli ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... narrowness in every form he hated; he demanded unlimited freedom for the intelligence. The narrow circle of legends, the conventional unified drama, state religion, a pseudo-democracy based on slavery he fearlessly criticised. Rationalism, humanism, free speculation were his watchwords; he was always trying new experiments in his art, introducing politics, philosophy, melodrama and trying to get rid of the chorus wherever he could. He was a living and ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... days of renascent humanism, the first to renew the pastoral tradition, broken for some ten centuries, was Francesco Petrarca. It is not without significance that the first modern eclogues were from the same pen as the sonnet 'Fontana di dolore, albergo d'ira,' expressive of the shame with which earnest sons ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... thunder had come home to them, and the breathless fulness of the sunset hour had whispered of something more than the humour of tomorrow's weather. The wind and rain had a voice which spoke to Kendall, and he too had endured the misery of lack of companionship. Gordon, with his sad, sad humanism and bitter disappointment, held out his hand and took me with him. The regret of it all was I could never meet them—Byron, Thackeray, Dickens, Longfellow, Gordon, Kendall, the men I loved, all were dead; but, blissful thought! Caine, Paterson, and Lawson were still ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... up in ages unscarred by wars and human cataclysms; every war puts back their growth. The fall of Rome and the succeeding pralaya threw Europe back into ruthless barbarity. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries humanism began to grow again; and has been gaining ground especially since H. P. Blavatsky began her teaching. But not much more than a century ago they were publicly hanging, drawing, and quartering people in England; crowds were gathering ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... humanism, another point of view in the church. He, with others, says, "Give man time and he will work out his own salvation." Humanists, like Dr. Manby, often react against the religiosity of the church with the complaint that the search for truth ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe
... no doubt that these references point out the work of the Reformation which broke the power of Rome's universal supremacy and her long reign of tyranny over the earth. Humanism, discovery of the art of printing, the revival of learning, and other causes contributed to this result. But the real revolt came in 1517, when Luther in Saxony nailed to the church door in Wittenberg his ninety five theses against the papal traffic in indulgences. The Reformers made their ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... Harvey was a man whom few will praise, and very few could have loved. Few will quarrel with Dr Courthope's description of him as 'a person of considerable intellectual force, but intolerably arrogant and conceited, and with a taste vitiated by all the affectations of Italian humanism,' or deny that 'his tone in his published correspondence with Spenser is that of an intellectual bully.'[1] None will refuse him the title of fool for attempting to mislead Spenser into writing hexameters. But ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... sect of Simon Magus has replied to an assault of mine on humanitarianism by trying to show that in this one faith of modern days are summed up all the varying ideals of past ages,—renunciation, self-development, religion, chivalry, humanism, pantheistic return to nature, liberty. Ah, my dear sir, I envy you your easy, kindly vision. Indeed, all these do persist in a dim groping way, empty echoes of great words that have been, bare shadows without substance. What made ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... Humanism owes its rapid development in Italy not indeed to the universities, for the universities, committed entirely to the Scholastic principles of education, were generally hostile, but rather to the exertions of wandering ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... diseases, some of the worst of which could be extinguished for ever by twenty years of concerted effort. A scientific civilisation is not impossible, though we are not likely to live to see it. And, if science and humanism can work together, it will be a great age for mankind. Such hopes as these must be allowed to float before our minds: they are not unreasonable, and they will help us to get through the twentieth century, which is not likely to be a pleasant time ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... the concept of humanism, dear to our forefathers, though its meaning has been narrowed down to the signification of Greek and Latin manuals. In every age, states, universities, academies, all the conservative forces of the mind, have endeavoured ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland |
