Geraldine Brooks Quotes

When you boil war down or all conflict down to two people, it's a great advert for humanity sometimes. People can find connections with each other, regardless of the bigger picture.

The only bond worth anything between human beings is their humanness.

There are those moments when you shake someone's hand, have a conversation with someone, and suddenly your all bound together because you share your humanity in one simple moment.

It's difficult to have any animosity towards someone if you recognize that on so many levels they're exactly the same as you.

We need to understand that whatever we do, we're all human beings first.

Try to love someone who you want to hate, because they are just like you, somewhere inside, in a way you may never expect, in a way that resounds so deeply within you that you cannot believe it.

The opportunity for brotherhood presents itself every time you meet a human being.

Life on earth is a hand-to-hand mortal combat... between the law of love and the law of hate.

We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.

If we learn that we're actually the same, then we can be a grander picture and not be so hateful to each other.

As I got older, I started realizing that though people differ in skin tone, religious beliefs, cultures, and food, one thing we all have in common is emotions, so I tapped into emotions.

Your enemies are people too, and maybe they don't have to be enemies if they're that much like you.

Our common humanity is more important than all the things that divide us.

I think our music is more about seeing ourselves in each other and trying to find a more humanistic viewpoint for the world.

The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices.

It's hard to hate up close. The more you get to know each other, the more common ground you can find and the more you can disagree without being disagreeable.

As we form our individual opinions of our fellow man, let us base them on our similarities and not our differences.

Life with another person is always difficult.

Our stories are different; our pain is the same.

What a powerful thing to know: That one's own desires are mappable onto strangers; that what one finds in oneself will most certainly be found in The Other.

You have to walk in the other guy's moccasins. You have to think what they think. If you want to bring somebody onto your side, you have to figure out what motivates them. What do they need?

If we could read the secret history of our enemies we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

No matter what message you are about to deliver somewhere, whether it is holding out a hand of friendship, or making clear that you disapprove of something, is the fact that the person sitting across the table is a human being, so the goal is to always establish common ground.

The motto should not be: Forgive one another; rather understand one another.

I think, really, that the only way a person can open their heart to someone who is so much another is really by knowing them... whether that's in a classroom, or a soccer team, or a food pantry, or any of those things. I mean, we're kind of more alike than we are different.