Meryl Streep Quotes

I'm a complete human being. I'm very emotional and loving. I feel, I hurt, I give, I take, and also I think. I analyze. I'm a sociologist, anthropologist.

It's important to determine not just the quality of your mind but the fullness of your heart.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the older man who will not laugh is a fool.

Most good actors have a huge intelligence about the human condition and a real open heart to different kinds of people and behavior.

Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.

I wanted to show life and to see ourselves and our behaviour through an outsider's eye... from the point of view of someone who knows nothing about being a human being... He doesn't have the feelings that the rest of us do.

Nothing that comes from the deep, passional soul is bad, or can be bad.

Most of us are consumed with our own thoughts and desires and are not always thinking about what other people may want. This is not necessarily being egocentric; it is just being human.

It's no accident many accuse me of conducting public affairs with my heart instead of my head. Well, what if I do? Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either.

The individual is capable of both great compassion and great indifference. He has it within his means to nourish the former and outgrow the latter.

Man is only truly great when he acts from the passions.

No man limps because another is hurt.

I'm a man of many emotions, so I'm a human being, and I think that's what people tend to forget sometimes.

I hope you will be yourself, human, even a little sentimental, possessed of a sense of humor and a sense of humility. . . . There are arrogant people in this world and, what is worse, arrogant judges.

We can't love our neighbors till we know how crooked their hearts are.

Human beings can be awful, but they can also be tremendous.

What does the brain matter compared with the heart?

My Brain and My Heart are my Temples. My true Religion is Kindness.

His universal compassion was due less to natural instinct, than to a profound conviction, a sum of thoughts that in the course of living had filtered through to his heart: for in the nature of man, as in rock, there may be channels hollowed by the dropping of water, and these can never be destroyed.

He who's never loved cannot be good.

"The true essence of humankind is kindness. There are other qualities which come from education or knowledge, but it is essential, if one wishes to be a genuine human being and impart satisfying meaning to one's existence, to have a good heart."

Now, we don't really believe these things - intellectually we know better - but we believe them viscerally, and live by them, and they cause us to prioritize our own needs over the needs of others, even though what we really want, in our hearts, is to be less selfish, more aware of what's actually happening in the present moment, more open, and more loving.

She'd been acutely aware that terror, betrayal, and cruelty had a human face, but she had not sufficiently appreciated that courage, kindness, and love had a human face as well.