Benjamin Rush Quotes

As a person, I'm anti-violence.

You don't have to teach people how to be human. You have to teach them how to stop being inhuman.

It is not right to glory in the slain

Nature is cruel but we don't have to be

When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans.

It really is a strange time we're living in, when saying 'Don't kill people' is considered a radical point of view.

At the end of the day, love and compassion will win.

Love is more powerful than kicking ass.

There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.

I know that war and mayhem run in our blood. I refuse to believe that they must dominate our lives. We humans are animals, too, but animals with amazing powers of rationality, morality, society. We can use our strength and courage not to savage each other, but to defend our highest purposes.

It really shocks me when I encounter people who think kindness doesn't matter. Because I think it's pretty much the only thing that matters.

The American people have not become heartless.

If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.

I'd never hurt another person.

I think for really good-hearted people, that idea of putting yourself in the shoes of a monster to figure out why they acted that way, that's a really frightening idea.

Human nature is complex. Even if we do have inclinations toward violence, we also have inclination to empathy, to cooperation, to self-control.

I always kind of thought I want to be a good person, I want to be right to my fellow men and love them like we're supposed to.

Try to find the path of least resistance and use it without harming others. Live with integrity and morality, not only with people but with all beings.

We must, I believe, start teaching our children the sanity of nonviolence much earlier.

You don't hurt 'em if you don't hit 'em.

Without humility there can be no humanity.

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?

I believe in using words, not fists. I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on the street. I believe in honesty. I believe in a good time. I believe in good food. I believe in sex.

It would be nice to feel that we are a better world, a world of more compassion and a world of more humanity, and to believe in the basic goodness of man.

I want a world without war, a world without insanity. I want to see people do well. I don't even think it's as much as what I want for myself. It's more what I want for the people around me. That's what I want.