Ellen Key Quotes

We keep thinking that the human is evolving. No, the human has evolved to its extent. What's happening now is the organization of humans: just like cells organize to form people, people are organizing to form humanity.

We are either going to dissolve as a human race or we are going to break through into a new understanding of what it is to be a human being.

We're growing up together, the human race. And we've discovered a lot of things that we didn't know. We're finding our way. Instead of thinking about doomsday all the time, think about how beautiful the world is. We're all together, and together we're getting wiser.

We are convinced of the fundamental unity of the human family.

It is the apparent plan of nature that as one human being, so also one generation, and also one nationality learn, learn incessantly, from and with the others, until all have comprehended the difficult lesson: No nationality has been solely designated by God as the chosen people of the earth; above all we must seek the truth and cultivate the garden of the common good. Hence no nationality of Europe may separate itself sharply, and foolishly say, "With us alone, with us dwells all wisdom.

He will be an extraordinary person, that pure American, who will be standing in my place five thousand years from today. He will have what no other human being has had in just the same richness, the inheritance of all ages, all races, all cultures…. a true superman, standing on the shoulders of those from all nations and races of the earth.

I think almost everything about humans and human civilization is explained better by evolution than anything else.

If the whole of mankind is to be united into one brotherhood, all obstacles must be removed so that men, all over the surface of the globe, should be as children playing in a garden.

Mankind, the spirit of the earth, the synthesis of individuals and peoples, the paradoxical conciliation of the element with the whole, and of unity with multitude - all these are called Utopian, and yet they are biologically necessary.

Civilization is a process in the service of Eros, whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families, then races, peoples and nations, into one great unity, the unity of mankind. Why this has to happen, we do not know; the work of Eros is precisely this.

I have been scientifically studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so-called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result profoundly humiliating to me. For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals; since it now seems plain to me that that theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.

We evolved as creatures knitted into the fabric of nature, and without its intimate truths, we can find ourselves unraveling.

Civilization is a hopeless race to discover remedies for the evils it produces.

When we consider we are bound to be serviceable to mankind, and bear with their faults, we shall perceive there is a common tie of nature and relation between us.

Man is one; and he hath one great heart. It is thus we feel, with a gigantic throb athwart the sea, each other's rights and wrongs; thus are we men.

With highly civilised nations continued progress depends in a subordinate degree on natural selection; for such nations do not supplant and exterminate one another as do savage tribes.

As we are - the world is.

There is an emergent enlightenment appearing today, unique to no particular culture or ethnicity. Anyone who chooses to be, is its conduit.

The assumption of being merely individuals is our greatest limitation.

The profound unity of subjective existence and objective environment leads naturally to the idea that the life-force of one human being can affect other living beings and even the fundamental being of humankind as a whole. Furthermore, the minds of humankind fuse into one and exert a continuous influence, both physical and spiritual, on other living beings and on the whole of nature.

From its first faint glimmerings, History shews Man's constant progress as a beast of prey. As such he conquers every land, subdues the fruit-fed races, founds mighty realms by subjugating other subjugators, forms states and sets up civilisations, to enjoy his prey at rest.

My work to me is more like what the Native Americans say: When we walk upon the earth, we always place our feet very carefully upon the ground, because we know the faces of our future generations are looking up at us from below, and we never forget them. I think as a culture today we've forgotten them. This work is a way to help us remember them. It's a way for us not only to find meaning in our individual lives, but to extend that approach all across the planet. Because if we don't, we won't have a planet.

The world is a body common to all men, changes to it bring about a change in the souls of all men who are turned towards that part of it at that moment.

The history of the human race is a continual struggle from darkness into light. It is, therefore, to no purpose to discuss the use of knowledge; man wants to know, and when he ceases to do so, is no longer a man.