HUMANISM • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Humanism

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noun

Humanism n.

Human nature or disposition; humanity. "(She) looked almost like a being who had rejected with indifference the attitude of sex for the loftier quality of abstract humanism."

The study of the humanities; polite learning.

A doctrine or ethical point of view that emphasizes the dignity and worth of individual people, rejects claims of supernatural influences on humans, and stresses the need for people to achieve improvement of society and self-fulfillment through reason and to develop human-oriented ethical values without theism.

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Etymology of 'Humanism'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Humanism" Quotes from Famous Books

... partly causes, of its political energy. As has been well said by a modern historian of the Seleucid house, Hellenism meant, besides a politico-social creed, also a certain attitude of mind. The characteristic feature of this attitude was what has been called Humanism, this word being used in a special sense to signify intellectual interest confined to human affairs, but free within the range of these. All Greeks were not, of course, equally humanistic in this sense. Among them, ...

— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth

... freely upon less fortunately endowed and equipped mortals. If he never quite reaches in letters the famous passages of the Diary, describing the great Fire, and Whitehall on the eve of Charles the Second's mortal seizure, he sometimes comes near to this, and diffuses throughout a blend of humanism, and humanity, of science and art, which is very agreeable. His wife also was no mean letter-writer, but only one of the minor stars of that day round the moon, Dorothy Osborne, to whom we come next. Of Evelyn's own letters several are specially tempting. His curious plan (a particularly ...

— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... confine more closely and drive more intensely the new spirit. One new tendency—that which insists more passionately than ever on order and organization—merely continues the impetus given by Cezanne and received by all his followers; but another, more vague, towards something which I had rather call humanism than humanity, does imply, I think, a definite breach with Cubism and the tenets of the austerer doctrinaires. It is not drama or anecdote or sentiment or symbolism that this would bring back to the plastic arts, ...

— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell

... the founder of Humanism. He is the first man of modern times to make us realize that Cicero, Vergil, Horace, Quintilian and Seneca were real and actual men—men like ourselves. Before his time the entire classic world stood to us in the same light that the Bible characters did to most ...

— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... eyes had noted the change of tone as Anstice spoke the last name; and his quick humanism was stirred by the pitiful idea which crossed his mind. "Sir Richard's daughter knew the story? And—may we conclude that her husband ...

— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

Words linked to "Humanism" : philosophy, school of thought, ism, doctrine, humanist, humanistic, secular humanism, humanitarianism, philosophical system, cultural movement