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

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/hjˈumənˌɪzəm/ Listen

Humanism

noun

The doctrine that people's duty is to promote human welfare. Synonym: humanitarianism.

The doctrine emphasizing a person's capacity for self-realization through reason; rejects religion and the supernatural. Synonym: secular humanism.

The cultural movement of the Renaissance; based on classical studies.

See images of 'Humanism'

Etymology of 'Humanism'

Share |

"Humanism" Quotes from Famous Books

... minor points. Mr. Symonds is to be warmly congratulated on the completion of his history of the Renaissance in Italy. It is a most wonderful monument of literary labour, and its value to the student of Humanism cannot be doubted. We have often had occasion to differ from Mr. Symonds on questions of detail, and we have more than once felt it our duty to protest against the rhetoric and over-emphasis of his style, but we fully recognise the importance of his work and the impetus he has ...

— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... universal recognition. His main distinction is that he released the Hebrew language forever from the forms and ideas of the Middle Ages, and connected it with the circle of modern literatures. He bequeathed to posterity a model of classic poetry, which ushered in Hebrew humanism, the return to the style and the manner of the Bible, in the same way as the general humanistic movement led the European mind back upon its own steps along the paths marked out by the classic languages. No sooner did his work become known in the north countries and in the Orient ...

— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... came to the fore during the last fifty years. The University of Groningen taught a humanism, which created a reaction towards the ancient confessors of the creed, the 'reveal,' or awakening. Subsequently modern cosmosophy tried to adjust its opinions to modern science and the results of modern research in every branch of ...

— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough

... far distant past deism and pantheism served as a polite subterfuge for atheism. There is a growing tendency in this present age to dress one's atheistic belief in an evening suit, and for the sake of social approbation call such a belief "religious humanism." A quotation from the Associated Press, appearing recently in one of our magazines, states the need for this "new religion" as being the inadequacy of the religious forms and ideas of our fathers, and the ...

— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... nature of the milieu through which the liberal movement in Boston had to make its way. To re-assert the dignity and usefulness of the beautiful arts was, {432} perhaps, the chief service which the Massachusetts Unitarians rendered to humanism. The traditional prejudice of the Puritans against the ornamental side of life had to be softened before polite literature could find a congenial atmosphere in New England. In Channing's Remarks on National Literature, reviewing a work published in 1823, he asks the question, "Do we possess ...

— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... may be said, in general, of the whole fifteenth century. Although the language became greatly clarified toward 1500 it was not yet ready for masterly original work in verse. Invaded by a flood of Latinisms, springing from a novel and undigested humanism, encumbered still with archaic words and set phrases left over from the Galicians, it required purification at the hands of the real poets and scholars of the sixteenth century. The poetry of the fifteenth is inferior to the best prose of the ...

— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various

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