Motivational Quotes

Humankind

Man is an ape with possibilities.

- Andrews, Roy Chapman

Best Quotes about Humankind

There are two kinds of men who never amount to much -- those who cannot do what they are told and those who can do nothing else.

Curtis, Cyrus H. K

The secret of a person's nature lies in their religion and what they really believes about the world and their place in it.

Froude, James A.

Man is no longer an artist, he has become a work of art.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

The decay of decency in the modern age, the rebellion against law and good faith, the treatment of human beings as things, as the mere instruments of power and ambition, is without a doubt the consequence of the decay of the belief in man as something more than an animal animated by highly conditioned reflexes and chemical reactions. For, unless man is something more than that, he has no rights that anyone is bound to respect, and there are no limitations upon his conduct which he is bound to obey.

Lippmann, Walter

In our civilization, men are afraid that they will not be men enough and women are afraid that they might be considered only women.

Reik, Theodor

Man is harder than iron, stronger than stone and more fragile than a rose.

Proverb, Turkish

If we consider the superiority of the human species, the size of its brain, its powers of thinking, language and organization, we can say this: were there the slightest possibility that another rival or superior species might appear, on earth or elsewhere, man would use every means at his disposal to destroy it.

Baudrillard, Jean

I love men, not for what unites them, but for what divides them, and I want to know most of all what gnaws at their hearts.

Apollinaire, Guillaume

We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon.

Adenauer, Konrad

10.

The world of men is dreaming, it has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can't wake up.

Lawrence, D. H.

11.

Mankind are animals that makes bargains, no other animal does this.

Smith, Adam

12.

If you think that every bad thing that has been done on the face of the earth has been done by man, you're right -- but so has every good thing.

13.

Human beings, for all their pretensions, have a remarkable propensity for lending themselves to classification somewhere within neatly labeled categories. Even the outrageous exceptions may be classified as outrageous exceptions!

Reichmann, W.J.

14.

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

Churchill, Winston

15.

Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.

France, Anatole

16.

The human race is a zone of living things that should be defined by tracing its confines.

Calvino, Italo

17.

One has but to observe a community of beavers at work in a stream to understand the loss in his sagacity, balance, co-operation, competence, and purpose which Man has suffered since he rose up on his hind legs. He began to chatter and he developed Reason, Thought, and Imagination, qualities which would get the smartest group of rabbits or orioles in the world into inextricable trouble overnight.

Thurber, James

18.

The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.

Miller, Henry

19.

Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.

Machiavelli, Niccolo

20.

It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to.

Caulfield, Holden

21.

The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself.

Beecher, Henry Ward

22.

The age of chivalry has gone; the age of humanity has come.

Sumner, Charles

23.

Let us ask ourselves; What kind of people do we think we are?

Reagan, Ronald

24.

Consider your breed; you were not made to live like beasts, but to follow virtue and knowledge.

Dante Alighieri

25.

Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man--yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.

Antonius, Marcus

26.

Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

27.

How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.

Watts, Alan W.

28.

There is no doubt: the study of man is just beginning, at the same time that his end is in sight.

Canetti, Elias

29.

As the archeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end.

Foucault, Michel

30.

What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men -- each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature -- are shot down wholesale.

Hesse, Hermann

31.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

32.

Those who live in a world of human beings can only retrace their steps.

Sarraute, Nathalie

33.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

34.

It's great to be great, but it's greater to be human.

Rogers, Will

35.

[Three classes of people]: Those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.

Da Vinci, Leonardo

36.

Human beings are the only animals of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid.

Shaw, George Bernard

37.

I teach you the Superman. Man is something that should be overcome.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

38.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

Mencken, H. L.

39.

The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends, more than anything else, the improvement of mankind.

Disraeli, Benjamin

40.

Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other.

Hugo, Victor

41.

Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs, he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on him and they still give him much trouble at times.

Freud, Sigmund

42.

The human race was always interesting and we know by its past that it will always continue so, monotonously.

Twain, Mark

43.

Man is not only a contributory creature, but a total creature; he does not only make one, but he is all; he is not a piece of the world, but the world itself; and next to the glory of God, the reason why there is a world.

Donne, John

44.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

45.

We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.

Einstein, Albert

46.

Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, I did not give it to the man, but to humanity.

Johnson

47.

Humans are amphibians -- half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.

Lewis, C. S.

48.

Though man is the only beast that can write, he has small reason to be proud of it. When he utters something that is wise it is nothing that the river horse does not know, and most of his creations are the result of accident.

Dahlberg, Edward

49.

Man is a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.

Twain, Mark

50.

There are realities we all share, regardless of our nationality, language, or individual tastes. As we need food, so do we need emotional nourishment: love, kindness, appreciation, and support from others. We need to understand our environment and our relationship to it. We need to fulfill certain inner hungers: the need for happiness, for peace of mind for wisdom.

Walters, J. Donald