Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

Reagan, Ronald

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.

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

Johnson

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

Foucault, Michel

Man is head, chest and stomach. Each of these animals operates, more often than not, individually. I eat, I feel, I even, although rarely, think. This jungle crawls and teems, is hungry, roars, gets angry, devours itself, and its cacophonic concert does not even stop when you are asleep.

Daumal, Rene

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

Sumner, Charles

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.

I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances.

Weil, Simone

Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.

Butler, Samuel

10.

Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.

Ruskin, John

11.

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

Rogers, Will

12.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

13.

If man had created man, he would be ashamed of his performance.

Twain, Mark

14.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

15.

Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man.

Smith, Adam

16.

Mind and spirit together make up that which separates us from the rest of the animal world, that which enables a man to know the truth and that which enables him to die for the truth.

Hamilton, Edith

17.

We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.

Fuller, Buckminster

18.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

19.

We ought to think that we are one of the leaves of a tree, and the tree is all humanity. We cannot live without the others, without the tree.

Casals, Pablo

20.

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

21.

I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

Socrates

22.

Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That's the way the mind of man operates.

Mencken, H. L.

23.

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

Einstein, Albert

24.

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

25.

People can be divided into two classes: those who go ahead and do something, and those who sit still and inquire,why wasn't it done the other way?

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

26.

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

Twain, Mark

27.

Be tolerant of the human race. Your whole family belongs to it -- and some of your spouse's family does too.

28.

If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another

Churchill, Winston

29.

An effective human being is a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Rolf, Ida P.

30.

The course of human history is determined, not by what happens in the skies, but by what takes place in our hearts.

Kent, Sir Arthur

31.

As far as many statistical series that are related to activities of mankind are concerned, the date that divides human history into two equal parts is well within living memory. The world of today is as different from the world I was born in as that world was from Julius Caesar s. I was born in the middle of human history, to date, roughly. Almost as much has happened since I was born as happened before.

Boulding, Kenneth Ewart

32.

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.

33.

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

34.

I wish I loved the Human Race; I wish I loved its silly face; I wish I liked the way it walks; I wish I liked the way it talks; And when I'm introduced to one I wish I thought What Jolly Fun!

Raleigh, Sir Walter

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Smith, Adam

39.

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

Twain, Mark

40.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

41.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

42.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.

Heinlein, Robert

43.

In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.

Marshall, Thurgood

44.

One of the oldest human needs is having someone wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.

Mead, Margaret

45.

We're all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

Williams, Tennessee

46.

I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.

Terence

47.

To be human is to keep rattling the bars of the cage of existence hollering, What's it for?

Robert, Fulghum

48.

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

Canetti, Elias

49.

Cruelty has a Human Heart, And jealousy a Human Face; Terror the Human Form Divine, And secrecy the Human Dress. The Human Dress is forged Iron, The Human Form a Fiery Forge, The Human Face a Furnace seal d, The Human Heart its hungry gorge.

Blake, William

50.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman