Motivational Quotes

Humankind

Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.

- Bacon, Francis

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

France, Anatole

Man who is he? Too bad, to be the work of God: Too good for the work of chance!

Lessing, Doris

Always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are. Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.

Aurelius, Marcus

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

Einstein, Albert

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

That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

To the eyes of a god, mankind must appear as a species of bacteria which multiply and become progressively virulent whenever they find themselves in a congenial culture, and whose activity diminishes until they disappear completely as soon as proper measures are taken to sterilize them.

Crowley, Aleister

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

Williams, Tennessee

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

10.

Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.

Gide, Andre

11.

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

Twain, Mark

12.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

13.

Man is stark mad; he cannot make a flea, and yet he will be making gods by the dozens.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

14.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

15.

There are two kinds of people in the world -- those you love, and those you don't understand.

16.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

17.

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

18.

Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved.

Kant, Immanuel

19.

The simplest single-celled organism oscillates to a number of different frequencies, at the atomic, molecular, sub-cellular, and cellular levels. Microscopic movies of these organisms are striking for the ceaseless, rhythmic pulsation that is revealed. In an organism as complex as a human being, the frequencies of oscillation and the interactions between those frequencies are multitudinous.

Leonard, George

20.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

21.

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

22.

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

23.

When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humored a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.

Temple, Sir William

24.

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

Foucault, Michel

25.

People can be divided into three classes, the few who make things happen, the many who watch things happen, and the overwhelming majority who have no idea what has happened.

26.

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

27.

A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Einstein, Albert

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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.

31.

The Goddamn human race deserves itself, and as far as I'm concerned it can have it.

Janeway, Elizabeth

32.

I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

Wilde, Oscar

33.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

34.

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.

35.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

36.

Man was nature's mistake --she neglected to finish him -- and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.

Hoffer, Eric

37.

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

38.

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.

39.

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

40.

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

Twain, Mark

41.

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

42.

We are, to put it mildly, in a mess, and there is a strong chance that we shall have exterminated ourselves by the end of the century. Our only consolation will have to be that, as a species, we have had an exciting term of office.

Morris, Desmond

43.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

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.

Everyone is as God made him, and often a great deal worse.

Cervantes, Miguel De

46.

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

Rogers, Will

47.

I have found little that is good about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think.

Freud, Sigmund

48.

Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.

Bacon, Francis

49.

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

Butler, Samuel

50.

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