Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Bacon, Francis

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gide, Andre

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

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.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

10.

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

Rolf, Ida P.

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

Sumner, Charles

14.

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

Foucault, Michel

15.

Man... knows only when he is satisfied and when he suffers, and only his sufferings and his satisfactions instruct him concerning himself, teach him what to seek and what to avoid. For the rest, man is a confused creature; he knows not whence he comes or whither he goes, he knows little of the world, and above all, he knows little of himself.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

16.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

17.

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

Robert, Fulghum

18.

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

Butler, Samuel

19.

The law of humanity ought to be composed of the past, the present, and the future, that we bear within us; whoever possesses but one of these terms, has but a fragment of the law of the moral world.

Quinet, Edgar

20.

God must love the common man, he made so many of them.

Lincoln, Abraham

21.

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

Canetti, Elias

22.

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.

Kennedy, John F.

23.

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

Mead, Margaret

24.

But remember please, the Law by which we live, we are not built to comprehend a lie, we can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die.

Kipling, Rudyard

25.

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

26.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

27.

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.

28.

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

29.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

30.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

31.

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

32.

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

33.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

34.

Humanity I love you because when you're hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink

Cummings, E.E. (Edward. E.)

35.

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

Fuller, Buckminster

36.

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

Rogers, Will

37.

We say nothing essential about the cathedral when we speak of its stones. We say nothing essential about Man when we seek to define him by the qualities of men.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

38.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

39.

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.

40.

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

41.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

42.

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

Reagan, Ronald

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

46.

A human being is a single being. Unique and unrepeatable.

Caddy, Eileen

47.

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world -- that is the myth of the atomic age -- as in being able to remake ourselves.

Gandhi, Mahatma

48.

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

49.

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.

50.

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

Twain, Mark