Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Butler, Samuel

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

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

Reagan, Ronald

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

Steinbeck, John

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

Johnson

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

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.

What is the use of this fuss about morality when the issue only involves a horse? The first and most difficult teaching of civilization concerns man's behavior to his inferiors. Make humanity gentle or reasonable toward animals, and strife or injustice between human beings would speedily terminate.

Mayhew, Dr Edward

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

France, Anatole

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.

10.

Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. [Genesis 3:5]

Bible

11.

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

Proverb, Turkish

12.

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

13.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

14.

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

15.

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

Canetti, Elias

16.

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

Twain, Mark

17.

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

18.

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

Churchill, Winston

19.

There are two distinctive classes of people today, those who have personal computers, and those who have several thousand extra dollars apiece.

Barry, Dave

20.

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.

21.

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.

22.

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

Twain, Mark

23.

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

24.

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

Janeway, Elizabeth

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.

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.

27.

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

28.

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.

29.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

30.

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

Fuller, Buckminster

31.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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.

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

34.

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

Gide, Andre

35.

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

Hoffer, Eric

36.

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

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

37.

If, presume not to God to scan; The proper study of Mankind is Man. Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state, a being darkly wise, and rudely great.

Pope, Alexander

38.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

39.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

40.

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

41.

The race of man, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity.

Doren, Carl Van

42.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

43.

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

Marshall, Thurgood

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Butler, Samuel

47.

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

Smith, Adam

48.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

49.

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