Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Canetti, Elias

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

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 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

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.

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

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

Steinbeck, John

Human affairs are not serious, but they have to be taken seriously.

Murdoch, Iris

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

Wilde, Oscar

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

10.

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

11.

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

Doren, Carl Van

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.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

14.

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.

15.

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

16.

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

Robert, Fulghum

17.

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

18.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

19.

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

Janeway, Elizabeth

20.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

21.

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

22.

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

Johnson

23.

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

24.

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

25.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

26.

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

Terence

27.

The true grandeur of humanity is in moral elevation, sustained, enlightened and decorated by the intellect of man.

Sumner, Charles

28.

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

Williams, Tennessee

29.

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

30.

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.

31.

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

32.

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

Caddy, Eileen

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Proverb, Turkish

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

Calvino, Italo

42.

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

Lessing, Doris

43.

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

44.

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

Kant, Immanuel

45.

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.

46.

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.

47.

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

48.

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

49.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

50.

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

Socrates