Motivational Quotes

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.

Holmes, John Andrew

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

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

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

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

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

Man must realize his own unimportance before he can appreciate his importance.

Baumgardy, R. M.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

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

10.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

11.

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

12.

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

Reagan, Ronald

13.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

14.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

15.

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

Proverb, Turkish

16.

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.

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

20.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

21.

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

Janeway, Elizabeth

22.

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.

23.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

24.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

25.

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

Butler, Samuel

26.

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

Terence

27.

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

Doren, Carl Van

28.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

29.

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.

30.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

31.

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

Rolf, Ida P.

32.

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

33.

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

Murdoch, Iris

34.

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

35.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

36.

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

37.

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

Twain, Mark

38.

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

Williams, Tennessee

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

France, Anatole

44.

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

Canetti, Elias

45.

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

Robert, Fulghum

46.

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

47.

Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs, he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on him and they still give him much trouble at times.

Freud, Sigmund

48.

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

49.

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

Barry, Dave

50.

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

Lessing, Doris