Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

Hoffer, Eric

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

Canetti, Elias

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

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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

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

Murdoch, Iris

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

Williams, Tennessee

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

10.

Man is not only a contributory creature, but a total creature; he does not only make one, but he is all; he is not a piece of the world, but the world itself; and next to the glory of God, the reason why there is a world.

Donne, John

11.

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

Johnson

12.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

13.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

14.

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

Doren, Carl Van

15.

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

France, Anatole

16.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

17.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

18.

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

Rogers, Will

19.

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

20.

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

Foucault, Michel

21.

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

Janeway, Elizabeth

22.

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

23.

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

24.

Man, became man through work, who stepped out of the animal kingdom as transformer of the natural into the artificial, who became therefore the magician, man the creator of social reality, will always stay the great magician, will always be Prometheus bringing fire from heaven to earth, will always be Orpheus enthralling nature with his music. Not until humanity itself dies will art die.

Fischer, Ernst

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.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

27.

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

28.

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.

29.

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

Butler, Samuel

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

Bacon, Francis

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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.

36.

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

37.

Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

King Jr. Martin Luther

38.

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

Mead, Margaret

39.

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

Churchill, Winston

40.

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

Reagan, Ronald

41.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

42.

Dahlberg, Edward

43.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Sumner, Charles

47.

The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends, more than anything else, the improvement of mankind.

Disraeli, Benjamin

48.

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

Proverb, Turkish

49.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

50.

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