Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

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

Proverb, Turkish

Considered logically this concept is not identical with the totality of sense impressions referred to; but it is an arbitrary creation of the human (or animal) mind.

Einstein, Albert

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

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

Butler, Samuel

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

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

Churchill, Winston

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

10.

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

11.

The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself.

Beecher, Henry Ward

12.

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

13.

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

14.

Mankind are animals that makes bargains, no other animal does this.

Smith, Adam

15.

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

16.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

17.

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.

18.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

19.

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

Robert, Fulghum

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

23.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

24.

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.

25.

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

Mead, Margaret

26.

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

Canetti, Elias

27.

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

Smith, Adam

28.

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

Rogers, Will

29.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

30.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

31.

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

32.

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

33.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

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.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

36.

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

Murdoch, Iris

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Twain, Mark

40.

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

Steinbeck, John

41.

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

42.

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

Fuller, Buckminster

43.

Consider your breed; you were not made to live like beasts, but to follow virtue and knowledge.

Dante Alighieri

44.

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

Williams, Tennessee

45.

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

46.

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

47.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

48.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

49.

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

50.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage