Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Dostoevsky, Fyodor

Best Quotes about Humankind

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

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.

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

Williams, Tennessee

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

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

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

Smith, Adam

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

Terence

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

Gide, Andre

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

10.

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

11.

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

12.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

13.

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

Johnson

14.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

18.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

19.

We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.

Einstein, Albert

20.

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

21.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

22.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

23.

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

24.

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.

25.

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

26.

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.

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Bible

30.

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

Reagan, Ronald

31.

Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.

Machiavelli, Niccolo

32.

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

Rolf, Ida P.

33.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

34.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

35.

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

Smith, Adam

36.

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

Mead, Margaret

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

Twain, Mark

41.

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

Wilde, Oscar

42.

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

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

43.

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

44.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

45.

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.

46.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

47.

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

Rogers, Will

48.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

49.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

50.

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