Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Dostoevsky, Fyodor

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

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

Lessing, Doris

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

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

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

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

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

Hoffer, Eric

Be tolerant of the human race. Your whole family belongs to it -- and some of your spouse's family does too.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

10.

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.

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

Sumner, Charles

14.

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

Wilde, Oscar

15.

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

16.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

17.

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

18.

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

Twain, Mark

19.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

20.

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

Holmes, John Andrew

21.

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

22.

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.

23.

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

France, Anatole

24.

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

Butler, Samuel

25.

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

Smith, Adam

26.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

27.

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

Twain, Mark

28.

Human beings are the only animals of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid.

Shaw, George Bernard

29.

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

Janeway, Elizabeth

30.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

31.

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

Barry, Dave

32.

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

Bible

33.

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.

34.

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

35.

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

Robert, Fulghum

36.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Machiavelli, Niccolo

40.

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

Smith, Adam

41.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

42.

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.

43.

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

44.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

45.

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.

46.

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

Twain, Mark

47.

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

Calvino, Italo

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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