Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

Twain, Mark

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

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

Johnson

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

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

Barry, Dave

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

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

I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

Socrates

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.

10.

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.

11.

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

Smith, Adam

12.

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

13.

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.

14.

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

15.

In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.

Marshall, Thurgood

16.

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

Proverb, Turkish

17.

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

18.

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

Reagan, Ronald

19.

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

Robert, Fulghum

20.

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

21.

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

France, Anatole

22.

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

23.

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

24.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

25.

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

Steinbeck, John

26.

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

27.

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

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

28.

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

29.

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

Sumner, Charles

30.

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

Terence

31.

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

32.

Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved.

Kant, Immanuel

33.

One has but to observe a community of beavers at work in a stream to understand the loss in his sagacity, balance, co-operation, competence, and purpose which Man has suffered since he rose up on his hind legs. He began to chatter and he developed Reason, Thought, and Imagination, qualities which would get the smartest group of rabbits or orioles in the world into inextricable trouble overnight.

Thurber, James

34.

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

35.

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

Doren, Carl Van

36.

That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

37.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

38.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

39.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

40.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

41.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

42.

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

Murdoch, Iris

43.

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

Twain, Mark

44.

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

Calvino, Italo

45.

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

Canetti, Elias

46.

If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another

Churchill, Winston

47.

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.

48.

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

49.

The age of chivalry has gone; the age of humanity has come.

Sumner, Charles

50.

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

Gide, Andre