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

Baumgardy, R. M.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

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

Robert, Fulghum

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

Janeway, Elizabeth

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

Canetti, Elias

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

10.

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

Proverb, Turkish

11.

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

Twain, Mark

12.

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

Williams, Tennessee

13.

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

Fuller, Buckminster

14.

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

15.

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

16.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

17.

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

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

18.

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

Churchill, Winston

19.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

20.

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

21.

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

Barry, Dave

22.

A human being is a single being. Unique and unrepeatable.

Caddy, Eileen

23.

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

Mead, Margaret

24.

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

Terence

25.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

26.

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

Dante Alighieri

27.

If, presume not to God to scan; The proper study of Mankind is Man. Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state, a being darkly wise, and rudely great.

Pope, Alexander

28.

Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That's the way the mind of man operates.

Mencken, H. L.

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

36.

Einstein, Albert

37.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

Mencken, H. L.

38.

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

Reagan, Ronald

39.

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

40.

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

41.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

42.

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

Johnson

43.

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

Doren, Carl Van

44.

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

45.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

46.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

47.

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

Butler, Samuel

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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.