Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Einstein, Albert

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

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

What is the use of this fuss about morality when the issue only involves a horse? The first and most difficult teaching of civilization concerns man's behavior to his inferiors. Make humanity gentle or reasonable toward animals, and strife or injustice between human beings would speedily terminate.

Mayhew, Dr Edward

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.

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.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

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

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

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

Holmes, John Andrew

10.

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

11.

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

Lessing, Doris

12.

The decay of decency in the modern age, the rebellion against law and good faith, the treatment of human beings as things, as the mere instruments of power and ambition, is without a doubt the consequence of the decay of the belief in man as something more than an animal animated by highly conditioned reflexes and chemical reactions. For, unless man is something more than that, he has no rights that anyone is bound to respect, and there are no limitations upon his conduct which he is bound to obey.

Lippmann, Walter

13.

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

Einstein, Albert

14.

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

15.

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

16.

People can be divided into two classes: those who go ahead and do something, and those who sit still and inquire,why wasn't it done the other way?

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

17.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

18.

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

19.

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

Kant, Immanuel

20.

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

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 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

23.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

24.

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

25.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

26.

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

Fuller, Buckminster

27.

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

Twain, Mark

28.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

29.

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

Canetti, Elias

30.

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

31.

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

Twain, Mark

32.

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

33.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

34.

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

35.

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

Dante Alighieri

36.

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

37.

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

38.

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

Terence

39.

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

40.

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

Churchill, Winston

41.

The law of humanity ought to be composed of the past, the present, and the future, that we bear within us; whoever possesses but one of these terms, has but a fragment of the law of the moral world.

Quinet, Edgar

42.

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

43.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

44.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

45.

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.

46.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

47.

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

Sumner, Charles

48.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

49.

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.