Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

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.

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

Wilde, Oscar

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

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

Calvino, Italo

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

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

Fuller, Buckminster

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

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.

10.

If you think that every bad thing that has been done on the face of the earth has been done by man, you're right -- but so has every good thing.

11.

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.

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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.

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

18.

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

19.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

20.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

21.

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

22.

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

Gide, Andre

23.

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

Steinbeck, John

24.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

25.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

26.

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

27.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

28.

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

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.

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

31.

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

Doren, Carl Van

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

36.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

37.

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

Johnson

38.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

39.

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

40.

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

Mead, Margaret

41.

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

42.

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

Twain, Mark

43.

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

Terence

44.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

45.

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

Dante Alighieri

46.

Man... knows only when he is satisfied and when he suffers, and only his sufferings and his satisfactions instruct him concerning himself, teach him what to seek and what to avoid. For the rest, man is a confused creature; he knows not whence he comes or whither he goes, he knows little of the world, and above all, he knows little of himself.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

47.

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.

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.

It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to.

Caulfield, Holden

50.

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?