Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- France, Anatole

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

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

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

Sumner, Charles

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

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

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

Sumner, Charles

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

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

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

Churchill, Winston

10.

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

Einstein, Albert

11.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

12.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

13.

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

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

14.

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

Twain, Mark

15.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

16.

An effective human being is a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Rolf, Ida P.

17.

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

Twain, Mark

18.

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

Reagan, Ronald

19.

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

20.

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

Johnson

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

Marshall, Thurgood

24.

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

25.

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

Hoffer, Eric

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

29.

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

Butler, Samuel

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

Machiavelli, Niccolo

33.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

34.

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

35.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

36.

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

37.

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

38.

The world of men is dreaming, it has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can't wake up.

Lawrence, D. H.

39.

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

40.

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

Socrates

41.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

42.

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

Caddy, Eileen

43.

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

Doren, Carl Van

44.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

45.

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.

46.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

47.

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

48.

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

Bible

49.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

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