Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

Steinbeck, John

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 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.

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

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

I have found little that is good about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think.

Freud, Sigmund

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

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.

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.

10.

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

Gide, Andre

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

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

15.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

16.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

Mead, Margaret

20.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

21.

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

Proverb, Turkish

22.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

23.

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

Terence

24.

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

25.

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

Dante Alighieri

26.

Man is stark mad; he cannot make a flea, and yet he will be making gods by the dozens.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

27.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

28.

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.

29.

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

30.

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

Williams, Tennessee

31.

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

Doren, Carl Van

32.

As far as many statistical series that are related to activities of mankind are concerned, the date that divides human history into two equal parts is well within living memory. The world of today is as different from the world I was born in as that world was from Julius Caesar s. I was born in the middle of human history, to date, roughly. Almost as much has happened since I was born as happened before.

Boulding, Kenneth Ewart

33.

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

Einstein, Albert

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.

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

36.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

37.

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

38.

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

Janeway, Elizabeth

39.

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

40.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

41.

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

Twain, Mark

42.

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

Kant, Immanuel

43.

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

44.

Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man.

Smith, Adam

45.

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

Churchill, Winston

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

Bible

49.

Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.

Bacon, Francis

50.

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

Fuller, Buckminster