Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Johnson

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

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

It's great to be great, but it's greater to be human.

Rogers, Will

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

Barry, Dave

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

Robert, Fulghum

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

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

10.

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

11.

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

Sumner, Charles

12.

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

13.

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

Wilde, Oscar

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.

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

Canetti, Elias

16.

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

17.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

18.

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

19.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

20.

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

Gide, Andre

21.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

22.

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

23.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

24.

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

Twain, Mark

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

32.

Mankind are animals that makes bargains, no other animal does this.

Smith, Adam

33.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

34.

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

Einstein, Albert

35.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

36.

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

37.

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.

38.

Human affairs are not serious, but they have to be taken seriously.

Murdoch, Iris

39.

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

40.

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

Caddy, Eileen

41.

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

42.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

43.

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

44.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

45.

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

Steinbeck, John

46.

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

Mead, Margaret

47.

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

Kant, Immanuel

48.

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.

49.

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

50.

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