Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

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.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

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

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

Doren, Carl Van

As the archeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end.

Foucault, Michel

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.

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

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

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

10.

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

Twain, Mark

11.

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

Dante Alighieri

12.

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

Proverb, Turkish

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Machiavelli, Niccolo

16.

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

Fuller, Buckminster

17.

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

18.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

19.

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

Hoffer, Eric

20.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

21.

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

Butler, Samuel

22.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

23.

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

24.

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

Einstein, Albert

25.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

26.

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.

27.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

28.

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

Twain, Mark

29.

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

30.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

31.

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

32.

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

33.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

34.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

35.

Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man--yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.

Antonius, Marcus

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.

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

38.

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

Murdoch, Iris

39.

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

Robert, Fulghum

40.

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

Marshall, Thurgood

41.

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

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

42.

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.

43.

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

44.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

45.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

46.

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

47.

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

Terence

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.

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

50.

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