Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

Canetti, Elias

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

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

The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself.

Beecher, Henry Ward

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

France, Anatole

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.

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

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

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

10.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

11.

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

Marshall, Thurgood

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

Robert, Fulghum

15.

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

16.

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.

17.

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.

18.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

19.

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

Proverb, Turkish

20.

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

Fuller, Buckminster

21.

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

Mead, Margaret

22.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

23.

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

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.

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

26.

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

Twain, Mark

27.

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

Sumner, Charles

28.

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.

29.

We say nothing essential about the cathedral when we speak of its stones. We say nothing essential about Man when we seek to define him by the qualities of men.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

30.

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

31.

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

Smith, Adam

32.

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

Williams, Tennessee

33.

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.

34.

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

Wilde, Oscar

35.

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

Bible

36.

A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Einstein, Albert

37.

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

38.

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

Gide, Andre

39.

I teach you the Superman. Man is something that should be overcome.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

40.

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

41.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

42.

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

Dante Alighieri

43.

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

44.

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

Twain, Mark

45.

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

Caddy, Eileen

46.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

47.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.