Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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.

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

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

Mead, Margaret

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

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

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

Bible

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

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

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

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.

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

11.

Man who is he? Too bad, to be the work of God: Too good for the work of chance!

Lessing, Doris

12.

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.

13.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

14.

Though man is the only beast that can write, he has small reason to be proud of it. When he utters something that is wise it is nothing that the river horse does not know, and most of his creations are the result of accident.

Dahlberg, Edward

15.

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

Smith, Adam

16.

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

17.

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

Sumner, Charles

18.

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

Williams, Tennessee

19.

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

Proverb, Turkish

20.

I love men, not for what unites them, but for what divides them, and I want to know most of all what gnaws at their hearts.

Apollinaire, Guillaume

21.

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

Einstein, Albert

22.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

23.

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

Robert, Fulghum

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Steinbeck, John

28.

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.

29.

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

30.

One has but to observe a community of beavers at work in a stream to understand the loss in his sagacity, balance, co-operation, competence, and purpose which Man has suffered since he rose up on his hind legs. He began to chatter and he developed Reason, Thought, and Imagination, qualities which would get the smartest group of rabbits or orioles in the world into inextricable trouble overnight.

Thurber, James

31.

It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.

Holmes, John Andrew

32.

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

Caddy, Eileen

33.

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

Wilde, Oscar

34.

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

35.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

36.

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

Socrates

37.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

38.

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

Dante Alighieri

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.

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

41.

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

Canetti, Elias

42.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Machiavelli, Niccolo

46.

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

Rolf, Ida P.

47.

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

Smith, Adam

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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.