Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

Twain, Mark

The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.

Miller, Henry

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

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

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

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

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

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

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

10.

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

11.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

12.

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

Williams, Tennessee

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Machiavelli, Niccolo

16.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

17.

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

Smith, Adam

18.

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

Doren, Carl Van

19.

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

Dante Alighieri

20.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

21.

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

Foucault, Michel

22.

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

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

23.

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

24.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

25.

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

26.

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

Twain, Mark

27.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

28.

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

Butler, Samuel

29.

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

Bacon, Francis

30.

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

Socrates

31.

The human race is a zone of living things that should be defined by tracing its confines.

Calvino, Italo

32.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

33.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

34.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

35.

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

Gide, Andre

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Twain, Mark

39.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

40.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

41.

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

42.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

43.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

44.

How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.

Watts, Alan W.

45.

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

Kant, Immanuel

46.

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

Terence

47.

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.

48.

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.