Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Machiavelli, Niccolo

Best Quotes about Humankind

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

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

Kant, Immanuel

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

Caddy, Eileen

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.

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

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

Williams, Tennessee

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

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

10.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

11.

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

12.

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

Hoffer, Eric

13.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

14.

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

15.

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

Smith, Adam

16.

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

17.

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

Bible

18.

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

19.

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

Twain, Mark

20.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

21.

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

22.

Cruelty has a Human Heart, And jealousy a Human Face; Terror the Human Form Divine, And secrecy the Human Dress. The Human Dress is forged Iron, The Human Form a Fiery Forge, The Human Face a Furnace seal d, The Human Heart its hungry gorge.

Blake, William

23.

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

Doren, Carl Van

24.

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

Foucault, Michel

25.

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.

26.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

27.

Let us ask ourselves; What kind of people do we think we are?

Reagan, Ronald

28.

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

Lessing, Doris

29.

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

Butler, Samuel

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.

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.

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

33.

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

Einstein, Albert

34.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

35.

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

36.

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

Dante Alighieri

37.

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

Terence

38.

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

Sumner, Charles

39.

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

40.

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

Twain, Mark

41.

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

Johnson

42.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

43.

As far as many statistical series that are related to activities of mankind are concerned, the date that divides human history into two equal parts is well within living memory. The world of today is as different from the world I was born in as that world was from Julius Caesar s. I was born in the middle of human history, to date, roughly. Almost as much has happened since I was born as happened before.

Boulding, Kenneth Ewart

44.

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.

45.

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

Gide, Andre

46.

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

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.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

49.

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.

50.

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