Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

Man... knows only when he is satisfied and when he suffers, and only his sufferings and his satisfactions instruct him concerning himself, teach him what to seek and what to avoid. For the rest, man is a confused creature; he knows not whence he comes or whither he goes, he knows little of the world, and above all, he knows little of himself.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

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

Hoffer, Eric

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

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

Robert, Fulghum

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

Bacon, Francis

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

Williams, Tennessee

10.

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

Socrates

11.

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

12.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

13.

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

France, Anatole

14.

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

Proverb, Turkish

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

Machiavelli, Niccolo

18.

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

19.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

20.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

21.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

22.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

23.

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

Mead, Margaret

24.

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

25.

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

Einstein, Albert

26.

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

27.

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.

28.

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

29.

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

30.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

31.

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

Butler, Samuel

32.

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

Canetti, Elias

33.

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

Caddy, Eileen

34.

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.

35.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

36.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

37.

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.

38.

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

Terence

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

42.

The Goddamn human race deserves itself, and as far as I'm concerned it can have it.

Janeway, Elizabeth

43.

In our civilization, men are afraid that they will not be men enough and women are afraid that they might be considered only women.

Reik, Theodor

44.

It's great to be great, but it's greater to be human.

Rogers, Will

45.

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