Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Proverb, Turkish

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

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

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

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

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

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

Socrates

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

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

10.

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

Foucault, Michel

11.

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.

12.

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

Kant, Immanuel

13.

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

Robert, Fulghum

14.

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

15.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

16.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

17.

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.

18.

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

Johnson

19.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

Janeway, Elizabeth

23.

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.

24.

Human affairs are not serious, but they have to be taken seriously.

Murdoch, Iris

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.

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.

27.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

28.

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

Churchill, Winston

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.

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

Proverb, Turkish

31.

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

Caddy, Eileen

32.

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

33.

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

France, Anatole

34.

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

35.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

36.

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

Twain, Mark

37.

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

Sumner, Charles

38.

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

39.

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

Canetti, Elias

40.

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

Reagan, Ronald

41.

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

42.

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

Smith, Adam

43.

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

44.

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

Hoffer, Eric

45.

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

Bacon, Francis

46.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

47.

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

Calvino, Italo

48.

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

49.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

50.

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