Motivational Quotes

Humankind

Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.

- Ruskin, John

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

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

Machiavelli, Niccolo

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

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

Smith, Adam

We are, to put it mildly, in a mess, and there is a strong chance that we shall have exterminated ourselves by the end of the century. Our only consolation will have to be that, as a species, we have had an exciting term of office.

Morris, Desmond

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

Mead, Margaret

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

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

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.

10.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

11.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

12.

But remember please, the Law by which we live, we are not built to comprehend a lie, we can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die.

Kipling, Rudyard

13.

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

14.

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

Holmes, John Andrew

15.

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

16.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

17.

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

18.

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

Janeway, Elizabeth

19.

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

20.

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

Bible

21.

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

Canetti, Elias

22.

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

23.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

24.

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

Gide, Andre

25.

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

Wilde, Oscar

26.

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

27.

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

28.

The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends, more than anything else, the improvement of mankind.

Disraeli, Benjamin

29.

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

30.

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.

31.

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

32.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

33.

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

Dante Alighieri

34.

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.

35.

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

Caddy, Eileen

36.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

37.

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

Einstein, Albert

38.

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.

39.

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

Twain, Mark

40.

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

Terence

41.

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

42.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

43.

Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.

Ruskin, John

44.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

45.

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

46.

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

47.

I have found little that is good about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think.

Freud, Sigmund

48.

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

Proverb, Turkish

49.

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.

50.

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

Calvino, Italo