Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Shaw, George Bernard

Best Quotes about Humankind

Man must realize his own unimportance before he can appreciate his importance.

Baumgardy, R. M.

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

Rogers, Will

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.

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

Bible

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

Gide, Andre

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

Reagan, Ronald

Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other.

Hugo, Victor

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

Machiavelli, Niccolo

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

Janeway, Elizabeth

10.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

11.

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.

12.

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

13.

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.

14.

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

Caddy, Eileen

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.

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

17.

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

Holmes, John Andrew

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

Mead, Margaret

21.

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

22.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

23.

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

Johnson

24.

Mind and spirit together make up that which separates us from the rest of the animal world, that which enables a man to know the truth and that which enables him to die for the truth.

Hamilton, Edith

25.

In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.

Marshall, Thurgood

26.

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.

27.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Wilde, Oscar

31.

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

32.

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

Lessing, Doris

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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.

36.

Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

40.

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

Doren, Carl Van

41.

The law of humanity ought to be composed of the past, the present, and the future, that we bear within us; whoever possesses but one of these terms, has but a fragment of the law of the moral world.

Quinet, Edgar

42.

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

43.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

44.

There are two kinds of people in the world -- those you love, and those you don't understand.

45.

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

Churchill, Winston

46.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

Steinbeck, John

47.

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

48.

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

France, Anatole

49.

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

50.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie