Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Twain, Mark

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

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

Sumner, Charles

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

Twain, Mark

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

France, Anatole

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

Socrates

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

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

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

Wilde, Oscar

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.

10.

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

11.

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

Robert, Fulghum

12.

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

13.

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.

14.

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

Twain, Mark

15.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

16.

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

Churchill, Winston

17.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

18.

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

Steinbeck, John

19.

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

Foucault, Michel

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

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.

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

Hoffer, Eric

25.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

26.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

27.

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

Marshall, Thurgood

28.

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

Einstein, Albert

29.

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

30.

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.

31.

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.

32.

Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

King Jr. Martin Luther

33.

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

Caddy, Eileen

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Terence

37.

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

38.

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

39.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

40.

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

Johnson

41.

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

Doren, Carl Van

42.

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.

43.

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

Dante Alighieri

44.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

45.

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

Holmes, John Andrew

46.

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

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.

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

49.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

50.

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

Sumner, Charles