Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Machiavelli, Niccolo

Best Quotes about Humankind

We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.

Fuller, Buckminster

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

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

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

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

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

Shaw, George Bernard

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

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.

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.

10.

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

Murdoch, Iris

11.

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

12.

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

Wilde, Oscar

13.

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

14.

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

Calvino, Italo

15.

People can be divided into three classes, the few who make things happen, the many who watch things happen, and the overwhelming majority who have no idea what has happened.

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

Smith, Adam

19.

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

20.

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

Churchill, Winston

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.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

23.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

24.

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

25.

Humanity I love you because when you're hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink

Cummings, E.E. (Edward. E.)

26.

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

27.

There are two distinctive classes of people today, those who have personal computers, and those who have several thousand extra dollars apiece.

Barry, Dave

28.

The course of human history is determined, not by what happens in the skies, but by what takes place in our hearts.

Kent, Sir Arthur

29.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

30.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

31.

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.

32.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

33.

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.

34.

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

Twain, Mark

35.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

36.

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

37.

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

Kant, Immanuel

38.

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

Bible

39.

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

Robert, Fulghum

40.

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.

41.

An effective human being is a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Rolf, Ida P.

42.

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

Williams, Tennessee

43.

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

44.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

45.

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

46.

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.

47.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

48.

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

Bacon, Francis

49.

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

Einstein, Albert

50.

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