Motivational Quotes

Humankind

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

- Landor, Walter Savage

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

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

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

Doren, Carl Van

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

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

Canetti, Elias

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

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

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

Fuller, Buckminster

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

Hoffer, Eric

10.

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

11.

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

Smith, Adam

12.

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

Terence

13.

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

Twain, Mark

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

Rogers, Will

17.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

18.

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

19.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

Dante Alighieri

23.

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

Churchill, Winston

24.

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

25.

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

Steinbeck, John

26.

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

Bible

27.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

28.

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

29.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

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.

Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.

Butler, Samuel

32.

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

33.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

34.

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.

35.

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

Twain, Mark

36.

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

Calvino, Italo

37.

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

38.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

39.

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

Janeway, Elizabeth

40.

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.

41.

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.

42.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

43.

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

Marshall, Thurgood

44.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

45.

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

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

46.

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world -- that is the myth of the atomic age -- as in being able to remake ourselves.

Gandhi, Mahatma

47.

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.

48.

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

Lessing, Doris

49.

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

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