Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Adenauer, Konrad

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

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

Socrates

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

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.

The world of men is dreaming, it has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can't wake up.

Lawrence, D. H.

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

Kant, Immanuel

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

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

Rolf, Ida P.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

10.

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

Canetti, Elias

11.

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

Steinbeck, John

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

16.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

17.

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.

18.

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

Twain, Mark

19.

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

Proverb, Turkish

20.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

21.

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

Robert, Fulghum

22.

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

23.

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

Williams, Tennessee

24.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

25.

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

26.

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

Murdoch, Iris

27.

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

Hoffer, Eric

28.

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

29.

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

30.

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

Foucault, Michel

31.

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

Wilde, Oscar

32.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

37.

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

Marshall, Thurgood

38.

Man is head, chest and stomach. Each of these animals operates, more often than not, individually. I eat, I feel, I even, although rarely, think. This jungle crawls and teems, is hungry, roars, gets angry, devours itself, and its cacophonic concert does not even stop when you are asleep.

Daumal, Rene

39.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

43.

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.

44.

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

Mead, Margaret

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Reagan, Ronald

48.

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

Gide, Andre

49.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

50.

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