Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

Foucault, Michel

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

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

Adenauer, Konrad

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

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

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

Reagan, Ronald

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

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

Bacon, Francis

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

10.

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

Gide, Andre

11.

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

Butler, Samuel

12.

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.

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.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

15.

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

16.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

17.

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

18.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

19.

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

20.

But remember please, the Law by which we live, we are not built to comprehend a lie, we can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die.

Kipling, Rudyard

21.

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

Terence

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

Smith, Adam

26.

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

Sumner, Charles

27.

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

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.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

30.

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.

31.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Proverb, Turkish

35.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

36.

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

Lessing, Doris

37.

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

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

38.

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.

39.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

40.

Mankind are animals that makes bargains, no other animal does this.

Smith, Adam

41.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

42.

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

Sumner, Charles

43.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

44.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Mead, Margaret

48.

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

49.

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

Robert, Fulghum

50.

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

Rogers, Will