Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

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

Smith, Adam

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

Terence

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

Cruelty has a Human Heart, And jealousy a Human Face; Terror the Human Form Divine, And secrecy the Human Dress. The Human Dress is forged Iron, The Human Form a Fiery Forge, The Human Face a Furnace seal d, The Human Heart its hungry gorge.

Blake, William

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

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

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

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

10.

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

Robert, Fulghum

11.

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

Canetti, Elias

12.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

13.

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

Murdoch, Iris

14.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

15.

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

16.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

17.

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

18.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

19.

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

Johnson

20.

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

Twain, Mark

21.

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

22.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

23.

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

24.

What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men -- each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature -- are shot down wholesale.

Hesse, Hermann

25.

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

26.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

27.

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

28.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

29.

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

Gide, Andre

30.

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

31.

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

Churchill, Winston

32.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Dante Alighieri

36.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

37.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

38.

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

Bacon, Francis

39.

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

Proverb, Turkish

40.

If you think that every bad thing that has been done on the face of the earth has been done by man, you're right -- but so has every good thing.

41.

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

42.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

43.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

44.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

45.

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.

46.

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

Doren, Carl Van

47.

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

Calvino, Italo

48.

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

Sumner, Charles

49.

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

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