Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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.

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

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

It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.

Holmes, John Andrew

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

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

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

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

Rogers, Will

It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to.

Caulfield, Holden

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

10.

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

Sumner, Charles

11.

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

Doren, Carl Van

12.

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

Reagan, Ronald

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

16.

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

17.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

18.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

19.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

20.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

21.

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

Barry, Dave

22.

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

23.

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

Marshall, Thurgood

24.

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

Twain, Mark

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Canetti, Elias

28.

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

Lessing, Doris

29.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

30.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

31.

Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.

France, Anatole

32.

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

Calvino, Italo

33.

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

Bible

34.

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.

35.

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

Einstein, Albert

36.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

37.

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

Bacon, Francis

38.

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

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

39.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

40.

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

Murdoch, Iris

41.

A human being is a single being. Unique and unrepeatable.

Caddy, Eileen

42.

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

Robert, Fulghum

43.

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

44.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

45.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Socrates

50.

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