Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

What is the use of this fuss about morality when the issue only involves a horse? The first and most difficult teaching of civilization concerns man's behavior to his inferiors. Make humanity gentle or reasonable toward animals, and strife or injustice between human beings would speedily terminate.

Mayhew, Dr Edward

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

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.

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

Calvino, Italo

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

Johnson

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

Mead, Margaret

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

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

Churchill, Winston

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

Lessing, Doris

10.

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.

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

Rolf, Ida P.

14.

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.

15.

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

Robert, Fulghum

16.

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

Proverb, Turkish

17.

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

18.

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

Bible

19.

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

Smith, Adam

20.

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

21.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

22.

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

23.

Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.

Machiavelli, Niccolo

24.

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

Murdoch, Iris

25.

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

26.

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

Fuller, Buckminster

27.

Lippmann, Walter

28.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

29.

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

30.

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

Einstein, Albert

31.

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

Dante Alighieri

32.

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

33.

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

Wilde, Oscar

34.

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

35.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

36.

If, presume not to God to scan; The proper study of Mankind is Man. Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state, a being darkly wise, and rudely great.

Pope, Alexander

37.

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

Gide, Andre

38.

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

Twain, Mark

39.

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

40.

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

Twain, Mark

41.

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.

42.

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.

43.

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

Marshall, Thurgood

44.

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.

45.

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

Sumner, Charles

46.

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

Williams, Tennessee

47.

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

48.

To the eyes of a god, mankind must appear as a species of bacteria which multiply and become progressively virulent whenever they find themselves in a congenial culture, and whose activity diminishes until they disappear completely as soon as proper measures are taken to sterilize them.

Crowley, Aleister

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.

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