Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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.

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

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

Mead, Margaret

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

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

Sumner, Charles

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

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

Proverb, Turkish

The secret of a person's nature lies in their religion and what they really believes about the world and their place in it.

Froude, James A.

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

10.

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.

11.

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

12.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

13.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

14.

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

Kant, Immanuel

15.

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

Terence

16.

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

Robert, Fulghum

17.

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

18.

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

Socrates

19.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

20.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

21.

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

22.

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

Caddy, Eileen

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 being in search of meaning.

Plato

25.

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.

26.

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

Gide, Andre

27.

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.

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

32.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

33.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

34.

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

Machiavelli, Niccolo

35.

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

Dante Alighieri

36.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

37.

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

Hoffer, Eric

38.

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

Twain, Mark

39.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

40.

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

Rolf, Ida P.

41.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

42.

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

Calvino, Italo

43.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

44.

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

Sumner, Charles

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

Canetti, Elias

49.

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

50.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo