Motivational Quotes

Humankind

We are, to put it mildly, in a mess, and there is a strong chance that we shall have exterminated ourselves by the end of the century. Our only consolation will have to be that, as a species, we have had an exciting term of office.

- Morris, Desmond

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

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

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

Fuller, Buckminster

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

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

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

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

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

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

Caddy, Eileen

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

Sumner, Charles

13.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

14.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

15.

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

16.

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

Canetti, Elias

17.

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

18.

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

Sumner, Charles

19.

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

Doren, Carl Van

20.

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

Murdoch, Iris

21.

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

Twain, Mark

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.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

24.

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

25.

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

Lessing, Doris

26.

The Goddamn human race deserves itself, and as far as I'm concerned it can have it.

Janeway, Elizabeth

27.

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

Gide, Andre

28.

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

29.

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.

30.

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

31.

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

Bible

32.

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

Butler, Samuel

33.

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

Terence

34.

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.

35.

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

Churchill, Winston

36.

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.

37.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

38.

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

Socrates

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Mead, Margaret

43.

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

Proverb, Turkish

44.

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.

45.

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

Einstein, Albert

46.

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.

47.

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

48.

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

Calvino, Italo

49.

Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

King Jr. Martin Luther

50.

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

Dante Alighieri