Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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.

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

The law of humanity ought to be composed of the past, the present, and the future, that we bear within us; whoever possesses but one of these terms, has but a fragment of the law of the moral world.

Quinet, Edgar

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

Lessing, Doris

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

Twain, Mark

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

Smith, Adam

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

Proverb, Turkish

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

Socrates

Reichmann, W.J.

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.

Kennedy, John F.

10.

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

11.

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.

12.

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

13.

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.

14.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

15.

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

16.

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

17.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

18.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

19.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

20.

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

21.

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

Holmes, John Andrew

22.

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

Mead, Margaret

23.

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

24.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

25.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

26.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

27.

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

Wilde, Oscar

28.

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

Terence

29.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Churchill, Winston

36.

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

Butler, Samuel

37.

Mind and spirit together make up that which separates us from the rest of the animal world, that which enables a man to know the truth and that which enables him to die for the truth.

Hamilton, Edith

38.

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

39.

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

Robert, Fulghum

40.

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

41.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

42.

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

43.

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

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

44.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

45.

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

Barry, Dave

46.

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

Johnson

47.

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

Marshall, Thurgood

48.

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.

49.

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

Twain, Mark

50.

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