Motivational Quotes

Humankind

Man is a useless passion.

- Sartre, Jean-Paul

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

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

Rogers, Will

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

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

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

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

France, Anatole

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man--yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.

Antonius, Marcus

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

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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.

15.

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.

16.

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

17.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

18.

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

19.

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

Gide, Andre

20.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

21.

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

22.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

23.

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

Rolf, Ida P.

24.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

25.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

26.

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

Doren, Carl Van

27.

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

Smith, Adam

28.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

29.

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

Wilde, Oscar

30.

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.

31.

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

Twain, Mark

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Fuller, Buckminster

35.

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

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

36.

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

37.

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

Smith, Adam

38.

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

39.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

40.

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

Murdoch, Iris

41.

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

42.

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

Canetti, Elias

43.

I have found little that is good about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think.

Freud, Sigmund

44.

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.

45.

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

Caddy, Eileen

46.

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

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.

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.

49.

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

50.

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

Twain, Mark