Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Socrates

Best Quotes about Humankind

Let us ask ourselves; What kind of people do we think we are?

Reagan, Ronald

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

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

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

Fuller, Buckminster

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

Gide, Andre

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

Canetti, Elias

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

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

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

Mead, Margaret

10.

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

Wilde, Oscar

11.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

12.

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

Caddy, Eileen

13.

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

14.

Considered logically this concept is not identical with the totality of sense impressions referred to; but it is an arbitrary creation of the human (or animal) mind.

Einstein, Albert

15.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

16.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

17.

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

France, Anatole

18.

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

19.

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

20.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

21.

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

Twain, Mark

22.

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

23.

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

Butler, Samuel

24.

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

25.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

Steinbeck, John

26.

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

27.

Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs, he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on him and they still give him much trouble at times.

Freud, Sigmund

28.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

29.

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.

30.

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

31.

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

Terence

32.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

33.

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

Machiavelli, Niccolo

34.

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

35.

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

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.

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.

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

Hoffer, Eric

42.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

43.

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

Einstein, Albert

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Williams, Tennessee

47.

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.

48.

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

Robert, Fulghum

49.

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.

50.

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.