Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Steinbeck, John

Best Quotes about Humankind

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.

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

Caddy, Eileen

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

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

Wilde, Oscar

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

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

Gide, Andre

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

Johnson

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

There are realities we all share, regardless of our nationality, language, or individual tastes. As we need food, so do we need emotional nourishment: love, kindness, appreciation, and support from others. We need to understand our environment and our relationship to it. We need to fulfill certain inner hungers: the need for happiness, for peace of mind for wisdom.

Walters, J. Donald

10.

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

11.

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

Lessing, Doris

12.

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

France, Anatole

13.

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.

14.

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

Einstein, Albert

15.

As the archeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end.

Foucault, Michel

16.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

17.

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

Terence

18.

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

Fuller, Buckminster

19.

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

20.

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

Churchill, Winston

21.

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

Barry, Dave

22.

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

Butler, Samuel

23.

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

24.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

25.

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

Socrates

26.

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.

27.

Cruelty has a Human Heart, And jealousy a Human Face; Terror the Human Form Divine, And secrecy the Human Dress. The Human Dress is forged Iron, The Human Form a Fiery Forge, The Human Face a Furnace seal d, The Human Heart its hungry gorge.

Blake, William

28.

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

29.

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

Robert, Fulghum

30.

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

31.

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

Sumner, Charles

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.

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

34.

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.

35.

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.

36.

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

37.

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

Smith, Adam

38.

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

39.

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

Steinbeck, John

40.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

41.

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.

42.

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

43.

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

Dante Alighieri

44.

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

Rolf, Ida P.

45.

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

46.

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

Smith, Adam

47.

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

Bible

48.

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

49.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

50.

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