Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Sumner, Charles

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

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 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

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 a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

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

Bible

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

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

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.

10.

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.

11.

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

12.

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

13.

The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.

Miller, Henry

14.

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

15.

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.

16.

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.

17.

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

Smith, Adam

18.

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

Marshall, Thurgood

19.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

20.

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

21.

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

Twain, Mark

22.

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.

23.

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

24.

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

25.

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

Smith, Adam

26.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

27.

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

28.

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

Wilde, Oscar

29.

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

30.

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

Doren, Carl Van

31.

Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved.

Kant, Immanuel

32.

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

Janeway, Elizabeth

33.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

38.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

39.

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

Foucault, Michel

40.

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

Caddy, Eileen

41.

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

Twain, Mark

42.

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

Steinbeck, John

43.

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

Barry, Dave

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Fuller, Buckminster

48.

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

Johnson

49.

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

Murdoch, Iris

50.

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?