Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

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.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.

Bacon, Francis

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

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.

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

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

Robert, Fulghum

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

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

Einstein, Albert

10.

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

11.

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

Holmes, John Andrew

12.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

13.

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

14.

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

15.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

16.

The age of chivalry has gone; the age of humanity has come.

Sumner, Charles

17.

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

18.

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

Reagan, Ronald

19.

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

Johnson

20.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

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

Proverb, Turkish

23.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

24.

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

25.

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.

26.

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

27.

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

28.

The human race is a zone of living things that should be defined by tracing its confines.

Calvino, Italo

29.

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

30.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

31.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

32.

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

Williams, Tennessee

33.

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

Dante Alighieri

34.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

35.

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.

36.

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

Marshall, Thurgood

37.

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.

38.

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

39.

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

Fuller, Buckminster

40.

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

41.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

42.

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

Butler, Samuel

43.

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

Steinbeck, John

44.

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

Bible

45.

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

Foucault, Michel

46.

But remember please, the Law by which we live, we are not built to comprehend a lie, we can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die.

Kipling, Rudyard

47.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

48.

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

Twain, Mark

49.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

50.

Those who live in a world of human beings can only retrace their steps.