Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Terence

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

Twain, Mark

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

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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

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

Rolf, Ida P.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

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

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

Butler, Samuel

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

Johnson

10.

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

Einstein, Albert

11.

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.

12.

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

13.

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

Smith, Adam

14.

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

Murdoch, Iris

15.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

16.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

17.

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

Socrates

18.

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

19.

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

Rogers, Will

20.

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

21.

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

Caddy, Eileen

22.

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

23.

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

24.

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

25.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

29.

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

30.

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

France, Anatole

31.

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

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

32.

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.

33.

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

Gide, Andre

34.

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

Smith, Adam

35.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

36.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

37.

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

Bible

38.

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.

39.

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

Hoffer, Eric

40.

The law of humanity ought to be composed of the past, the present, and the future, that we bear within us; whoever possesses but one of these terms, has but a fragment of the law of the moral world.

Quinet, Edgar

41.

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

Terence

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

48.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

49.

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

Canetti, Elias

50.

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

Marshall, Thurgood