Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Wilde, Oscar

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Butler, Samuel

10.

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

Foucault, Michel

11.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

12.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

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.

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world -- that is the myth of the atomic age -- as in being able to remake ourselves.

Gandhi, Mahatma

15.

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

16.

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.

17.

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

Murdoch, Iris

18.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

19.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

20.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

21.

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

Caddy, Eileen

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.

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

24.

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

25.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

26.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

27.

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

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.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

30.

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

Mead, Margaret

31.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

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.

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

Barry, Dave

34.

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

35.

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.

36.

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

37.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

41.

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

Johnson

42.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

43.

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

Robert, Fulghum

44.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

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.

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

47.

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

France, Anatole

48.

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

49.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

50.

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