Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

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.

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

Rolf, Ida P.

We are, to put it mildly, in a mess, and there is a strong chance that we shall have exterminated ourselves by the end of the century. Our only consolation will have to be that, as a species, we have had an exciting term of office.

Morris, Desmond

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

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.

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

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

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

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

Bacon, Francis

14.

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.

15.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

16.

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

17.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

18.

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

19.

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

Bible

20.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

21.

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

Kant, Immanuel

22.

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

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

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

26.

The secret of a person's nature lies in their religion and what they really believes about the world and their place in it.

Froude, James A.

27.

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

Holmes, John Andrew

28.

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.

29.

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

Wilde, Oscar

30.

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

31.

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

Twain, Mark

32.

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

Janeway, Elizabeth

33.

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

34.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

35.

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

36.

[Three classes of people]: Those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.

Da Vinci, Leonardo

37.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

38.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

39.

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

Churchill, Winston

40.

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

Robert, Fulghum

41.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

42.

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

Smith, Adam

43.

Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.

Machiavelli, Niccolo

44.

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

Twain, Mark

45.

Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man--yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.

Antonius, Marcus

46.

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

Rogers, Will

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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