Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Churchill, Winston

Best Quotes about Humankind

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.

In our civilization, men are afraid that they will not be men enough and women are afraid that they might be considered only women.

Reik, Theodor

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

Proverb, Turkish

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

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

Smith, Adam

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

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

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

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

10.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

11.

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.

12.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

13.

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

14.

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

Bible

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

19.

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.

20.

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

Murdoch, Iris

21.

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

Twain, Mark

22.

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

Sumner, Charles

23.

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

24.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

25.

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.

26.

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

27.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

28.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

29.

I am a member of the rabble in good standing.

Pegler, Westbrook

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

33.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

34.

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

Calvino, Italo

35.

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.

36.

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

Socrates

37.

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

38.

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

Fuller, Buckminster

39.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

40.

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.

41.

Man who is he? Too bad, to be the work of God: Too good for the work of chance!

Lessing, Doris

42.

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

43.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

44.

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

45.

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

Butler, Samuel

46.

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

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

47.

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

48.

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

Janeway, Elizabeth

49.

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

50.

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

Reagan, Ronald