Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

Steinbeck, John

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

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.

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

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

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

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

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

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

Bible

10.

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

11.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

12.

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

13.

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

Hoffer, Eric

14.

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.

15.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

16.

What is the use of this fuss about morality when the issue only involves a horse? The first and most difficult teaching of civilization concerns man's behavior to his inferiors. Make humanity gentle or reasonable toward animals, and strife or injustice between human beings would speedily terminate.

Mayhew, Dr Edward

17.

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

Williams, Tennessee

18.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

19.

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

France, Anatole

20.

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

Rogers, Will

21.

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

22.

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

Johnson

23.

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

Sarraute, Nathalie

24.

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

Caddy, Eileen

25.

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

Rolf, Ida P.

26.

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

Twain, Mark

27.

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

Terence

28.

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

29.

There are realities we all share, regardless of our nationality, language, or individual tastes. As we need food, so do we need emotional nourishment: love, kindness, appreciation, and support from others. We need to understand our environment and our relationship to it. We need to fulfill certain inner hungers: the need for happiness, for peace of mind for wisdom.

Walters, J. Donald

30.

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.

31.

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

Calvino, Italo

32.

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

33.

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

Twain, Mark

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Bacon, Francis

37.

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

38.

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.

39.

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

Socrates

40.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Plato

41.

The history of mankind is the history of ideas.

Mises, Ludwig Von

42.

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

43.

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

Fuller, Buckminster

44.

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

Sumner, Charles

45.

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.

46.

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

47.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

48.

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

Kant, Immanuel

49.

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

Proverb, Turkish

50.

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