Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

Lincoln, Abraham

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

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

Smith, Adam

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

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.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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

Man is an ape with possibilities.

Andrews, Roy Chapman

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

Bacon, Francis

10.

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

Butler, Samuel

11.

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

Johnson

12.

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

Reagan, Ronald

13.

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

Foucault, Michel

14.

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

Bible

15.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

16.

If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another

Churchill, Winston

17.

Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.

Ruskin, John

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.

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.

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.

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

22.

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.

23.

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

Twain, Mark

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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.

27.

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

Twain, Mark

28.

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

29.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

30.

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

31.

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

Rolf, Ida P.

32.

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

33.

After all there is but one race -- humanity.

Moore, George

34.

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

35.

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

Holmes, John Andrew

36.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

37.

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

38.

It is peculiar to mankind to transcend mankind.

Schlegel, Friedrich

39.

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

40.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

41.

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

Churchill, Winston

42.

The race of man, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity.

Doren, Carl Van

43.

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

44.

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

45.

The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself.

Beecher, Henry Ward

46.

There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Landor, Walter Savage

47.

Man is a useless passion.

Sartre, Jean-Paul

48.

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

Smith, Adam

49.

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

50.

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