Motivational Quotes

Humankind

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

- Wilde, Oscar

Best Quotes about Humankind

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

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

Twain, Mark

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

Smith, Adam

In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.

Marshall, Thurgood

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

Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other.

Hugo, Victor

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

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

Johnson

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

10.

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.

11.

Man is a substance clad in shadows.

Sterling, John

12.

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

13.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

14.

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

Mead, Margaret

15.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

16.

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

Lessing, Doris

17.

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

18.

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

Bible

19.

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.

20.

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

21.

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

Steinbeck, John

22.

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

Baumgardy, R. M.

23.

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

Butler, Samuel

24.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

25.

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

Socrates

26.

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

Twain, Mark

27.

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

Proverb, Turkish

28.

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

Rogers, Will

29.

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

30.

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.

31.

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.

32.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

33.

If, presume not to God to scan; The proper study of Mankind is Man. Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state, a being darkly wise, and rudely great.

Pope, Alexander

34.

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

Machiavelli, Niccolo

35.

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

Janeway, Elizabeth

36.

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

37.

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

Smith, Adam

38.

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

39.

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

Hoffer, Eric

40.

I love men, not for what unites them, but for what divides them, and I want to know most of all what gnaws at their hearts.

Apollinaire, Guillaume

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Adenauer, Konrad

46.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

47.

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

48.

Consider your breed; you were not made to live like beasts, but to follow virtue and knowledge.

Dante Alighieri

49.

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

50.

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