I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for our own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.
—Marie Curie (1867–1934) Polish-born French Physicist, Chemist
The artist speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation—and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear … which binds together all humanity—the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-born British Novelist
Humanity I love you because when you’re hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink.
—e. e. cummings (1894–1962) American Poet, Writer, Painter
It will be very generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant samples.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
Humanity cherishes its swaddling clothes; but it shall not grow up unless it can free itself from them. Turning down his mother’s breast does not make the weaned child ungrateful. … Rise up naked, valiant; make the sheaths crack; push aside the stakes; to grow straight you need no more than the thrust of your sap and the call of the sun.
—Andre Gide (1869–1951) French Novelist
The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends, more than anything else, the improvement of mankind.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Human nature is not so much depraved as to hinder us from respecting goodness in others, though we ourselves want it. We love truth too well to resist the charms of sincerity.
—Richard Steele (1672–1729) Irish Writer, Politician
Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French Novelist
A sweet new blossom of humanity, fresh fallen from God’s own home, to flower on earth.
—Gerald Massey (1828–1907) English Mystic, Poet, Egyptologist
We are a nation of communities…a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.
—George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American Republican Statesman, 41st President
One of the best ways to measure people is how they behave when something free is offered.
—Ask Ann Landers (1918–2002) American Advice Columnist
As the archeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end.
—Michel Foucault (1926–84) French Philosopher, Critic, Historian
Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
Man is the only animal of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
The true greatness of a nation is founded on principles of humanity.
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809) American Nationalist, Author, Pamphleteer, Radical, Inventor
Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.
—Herman Melville (1819–91) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Poet
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.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
The true proof of the inherent nobleness of our common nature is in the sympathy it betrays with what is noble wherever crowds are collected. Never believe the world is base; if it were so, no society could hold together for a day.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.
—May Sarton (1912–95) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Novelist
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: That’s the essence of inhumanity.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Humanity needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. A well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research.
—Marie Curie (1867–1934) Polish-born French Physicist, Chemist
Man is emphatically a proselytizing creature.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Hell is a giant banquet room with tables filled with every possible good thing to eat and drink. The people are all seated at the banquet tables, but they are all starving, emaciated, skin on skeleton figures. They are chained in such a way that they can reach out and pick up the food, but the chains prevent them from bringing the food to their mouth. In the ultimate cruelty, they are dying of starvation with food in their hands.
Surprisingly, the Heaven is also a giant banquet room with tables filled with all the same, wonderful, choices as before. And just as before, the people are all chained so that they can pick up the food, but can’t bring it to their mouth. However, in this banquet room, the people are all healthy. They are laughing, singing and enjoying themselves. The difference? In Heaven, they have realized that although they cannot feed themselves, the chains allow them to feed each other.
—Anonymous
It is because Humanity has never known where it was going that it has been able to find its way.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
I’m quite sure that … I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being—that is enough for me he can’t be any worse.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify—so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of new heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in rubbish.
—John Keats (1795–1821) English Poet
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American First Lady, Diplomat, Humanitarian
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.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
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.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events.
—John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) Canadian-Born American Economist
Our humanity is a poor thing, except for the divinity that stirs within us.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
I am a man, and whatever concerns humanity is of interest to me.
—Terence (c.195–159 BCE) Roman Comic Dramatist
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.
—James Thurber
The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that everyone of those darkly clustered houses encloses it’s own secret that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of it’s imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is.
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) German-born Swiss Novelist, Poet
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.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.
—Unknown
We are all sinful; and whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
I feel that the Godhead is broken up like the bread at the Supper, and that we are the pieces. Hence this infinite fraternity of feeling.
—Herman Melville (1819–91) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Poet
It is a pleasure to give advice, humiliating to need it, normal to ignore it.
—Unknown
Man is not on the earth solely for his own happiness. He is there to realize great things for humanity.
—Vincent van Gogh (1853–90) Dutch Painter
Be tolerant of the human race. Your whole family belongs to it—and some of your spouse’s family does too.
—Unknown
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.
—Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American Inventor, Philosopher