best quotations about
Human Being |
86 quotes | Visits: 5,292 |
Quotations
Which? Is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's blunders? — Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900, German philosopher 14 likes | |
The difference between machines and human beings is that human beings can be reproduced by unskilled labor. — Arthur Clarke, 1917-2008, British Sci-Fi writer 12 likes | |
Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. — Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881, British Prime Minister 11 likes | |
You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean, in a drop. — Rumi, 1207-1273, Persian mystic & poet 11 likes | |
Sex is God's joke on human beings. — Bette Davis, 1908-1989, American actress 10 likes | |
A beast can never be as cruel as a human being, so artistically, so picturesquely cruel. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1821-1881, Russian writer 10 likes | |
That man is the noblest creature may also be inferred from the fact that no other creature has yet contested this claim. — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, 1742-1799, German author of maxims 10 likes | |
The best definition of man is: a being that goes on two legs and is ungrateful. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1821-1881, Russian writer 9 likes | |
Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1821-1881, Russian writer 8 likes | |
Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all. — Aristotle, 384-322 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 8 likes | |
Man is born without teeth, without hair and without illusions, and so he dies, without hair, without teeth and without illusions. — Alexandre Dumas, 1802-1870, French writer 7 likes | |
Man is a creature that is constantly “under construction”, but also, in a parallel way, always in a state of perpetual destruction. — José Saramago, 1922-2010, Portuguese writer [Nobel 1998] 7 likes | |
It is sexual energy which governs the structure of human feeling and thinking. — Wilhelm Reich, 1897-1957, Austrian psychoanalyst & writer 7 likes | |
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. — Vladimir Nabokov, 1899-1977, Russian-American writer 7 likes | |
I am what is around me. — Wallace Stevens, 1879-1955, American poet 6 likes | |
For I have been a man, and that means to have been a fighter. — Wolfgang Goethe, 1749-1832, German poet & philosopher 6 likes | |
Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. — Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007, American writer 6 likes | |
Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something and has lost something. — H. Jackson Brown, Jr., 1940-2021, American self-help writer 6 likes | |
A man is a god in ruins. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1884, American philosopher 6 likes | |
It's human to make mistakes and some of us are more human than others. — Ashleigh Brilliant, 1933-, British cartoonist & epigrammatist 6 likes | |
Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition. — Michel de Montaigne, 1533-1592, French thinker 6 likes | |
Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come back home. — Bill Cosby, 1937-, American comedian 5 likes | |
We have no reason to suppose that we are the Creator's last word. — George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, Irish writer, Nobel 1925 5 likes | |
Man’s unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself — Ayn Rand, 1905-1982, American writer & philosopher 5 likes | |
Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits. — Charles Darwin, 1809-1882, British scientist 5 likes | |
And then will come the day when the last person who remembers me will die. — Vladimir Nabokov, 1899-1977, Russian-American writer 5 likes | |
Every man and every woman is a star. — Aleister Crowley, 1875-1945, British magician & occultist, 5 likes | |
What am I, other than a chance in the infinite probabilities of not having been! — Emile M. Cioran, 1911-1995, French-Romanian philosopher 4 likes | |
Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly. — H.L. Mencken, 1880-1956, American columnist & cultural critic 4 likes | |
Man is a useless passion. — Jean-Paul Sartre, 1905-1980, French philosopher 4 likes | |
Nothingness haunts being. — Jean-Paul Sartre, 1905-1980, French philosopher 4 likes | |
A human being is nothing but a story with skin around it. — Fred Allen, 1894-1956, American comedian 4 likes | |
In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with human beings it is the other way round: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar. — Anton Chekhov, 1860-1904, Russian writer 4 likes | |
You are worth about 3 dollars worth in chemicals. — Carl Sagan, 1934-1996, American astronomer 4 likes | |
Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The Grace of God is glue. — Eugene O’Neill, 1888-1953, American playwright, Nobel 1936 4 likes | |
Think of something finite molded into the infinite, and you think of man. — Friedrich von Schlegel, 1772-1829, German writer 4 likes | |
Men cannot be treated as units in operations of political arithmetic because they behave like the symbols for zero and the infinite, which dislocate all mathematical operations. — Arthur Koestler, 1905-1983, Hungarian-British writer 4 likes | |
This is the stuff we're made of, half indifference and half malice. — José Saramago, 1922-2010, Portuguese writer [Nobel 1998] 4 likes | |
Man is a tool-making animal. — Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, American politician & writer 3 likes | |
Our place is somewhere between being and nonbeing - between two fictions. — Emile M. Cioran, 1911-1995, French-Romanian philosopher 3 likes | |
It is strange how fragile this man-creature is.....in one second he's just garbage. Garbage, that's all. — Nelson Algren, 1909-1981, American writer 3 likes | |
Limited in his nature, infinite in his wishes, Man is a fallen god who remembers the heavens. — Alphonse de Lamartin, 1790-1869, French poet 1 likes | |
Culture is what makes man more than an accident of the universe. | |
The purpose of man is in action not thought. | |
Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. | |
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this. | |
Our body is a ship sailing over deep blue waters. What is our destination? To be shipwrecked! | |
What a terrible ascent from the ape to man, from man to God. | |
Stone, iron, steel will not endure. Man endures. | |
Men are born naked and live clothed, as they are born independent and live under laws. | |
Below the head, shoulders and chest begins the animal, or that part of the body where the soul should not please. | |
Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create – this is man. | |
No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself. | |
Lie during the day and dream at night, there is the man. | |
What keeps a man alive? He feeds on others. | |
Men are the vermin of the earth. | |
Man knows that the world is not made on a human scale; and he wishes that it were. | |
What is Man? A miserable little pile of secrets. | |
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be. | |
Man is a make-believe animal — he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part. | |
It is human nature to think wisely and to act in an absurd fashion. | |
We are too late for the gods and too early for Being. | |
Everyone is the other and no one is himself. | |
The human being is not the lord of beings, but the shepherd of Being. | |
Evolution is not finished; reason is not the last word nor the reasoning animal the supreme figure of Nature. As man emerged out of the animal, so out of man the superman emerges. — Sri Aurobindo, 1872-1950, Indian nationalist, yogi & philosopher | |
The definition of the individual was: a multitude of one million divided by one million. | |
Space-ships and time machines are no escape from the human condition. | |
Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything – except his own nature. | |
You put too much stock in human intelligence, it doesn’t annihilate human nature. | |
Human nature is water, not stone. — Marty Rubin, 1930-1994, Canadian gay activist, author & journalist | |
We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. | |
It is impossible to convince the fool that there are pleasures superior to those we share with the rest of the animals. | |
At twenty a man is a peacock, at thirty a lion, at forty a camel, at fifty a serpent, at sixty a dog, at seventy an ape, at eighty a nothing at all. |
Latin Quotes
We are but dust and shadow. Pulvis et umbra sumus. 133 likes | |
I am human: Nothing human is alien to me. Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto. — Terentius, c. 185-159 BC, Roman comic playwright 66 likes |
Quotes in Verse
All human things are subject to decay, And, when fate summons, monarchs must obey. — John Dryden, 1631-1700, English poet 4 likes |
Ancient Greek
As mortals we should behave as mortals. Όντας δε θνητούς θνητά και φρονείν χρεών. — Euripides, 480-406 BC, Ancient Greek tragedian ‐ Alcestis 79 likes | |
Man is the measure of all things. Πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον έστιν άνθρωπος. — Protagoras, 487-412 BC, Ancient Greek sophist 56 likes | |
Man is the dream of a shadow. Σκιάς όναρ άνθρωπος. — Pindar, 522-438 BC, Ancient Greek lyric poet 51 likes | |
There are many evils and there is no worse evil than man. Πολλά τα δεινά κουδέν ανθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει. — Sophocles, 496-406 BC, Ancient tragic poet ‐ Antigone 47 likes | |
Man: one who thinks of what he sees. Άνθρωπος: ο αναθρών ά όπωπε. — Plato, 427-347 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 44 likes | |
It is not possible to know medicine without knowing what a human is. Ουκ ένι ιατρικήν είδέναι, όστις μη οίδεν ό τι εστίν άνθρωπος. — Hippocrates, 460-370 BC, Ancient Greek physician, the “Father of Medicine” 42 likes | |
What a wonderful being is the man if he is a man. Ως χαρίεν εστ’ άνθρωπος αν άνθρωπος ή. — Menander, 4th cent. BC, Ancient Greek dramatist (New Comedy) 36 likes | |
Man is naturally deceitful ever, in every way! Δολερόν μεν αεί κατά πάντα δη τρόπον πέφυκεν άνθρωπος. — Aristophanes, 445-386 BC, Ancient Greek comic playwright ‐ Birds 28 likes | |
We became men once and one cannot become twice. Άπαξ άνθρωποι γεγόναμεν, δις δε ουκ έστι γενέσθαι. — Epicurus, 341-270 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 26 likes | |
Man is a microcosm. Τω ανθρώπω μικρώ κόσμω όντι. — Democritus, 470-370 BC, Ancient Greek philosopher 24 likes |