Humanity quotes

Humanity

2.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

2.8K quotes

Explore further

Browse quotes that often appear alongside humanity — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.

Quote collection

Humanity quotes (page 42 of 142)

Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.

Gilbert K. Chesterton Writer, Journalist
Humanity

"I might inform those humanitarians who have a nightmare of new and needless babies (for some humanitarians have that sort of horror of humanity) that if the recent decline in the birth-rate were continued for a certain time, it might end in there being no babies at all; which would console them very much."

Read quote 3 likes
Gilbert K. Chesterton Writer, Journalist
Humanity

"There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person. Nothing is more keenly required than a defence of bores. When Byron divided humanity into the bores and bored, he omitted to notice that the higher qualities exist entirely in the bores, the lower qualities in the bored, among whom he counted himself. The bore, by his starry enthusiasm, his solemn happiness, may, in some sense, have proved himself poetical. The bored has certainly proved himself prosaic."

Read quote 3 likes
Gilbert K. Chesterton Writer, Journalist
Humanity

"I have investigated the dust-heaps of humanity, and found a treasure in all of them. I have found that humanity is not incidentally engaged, but eternally and systematically engaged, in throwing gold into the gutter and diamonds into the sea."

Read quote 3 likes
Goldwin Smith Historian, Writer
Humanity

"The mighty and supreme Jesus, who was to transfigure all humanity by his divine wit and grace-this Jesus has flown."

Read quote 3 likes
Noam Chomsky Linguist, Philosopher, Activist
Humanity

"In the humanities and social sciences, and in fields like journalism and economics and so on, people have to be trained to be managers, and controllers, and to accept things, and not to question too much."

Read quote 3 likes
Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Humanity

"It must be confessed that horses at present work too exclusively for men, rarely men for horses; and the brute degenerates in man's society."

Read quote 3 likes
Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Humanity

"We admire Chaucer for his sturdy English wit.... But though it is full of good sense and humanity, it is not transcendent poetry.For picturesque description of persons it is, perhaps, without a parallel in English poetry; yet it is essentially humorous, as the loftiest genius never is."

Read quote 3 likes
Henry Louis Gates Scholar, Historian
Humanity

"I want to be black, to know black, to luxuriate in whatever I might be calling blackness at any particular time, but to do so in order to come out on the other side, to experience a humanity that is neither colorless nor reducible to color."

Read quote 3 likes
Lewis Mumford Philosopher, Author
Humanity

"Every transformation of humanity has rested upon deep stirrings and intuitions, whose rationalized expression takes the form of a new picture of the cosmos and the nature of the human."

Read quote 3 likes
Lewis Mumford Philosopher, Author
Humanity

"The humanities and science are not in inherent conflict but have become separated in the twentieth century. Now their essential unity must be re-emphasized, so that twentieth-century multiplicity may become twentieth-century unity."

Read quote 3 likes
James Russell Lowell Poet, Essayist
Humanity

"For Humanity sweeps onward: where today the martyr stands, On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands; Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn, While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn."

Read quote 3 likes
Friedrich Schiller Playwright, Poet
Humanity

"Everlastingly chained to a single little fragment of the Whole, man himself develops into nothing but a fragment; everlastingly in his ear the monotonous sound of the wheel that he turns, he never develops the harmony of his being, and instead of putting the stamp of humanity upon his own nature, he becomes nothing more than the imprint of his occupation or of his specialized knowledge."

Read quote 3 likes
Friedrich Nietzsche Philosopher, Writer
Humanity

"It is nothing but fanaticism and beautiful soulism to expect very much (or even, much only) from humanity when it has forgotten how to wage war."

Read quote 3 likes