“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.”
“The secret of a person's nature lies in their religion and what they really believes about the world and their place in it.”
“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.”
“The man who is forever disturbed about the problems of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.”
“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.”
“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.”
“Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.”
“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
“Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity.”
“In our civilization, men are afraid that they will not be men enough and women are afraid that they might be considered only women.”
“Humans are amphibians -- half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.”
“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.”
“There are two distinctive classes of people today, those who have personal computers, and those who have several thousand extra dollars apiece.”
“Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
“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.”
“Man is the unnatural animal, the rebel child of nature, and more and more does he turn himself against the harsh and fitful hand that reared him.”
“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.”
“People can be divided into two classes: those who go ahead and do something, and those who sit still and inquire, why wasn't it done the other way?”
“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.”
“Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.”
“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world -- that is the myth of the atomic age -- as in being able to remake ourselves.”
“Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature: these are the spur and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided.”
“We say nothing essential about the cathedral when we speak of its stones. We say nothing essential about Man when we seek to define him by the qualities of men.”
“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.”
“The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends, more than anything else, the improvement of mankind.”
“Considered logically this concept is not identical with the totality of sense impressions referred to; but it is an arbitrary creation of the human (or animal) mind.”
“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”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”