Mankind Quotes - Page 40

• [Thomas Henry] Huxley, I believe, was the greatest Englishman of the Nineteenth Century—perhaps the greatest Englishman of all time. When one thinks of him, one thinks inevitably of such men as Goethe and Aristotle. For in him there was that rich, incomparable blend of intelligence and character, of colossal knowledge and high adventurousness, of instinctive honesty and indomitable courage which appears in mankind only once in a blue moon. There have been far greater scientists, even in England, but there has never been a scientist who was a greater man.

  H. L. Mencken

  Honesty, Believe, Character

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• We can most safely achieve truly universal tolerance when we respect that which is characteristic in the individual and in nations, clinging, though, to the conviction that the truly meritorious is unique by belonging to all of mankind.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Unique, Tolerance, Individual

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• Superstition belongs to the essence of mankind and takes refuge, when one thinks one has suppressed it completely, in the strangest nooks and crannies; once it is safely ensconced there, it suddenly reappears.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Thinking, Essence, Superstitions

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• Without my attempts in natural science, I should never have learned to know mankind such as it is. In nothing else can we so closely approach pure contemplation and thought, so closely observe the errors of the senses and of the understanding, the weak and strong points of character.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Strong, Character, Errors

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann (2014). “Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann”, p.346, Ravenio Books

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• The woman and the genius do not work. Up to now, woman has been mankind's supreme luxury. In all those moments when we do our best, we do not work. Work is merely a means to these moments.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Work, Women, Mean

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• On all the walls, wherever walls exist, I will inscribe this eternal indictment of Christianity--I have letters to make even blindmen see.... I call Christianity the single great curse, the single great innermost depravity, the single great instinct of revenge, for which no means is poisonous, secretive, subterranean, small enough--I call it mankind's single immortal blemish.... And we reckon time from the dies nefastus with which this calamity arose--following Christianity's first day!--Why not following its last day, instead?--Following today?--Transvaluation of all values!

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Time, Wall, Revenge

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• And, is not Virtue in Mankind
  The Nutriment that feeds the Mind?

  Jonathan Swift

  Mind, Virtue

  Jonathan Swift (1860). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: With Copious Notes and Additions, and a Memoir of the Author”, p.446

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• Procrustes in modern dress, the nuclear scientist will prepare the bed on which mankind must lie; and if mankind doesn’t fit—well, that will be just too bad for mankind. There will have to be some stretching and a bit of amputation—the same sort of stretching and amputations as have been going on ever since applied science really got going into its stride, only this time they will be a good deal more drastic than in the past. These far from painless operations will be directed by highly centralized totalitarian governments.

  Aldous Huxley

  Lying, Past, Government

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• There is no doubt that the loftiest written wisdom is either rhymed or in some way musically measured,--is, in form as well as substance, poetry; and a volume which should contain the condensed wisdom of mankind need not have one rhythmless line.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Poetry, Doubt, Needs

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.64, Xist Publishing

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• Poetry is the mysticism of mankind.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Poetry, Mysticism, Poet

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.77, BookBaby

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• The science of Humboldt is one thing, poetry is another thing. The poet to-day, notwithstanding all the discoveries of science, and the accumulated learning of mankind, enjoys no advantage over Homer.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Discovery, Poetry

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.405, Penguin

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• It would be worthy of the age to print together the collected Scriptures or Sacred Writings of the several nations, the Chinese, the Hindoos, the Persians, the Hebrews, and others, as the Scripture of mankind. The New Testament is still, perhaps, too much on the lips and in the hearts of men to be called a Scripture in this sense. Such a juxtaposition and comparison might help to liberalize the faith of men.... This would be the Bible, or Book of Books, which let the missionaries carry to the uttermost parts of the earth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Book, Writing, Heart

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.101, Xist Publishing

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• Sun and moon and day and night and man and beast
  each with a splendor
  which man in all his vileness cannot
  set aside; each with an excellence!

  Marianne Moore

  Moon, Night, Men

  Marianne Moore (1994). “Complete Poems”, p.118, Penguin

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• I think the Messianic concept, which is the Jewish offering to mankind, is a great victory. What does it mean? It means that history has a sense, a meaning, a direction; it goes somewhere, and necessarily in a good direction--the Messiah.

  Elie Wiesel

  Mean, Thinking, Offering

  Elie Wiesel, Robert Franciosi (2002). “Elie Wiesel: Conversations”, p.92, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Man's life is thought,
  And he, despite his terror, cannot cease
  Ravening through century after century,
  Ravening, raging, and uprooting that he may come
  Into the desolation of reality.

  William Butler Yeats

  Life, Men, Thinking

  William Butler Yeats (2001). “The Major Works”, p.151

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• Because this age and the next age
  Engender in the ditch,
  No man can know a happy man
  From any passing wretch,
  If Folly link with Elegance
  No man knows which is which.

  William Butler Yeats

  Happiness, Men, Age

  William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.324, Simon and Schuster

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• For what but eye and ear silence the mind
  With the minute particulars of mankind?

  William Butler Yeats

  Eye, Silence, Mind

  William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.233, Hayes Barton Press

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• How could passion run so deep
  Had I never thought
  That the crime of being born
  Blackens all our lot?

  William Butler Yeats

  Running, Passion, Sin

  William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.524, Hayes Barton Press

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• While on that old grey stone I sat
  Under the old wind-broken tree,
  I knew that One is animate,
  Mankind inanimate phantasy.

  William Butler Yeats

  Reality, Wind, Broken

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.161, Wordsworth Editions

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• I weave the shoes of Sorrow:
  Soundless shall be the footfall light
  In all men's ears of Sorrow,
  Sudden and light.

  William Butler Yeats

  Fate, Men, Shoes

  William Butler Yeats (2000). “The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats”, p.5, Wordsworth Editions

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• Lionel Johnson comes the first to mind,
  That loved his learning better than mankind,
  Though courteous to the worst; much falling he
  Brooded upon sanctity.

  William Butler Yeats

  Fall, Learning, Mind

  William Butler Yeats (1931). “Later Poems”, p.98, Library of Alexandria

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• When men are engaged in war and conquest, the tools of science become as dangerous as a razor in the hands of a child of three. We must not condemn man because his inventiveness and patient conquest of the forces of nature are being exploited for false and destructive purposes. Rather, we should remember that the fate of mankind hinges entirely upon man’s moral development.

  Albert Einstein

  Patience, Children, War

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• Your real statesman is first of all, and chief of all, a great human being, with an eye for all the great fields on which men likehimself struggle, with unflagging, pathetic hope, toward better things.... He is a guide, a counselor, a mentor, a servant, a friend of mankind.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Leadership, Real, Struggle

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• We are participants, whether we would or not, in the life of the world.... We are partners with the rest. What affects mankind isinevitably our affair as well as the nations of Europe and Asia.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Europe, League, World

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• Most of the trades, professions, and ways of living among mankind, take their original either from the love of the pleasure, or the fear of want. The former, when it becomes too violent, degenerates into luxury, and the latter into avarice.

  Joseph Addison

  Work, Luxury, Way

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1852). “The Spectator”, p.65

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