Humanity

To me, it seems that mankind can never achieve its highest potentialities till it has thrown off the incubus of historic (and prehistoric) religion . . .
~ William Archer, in William Archer as Rationalist: A Collection of His Heterodox Writings (1925). Is the Battle Won?

Religion, in contrast to science, deploys the repugnant view that the world is too big for our understanding. Science, in contrast to religion, opens up the great questions of being to rational discussion, to discussion with the prospect of resolution and elucidation. Science, above all, respects the power of the human intellect. Science is the apotheosis of the intellect and the consummation of the Renaissance. Science respects more deeply the potential of humanity than religion ever can.
~ Peter William (P.W.) Atkins

The tragedy of life and of the world is not that men do not know God; the tragedy is that, knowing Him, they still insist on going their own way.
~ William Barclay, The Revelation of John, Volume II (1961).

I am absolutely convinced of the fact that those who once lived on earth can and do communicate with us. It is hardly possible to convey to the inexperienced an adequate idea of the strength and cumulative force of the evidence.
~ Sir William Fletcher Barrett, FRS

Bones are the framework of the vertebrate body and thus contain much information about man's adaptive mechanisms to his environment. The study of evolution essentially would be impossible if bones were eliminated as a source of data. In summary, the answer is that bones often survive the process of decay and provide the main evidence for the human form after death. Skeletal evidence also has the potential to provide information on prehistoric customs and diseases.
~ William M. Bass, Ph.D., Human Osteology: A Laboratory and Field Manual of the Human Skeleton (3rd edition, 1987).

Nothing is so powerful as an insight into human nature, what compulsions drive a man, what instincts dominate his action, even though his language so often camouflages what really motivates him. For if you know these things about [a] man you can touch him at the core of his being.
~ William Bernbach, Speech, American Association of Advertising Agencies (1980).

Every Mortal loss is an Immortal Gain. The Ruins of Time build Mansions in Eternity.
~ William Blake, in The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake (1965). XV: [The Letters]. Letter to William Hayley (6 May 1800)

I heard an Angel singing
When the day was springing,
"Mercy, Pity, Peace
Is the world's release."
~ William Blake, from Poems (1863). I Heard an Angel

I traveld thro' a Land of Men
A Land of Men & Women too
And heard & saw such dreadful things
As cold Earth wanderers never knew.
~ William Blake, The Pickering Manuscript (c. 1803). The Mental Traveller

In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear.
~ William Blake, Songs of Experience (1794). London

For Mercy has a human heart
Pity a human face:
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.
~ William Blake, from Songs of Innocence (1789). The Divine Image

Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
~ William Blake, The Pickering Manuscript (c. 1803). Auguries of Innocence

Poetry fetter'd Fetters the Human Race
Nations are Destroy'd or Flourish in proportion as
Their Poetry, Painting and Music are Destroy'd or Flourish:
The primeval state of Man was Wisdom, Art and Science.
~ William Blake, from Jerusalem (1804). Preface

The Angel that presided o'er my birth
Said "Little creature, form'd of joy and mirth,
Go, love without the help of anything on earth."
~ William Blake, Gnomic Verses xxi.

The Whole Business of Man Is The Arts, & All Things Common.
~ William Blake, Laocoön Aphorisms (c. 1818).

We are born to wander, and cursed to stay and dig. . . .
~ William Bolitho, Twelve Against the Gods (1930). Introduction

If we are to be as a shining city upon a hill, it will be because of our ceaseless pursuit of the constitutional ideal of human dignity.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr., Address to the Text and Teaching Symposium. Georgetown University, Washington DC (12 October 1985). The Constitution of the United States: Contemporary Ratification

The quest for freedom, dignity, and the rights of man will never end.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr., Speech at Georgetown University (1979).

[T]here is an ever-more urgent question whether electrocution in fact is a "humane" method for extinguishing human life or is, instead, nothing less than the contemporary technological equivalent of burning people at the stake.
~ William Joseph Brennan, Jr. (dissenting opinion), Glass v. Louisiana, 471 U.S. 1080 (1985).

In a presence vast beyond size, a presence that seems
an absence, we hide and play with us as dolls.
~ William Bronk, Living Instead (1991). Playtime

Man is not a mammal.
~ William Jennings Bryan, During the Scopes trial (1925).

The human measure of a human life is its income; the divine measure of a life is its outgo, its overflow -- its contribution to the welfare of all.
~ William Jennings Bryan, The Prince of Peace (lecture delivered on the Chautauqua circuit, starting in 1900).

But I behold a fearful sign,
To which the white men's eyes are blind;
Their race may vanish hence, like mine,
And leave no trace behind,
Save ruins o'er the region spread,
And the white stones above the dead.
~ William Cullen Bryant, An Indian At The Burial Place Of His Fathers (1824).

Oh mother of a mighty race,
Yet lovely in thy youthful grace!
The elder dames, thy haughty peers,
Admire and hate thy blooming years.
~ William Cullen Bryant, published in Graham's Magazine (July 1847). Oh Mother of a Mighty Race

There's freedom at thy gates and rest
For Earth's down-trodden and opprest,
A shelter for the hunted head,
For the starved laborer toil and bread.
Power, at thy bounds,
Stops and calls back his baffled hounds.
~ William Cullen Bryant, published in Graham's Magazine (July 1847). Oh Mother of a Mighty Race

We are so used to the notion of our own inevitability as life's dominant species that it is hard to grasp that we are only here because of timely extraterrestrial bangs and other random flukes.
~ Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003). Chapter 22: Good-bye to All That

All the filth and horror, fear, hate disease and death of human history flows between you and the Western Lands.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Western Lands (1987).

If the mortality rate seems high we must realize that Nature is a ruthless teacher. There are no second chances in Mother Nature's Survival Course.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Place of Dead Roads (1983). Space Travel

Man has sold his soul for time, language, tools, weapons, and dominance.
~ William S. Burroughs, Ghost of a Chance (1991).

Now what sort of man or woman or monster would stroke a centipede I have ever seen? "And here is my good big centipede!" If such a man exists, I say kill him without more ado. He is a traitor to the human race.
~ William S. Burroughs, The Western Lands (1987).

The present form of human being quite possibly results from words, and unless they get rid of this outmoded artifact, it will lead to their extinction.
~ William S. Burroughs, in The Job: Interviews With William S. Burroughs (1969). Prisoners of the Earth Come Out

Humans are to make themselves trouble,
But also the wisdom teachings
One must hear with pleasures.
~ Wilhelm Busch, Max and Moritz (1865).

Life is too grim with anxious, eating care
To cherish what is best. Our souls are scarred
By daily agonies, and our conscience marred
By petty tyrannies that waste and wear.
Why is this human fate so hard to bear?
~ William Wilfred Campbell, The Poems of Wilfred Campbell (1905). The Higher Kinship

Isn't it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years.
~ Willa Sibert Cather, O Pioneers! (1913).

Everything else may be owned in the universe; but a moral, rational being cannot be property.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), Slavery (1835). Chapter I. Property

I do and I must reverence human nature. I bless it for its kind affections. I honor it for its achievements in science and art, and still more for its examples of heroic and saintly virtue. These are marks of a divine origin and the pledges of a celestial inheritance; and I thank God that my own lot is bound up with that of the human race.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.) (Inscription on Channing Memorial, Public Garden, Boston), Discourse At The Ordination Of The Rev. F.A. Farley, Providence RI (1828). Likeness to God

I do not look on a human being as a machine, made to be kept in action by a foreign force, to accomplish an unvarying succession of motions, to do a fixed amount of work, and then to fall to pieces at death, but as a being of free spiritual powers; and I place little value on any culture but that which aims to bring out these, and to give them perpetual impulse and expansion.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), An Introductory Address to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (1838). Self-Culture

Man does not value himself as man. It is for his blood, his rank, or some artificial distinction, and not for the attributes of humanity, that he holds himself in respect.
~ William Ellery Channing, Annual Oration Delivered Before The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia PA (18 October 1823). The Importance and Means of A National Literature

The distinctions of society vanish before the light of these truths. I attach myself to the multitude, not because they are voters and have political power; but because they are men, and have within their reach the most glorious prizes of humanity.
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), An Introductory Address to the Franklin Lectures, Boston MA (1838). Self-Culture

What is there in human nature to awaken respect and tenderness, if man is the unprotected insect of a day? And what is he more, if atheism be true?
~ William Ellery Channing (D.D.), from The Works of William E. Channing, D.D. (1841). Importance of Religion to Society

Man is but earthy sod,
His efforts are as nothing
Besides the works of God.
~ William Lawrence ("Larry") Chittenden, Ranch Verses (1893). Texas: To Judge A. H. Willie

A humane and generous concern for every individual, his health and his fulfillment, will do more to soothe the savage heart than the fear of state-inflicted death, which chiefly serves to remind us how close we remain to the jungle.
~ (William) Ramsey Clark (urging abolishment of the death penalty for federal crimes), Address to the Senate Judiciary Committee (1968).

Believe it, Men have ever been the same,
And all the Golden Age is but a Dream.
~ William Congreve, Of Improving the Present Time (1728).

Lights of the world, and stars of human race.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). The Progress of Error

Methinks, I said, in thee I find
The sin and madness of mankind.
To joys forbidden man aspires,
Consumes his soul with vain desires.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). The Pineapple And The Bee (written in October 1779).

No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest,
Till half mankind were like himself possess'd.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). The Progress of Error

So man, the moth, is not afraid, it seems,
To span omnipotence, and measure might,
That knows no measure, by the scanty rule
And standard of his own, that is to-day,
And is not ere to-morrow's sun go down.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book VI. The Winter Walk At Noon

Weak and irresolute is man;
The purpose of today,
Woven with pains into his plan,
Tomorrow rends away.
~ William Cowper, Human Frailty (1779)

All Modern Men are descended from a Wormlike creature but it shows more on some people.
~ Will (William Jacob) Cuppy, How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes (1931).

After all, we are human beings, and not creatures of infinite possibilities.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, from Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989). Conversations with Gordon Roper (originally, interview in 1968)

Every individual is, also, a point where systems intersect; systems which go through individuals, exist within them, but reach beyond their life and possess an independent existence and development of their own through the content, the values, the purpose, which is realized in them.
~ Wilhelm Dilthey

I like to think that, if men are machines, they are machines of a celestial pattern, which can rise above themselves, and, to the amazement of the watching gods, acquit themselves as men. I like to think that this singular race of indomitable, philosophizing, poetical beings, resolute to carry the banner of Becoming to unimaginable heights, may be as interesting to the gods as they to us, and that they will stoop to admit these creatures of promise into their divine society.
~ William (W.) MacNeile Dixon, The Human Situation (1937).

The astonishing thing about the human being is not so much his intellect and bodily structure, profoundly mysterious as they are. The astonishing and least comprehensible thing about him is his range of vision; his gaze into the infinite distance; his lonely passion for ideas and ideals.
~ William (W.) MacNeile Dixon, The Human Situation (1937).

We look to the heavens for help and uplift, but it is to the earth we are chained; it is from the earth that we must find our sustenance; it is on the earth that we must find solutions to the problems that promise to destroy all life here.
~ William Orville Douglas, My Wilderness: The Pacific West (1960).

Why cannot we work at cooperative schemes and search for the common ground binding all mankind together?
~ William Orville Douglas, Points of Rebellion (1969). The Legions of Dissent

Of this fair volume which we "world" do name,
If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care,
Of him who it corrects, and did it frame,
We clear might read the art and wisdom rare.
~ William Drummond (of Hawthornden), from Flowers of Zion; or Spiritual Poems (1623). The Book of the World

And herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor, -- all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked, -- who is good? not that men are ignorant, -- what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903). Of Alexander Crummell

So sit we all as one.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, from Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil (1920). Chapter X: The Comet. A Hymn to The Peoples

[I]n all things I saw the passion of life for growth and greatness, the drama of everlasting creation. I came to think of myself, not as a dance and chaos of molecules, but as a brief and minute portion of that majestic process . . .
~ William James "Will" Durant, Transition: A Sentimental Story of One Mind and One Era (1927).

The most interesting thing in the world is another human being who wonders, suffers and raises the questions that have bothered him to the last day of his life, knowing he will never get the answers.
~ William James "Will" Durant, in People (8 December 1975).

No man can write who is not first a humanitarian.
~ William Faulkner, in Time magazine (25 February 1957).

Poor man. Poor mankind.
~ William Faulkner, Light in August (1932).

The salvation of the world is in man's suffering.
~ William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun (1959).

In some ways, humanity has succeeded beyond all imagination, mastering extraordinary new technologies, creating wealth at a speed without precedent.
~ William Clay Ford, Jr., Ford Update Magazine (2001).

The rapprochement of peoples is only possible when differences of culture and outlook are respected and appreciated rather than feared and condemned, when the common bond of human dignity is recognized as the essential bond for a peaceful world.
~ J. William Fulbright

I claim to be a human rights man, and wherever there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that being, whatever may be the sex or the complexion. Our rights are equal, and whoever tramples on them is either a ruffian or a tyrant, unwilling that justice should reign in the world.
~ William Lloyd Garrison, Opening Speech, Woman's Rights Convention (6 September 1853).

Darwinian Man, though well-behaved,
At best is only a monkey shaved!
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, Princess Ida (1884 opera). Psyche's Song, Act II

I know many men who are misanthropes, and profess to look down with disdain on their species. My creed is of an opposite character. All that we observe that is best and most excellent in the intellectual world, is man: and it is easy to perceive in many cases, that the believer in mysteries does little more, than dress up his deity in the choicest of human attributes and qualifications. I have lived among, and I feel an ardent interest in and love for, my brethren of mankind. This sentiment, which I regard with complacency in my own breast, I would gladly cherish in others.
~ William Godwin, London: Effingham Wilson Royal Exchange. Thoughts on Man, his Nature, Productions and Discoveries (1831). Preface

Power is not happiness. Security and peace are more to be desired than a name at which nations tremble. Mankind are brethren.
~ William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793).

There is reverence that we owe to everything in human shape.
~ William Godwin, The Enquirer: Reflections on Education, Manners and Literature in a Series of Essays (1797).

The perfection of the human ANIMAL, and the perfection of the human BEING are probably quite incompatible.
~ William Rathbone (W.R.) Greg, Enigmas of Life (1873). Limits and Direction of Human Development

[M]an is not an organism, -- he is an intelligence served by organs.
~ Sir William Hamilton, from Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic (1858-60).

Although September 11 was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do.
~ Stephen William Hawking, The Telegraph (16 October 2001). Colonies in space may be only hope, says Hawking

If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Plain Speaker (1826). On the Pleasure of Hating

If we wish to know the force of human genius we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning we may study his commentators.
~ William Hazlitt, Table-Talk; or, Original Essays (1821-1822). On the Ignorance of the Learned

Man is an individual animal with narrow faculties, but infinite desires, which he is anxious to concentrate in some one object within the grasp of his imagination, and where, if he cannot be all that he wishes himself, he may at least contemplate his own pride, vanity, and passions, displayed in their most extravagant dimensions in a being no bigger and no better than himself.
~ William Hazlitt, in The Liberal (1823). On the Spirit of Monarchy

Man is not the creature of sense and selfishness, even in those pursuits which grow out of that origin, so much as of imagination, custom, passion, whim, and humour.
~ William Hazlitt, Table-Talk; or, Original Essays (1821-1822). On Will-making

Man, whatever he may think, is a very limited being; the world is a narrow circle drawn about him; the horizon limits our immediate view; immortality means a century or two.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Plain Speaker (1826). On Old English Writers and Speakers

Mankind are a herd of knaves and fools. It is necessary to join the crowd, or get out of their way, in order not to be trampled to death by them.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols -- it is all that they ask; the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them.
~ William Hazlitt, in Literary Examiner (London, September - December 1823). Common Places. LXXVI

No man would, I think, exchange his existence with any other man, however fortunate.
~ William Hazlitt, Table-Talk, or Original Essays on Men and Manners, 2nd series (1824). On The Fear of Death

To a superior race of being the pretensions of mankind to extraordinary sanctity and virtue must seem . . . ridiculous.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

To think ill of mankind, and not to wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

We are the creatures of imagination, passion, and self-will, more than of reason or even of self-interest. . . . Even in the common transactions and daily intercourse of life, we are governed by whim, caprice, prejudice, or accident.
~ William Hazlitt, in The Examiner (London, 26 February 1815). On the Predominant Principles and Excitements in the Human Mind

We learn to curb our will and keep our overt actions within the bounds of humanity, long before we can subdue our sentiments and imaginations to the same mild tone.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Plain Speaker (1826). On the Pleasure of Hating

Only in the state does man have a rational existence. . . . Man owes his entire existence to the state, and has his being within it alone.
~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (G.W.F.) Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History (1830). Introduction

Every social trait labelled masculine or feminine is in truth a human trait. It is our human right to develop and contribute our talents whatever our race, sex, religion, ancestry, age. Human rights are indivisible!
~ Wilma Scott Heide

All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more and more strongly the truths contained in the Sacred Scriptures.
~ William Herschel

Values, human values, can survive only if, reaching out toward a metaphysical condition which their dream shapes foreshadow, they find it.
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Hocking, Human Nature and Its Remaking (1918).

We live, but a world has passed away
With the years that perished to make us men.
~ William Dean Howells, The Mulberries (1871)

Bear in mind that the children of life are the children of joy; that the lower animals are only unhappy when made so by man; that man alone of all the creatures, has "found out many inventions", the chief of which appears to be the art of making himself miserable, and of seeing all Nature stained with that dark and hateful colour.
~ William Henry ("W.H.") Hudson

Man is more disposed to domination than freedom; and a structure of dominion not only gladdens the eye of the master who rears and protects it, but even its servants are uplifted by the thought that they are members of a whole, which rises high above the life and strength of single generations.
~ Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action (1791). Chapter 16

We do not know, either from history or from authentic tradition, any period of time in which the human race has not been divided into social groups.
~ Wilhelm von Humboldt, quoted in Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe (1859). Volume 1

Since our fellow-men are so essential to us and we to them, it is our duty to live in as intimate fellowship with them as possible.
~ William Dewitt Hyde, Practical Ethics (1892). Chapter XXI: Self

Man, as we know him, is a poor creature; but he is halfway between an ape and a god and he is travelling in the right direction.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge

Many people believe they are attracted by God, or by Nature, when they are only repelled by Man.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, More Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1931).

Fatalism, whose solving word in all crises of behavior is "All striving is vain," will never reign supreme, for the impulse to take life strivingly is indestructible in the race. Moral creeds which speak to that impulse will be widely successful in spite of inconsistency, vagueness, and shadowy determination of expectancy.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 2. Chapter XXI: The Perception of Reality

If evolution and the survival of the fittest be true at all, the destruction of prey and of human rivals must have been among the most important. . . . It is just because human bloodthirstiness is such a primitive part of us that it is so hard to eradicate, especially when a fight or a hunt is promised as part of the fun.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890).

In every concrete individual, there is a uniqueness that defies formulation. We can feel the touch of it and recognize its taste, so to speak, relishing or disliking, as the case may be, but we can give no ultimate account of it, and we have in the end simply to admire the Creator.
~ William James, Memories and Studies (1911).

Man's perfection would be the fulfillment of his end; and his end would be union with his Maker.
~ William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). Lectures XIV and XV: The Value of Saintliness

No fact in human nature is more characteristic than its willingness to live on a chance.
~ William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). Postscript

There is very little difference between one man and another; but what little there is, is very important.
~ William James, from The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897). The Importance of Individuals

Each of us has our precious things, and as we care for them we locate the essence of our humanity.
~ Bill Joy, in Wired Magazine (April 2000). Why The Future Doesn't Need Us

Far more has been accomplished for the welfare and progress of mankind by preventing bad actions than by doing good ones.
~ William Lyon Mackenzie King

The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne;
The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn;
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depth of the grave.
~ William Knox, Songs of Israel (1824). Mortality.

If man is only a little lower than the angels, the angels should reform.
~ Mary Wilson Little

If we're ever going to collectively begin to grapple with the problems that we have collectively, we're going to have to move back the veil and deal with each other on a more human level.
~ Wilma Mankiller, Speech at Sweet Briar College (2 April 1993). Rebuilding the Cherokee Nation

The nature of men and women -- their essential nature -- is so vile and despicable that if you were to portray a person as he really is, no one would believe you.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Quoted in Conversations with Willie (1978).

The normal is what you find but rarely. The normal is an ideal. It is a picture that one fabricates of the average characteristics of men, and to find them all in a single man is hardly to be expected.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up (1938).

All the good, fine, noble, and creative acts of humanity were conceived as a spark in a single human consciousness.
~ Peter McWilliams

What the world needs is some do-give-a-damn pills.
~ Dr. William C. Menninger

I guess that time you learn you're going to die is the time you really understand you're human. Humans must comfort each other against the terror of being human.
~ William Ormond (W.O.) Mitchell

In the battle for existence, talent is the punch, and tact is the fancy footwork.
~ Wilson Mizner

If we feel the least degradation in being amorous, or merry or hungry, or sleepy, we are so far bad animals & miserable men.
~ William Morris

Who now shall lead us, what God shall heed us
As we lie in the hell our hands have won?
For us are no rulers but fools and befoolers,
The great are fallen, the wise men gone.
~ William Morris, from Poems by the Way (1891). The Voice of Toil

I yield to no one in appreciating the propriety and pertinency of every effort, on the part of Colored Americans, in all pursuits, which, as members of the human family, it becomes them to share in.
~ William C. Nell

At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque picture of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, petty -- I call it the one mortal blemish of mankind.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

I teach you the Superman. Man is something that should be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885).

Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman -- a rope over an abyss.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885).

The better the state is established, the fainter is humanity.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The Earth has a skin and that skin has diseases, one of its diseases is called man.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The living is a species of the dead; and not a very attractive one.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The overman. . . . Who has organized the chaos of his passions, given style to his character, and become creative. Aware of life's terrors, he affirms life without resentment.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The strongest knowledge (that of the total unfreedom of the human will) is nonetheless the poorest in successes: for it always has the strongest opponent, human vanity.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Assorted Opinions and Maxims (first supplement to Human, All Too Human, 1879).

What is the ape to men? A laughing stock or a painful embarassment. And just so shall man be to the Superman: a laughing stock or a painful embarassment.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885).

What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? They are the irrefutable errors of mankind.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

He was a poor weak human being like themselves, a human soul, weak and helpless in suffering, shivering in the toils of the eternal struggle of the human soul with pain.
~ Liam O'Flaherty

Are we the only species cursed with a hunger for a food that doesn't exist?
~ William J. O'Malley, God: The Oldest Question (2000).

Fed on the dry husks of facts, the human heart has a hidden want which science cannot supply.
~ William Osler, Science and Immortality (1904).

Nothing is more important to man than the subject of his origin and destiny. We do not mean to say that nothing actually so much engages his attention, for this, unfortunately, is not so; but that nothing should so much interest his mind and heart, must be admitted by every one who reflects. Whence am I? whither do I go, and what shall be my future destiny? Who is not infinitely concerned in these great questions?
~ William Kimbrough Pendleton, in The Millennial Harbinger 35 (December 1864). The Tree of Life

Man is too thoroughly an egoist not to be also an egotist; if he love, the object shall know it.
~ William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), from Whirligigs (1910). Blind Man's Holiday

People possess untapped potential in all areas of human endeavor. The uniqueness of human beings is that no clear limits to potential have been discovered.
~ William Watson Purkey, in the Journal of Invitational Theory and Practice (1992). An Introduction To Invitational Theory

Speak the truth by all means; be bold and fearless in your rebuke of error, and in your keener rebuke of wrongdoing; but be human, and loving, and gentle, and brotherly the while.
~ William Morley (W.M.) Punshon

We live between two worlds; we soar in the atmosphere; we creep upon the soil; we have the aspirations of creators and the propensities of quadrupeds. There can be but one explanation of this fact. We are passing from the animal into a higher form, and the drama of this planet is in its second act.
~ W. (William) Winwood Reade , The Martyrdom of Man (1872). Materials of Human History

It is a law of our humanity, that man must know good through evil. No great principle ever triumphed but through much evil. No man ever progressed to greatness and goodness but through great mistakes.
~ Frederick William (F.W.) Robertson

God made man a little lower than the angels, and he has been getting a little lower ever since.
~ Will Rogers

But schools are out to teach patriotism; newspapers are out to stir up excitement; and politicians are out to get re-elected. None of the three, therefore, can do anything whatever toward saving the human race from reciprocal suicide.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell

In all things it is well to exalt the dignity of Man, by freeing him as far as possible from the tyranny of the non-human Power.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, Mysticism and Logic (1918).

Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, Is There a God? (Unpublished manuscript; 1952).

Religion prevents our children from having a rational education; religion prevents us from removing the fundamental causes of war; religion prevents us from teaching the ethic of scientific cooperation in place of the old fierce doctrines of sin and punishment. It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? (1930).

The atom bomb and still more the hydrogen bomb have caused new fears involving new doubts as to the effects of science on human life. If, however, the human race decides to let itself go on living, it will have to make a very drastic change in its way of thinking, feeling and behaving. We must learn to not say "Better death than dishonor."
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, The Impact of Science on Society (1951).

The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, Playboy magazine (Interview; March 1963).

The life of Man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, The Free Man's Worship (1903).

The man capable of greatness of soul will open wide the windows of his mind, letting the winds blow freely upon it from every portion of the universe. He will see himself and life and the world as truly as our human limitations will permit; realizing the brevity and minuteness of human life, he will realize also that in individual minds is concentrated whatever of value the known universe contains. And he will see that the man whose mind mirrors the world becomes in a sense as great as the world.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, The Conquest of Happiness (1930). Impersonal Interests

The prospect for the human race is sombre beyond all precedent. Mankind are faced with a clear-cut alternative: either we shall all perish, or we shall have to acquire some slight degree of common sense. A great deal of new political thinking will be necessary if utter disaster is to be averted.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, in the Glasgow Forward (18 August 1945). The Bomb and Civilization

The splendour of human life, I feel sure, is greater to those who are not dazzled by the divine radiance.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell

What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell

Be the inferior of no man, nor of any be the superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart.
~ William Saroyan, The Time of Your Life (1939 play).

Every man in the world is better than some one else.
And not as good as some one else.
~ William Saroyan

If I want to do anything, I want to speak a more universal language. The heart of man, the unwritten part of man, that which is eternal and common to all races.
~ William Saroyan, The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934). Seventy Thousand Assyrians

The whole world and every human being in it is everybody's business.
~ William Saroyan, My Heart's in the Highlands (1939 play).

We plug away and make no fuss,
Our feats are never crowned;
And yet it's common coves like us
Who make the world go round.
~ Robert William Service, The Ordinary Man

A rarer spirit never
Did steer humanity; but you, gods, will give us
Some faults to make us men.
~ William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods;
They kill us for their sport.
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear

Blessed are the peacemakers on earth.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part II

Do all men kill the things they do not love?
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Every man has business and desire,
Such as it is.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act I, scene v

Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice. Act III, scene i

He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act I, scene ii

I am all the daughters of my father's house,
And all the brothers too.
~ William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night. Act II, scene iv

I think the King is but a man as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry V. Act IV, scene i

I to the world am like a drop of water
That in the ocean seeks another drop,
Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,
Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.
~ William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors. Act I, scene ii

Insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal.
~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

O that I were a man for his sake! or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too.
~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. Act IV, scene i

O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

O heaven! were man
But constant, he were perfect.
~ William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona

O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world,
That has such people in't!
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act V, scene i

The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation; that away,
Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard II. Act I, scene i

Then to Silvia let us sing
That Silvia is excelling.
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling.
~ William Shakespeare

There's no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. Act III, scene ii

Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part I

This is the state of man: today he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes; tomorrows blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VIII. Act III, scene ii

To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature.
~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing. Act III, scene iii

To be wise and love
Exceeds man's might: that dwells with the gods above.
~ William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida

What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust?
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act II, scene ii

Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this?
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear

Your hearts are mighty, your skins are whole.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor

Humanity is worth more than a picture of humanity that serves no purpose other than exploitation.
~ William (W.) Eugene Smith

The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.
~ Wilhelm Stekel

I sing the hymn of the conquered, who fell in the Battle of Life,
The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelmed in the strife.
~ William Wetmore Story, A Poet's Portfolio. Io Victis

We are not an isolated nation, independent of mankind elsewhere; and it is only frenzied politicians or provincial backwoodsmen who pretend that we can be securely indifference to the world's safety and sorrow.
~ William Laurence Sullivan, (1918)

Certain ills belong to the hardships of human life. They are natural. They are part of the struggle with Nature for existence. We cannot blame our fellow-men for our share of these. . . . Certain other ills are due to the malice of men, and to the imperfections or errors of civil institutions. These ills are an object of agitation, and a subject of discussion.
~ William Graham Sumner, What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1883).

The forgotten man. . . . He works, he votes, generally he prays, but his chief business in life is to pay.
~ William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man and Other Essays (1918). The Forgotten Man (1883 article)

The world is wrong side up. It needs to be turned upside down in order to be right side up.
~ William A. "Billy" Sunday

The normal man is a convenience for reckoning and no more.
~ William Roscoe Thayer, in The Forum (February 1900). Longevity and Degeneration

You shall not change, but a nobler race of men
Shall walk beneath the stars and wander by the shore;
I can not guess their glory, but I think the sky and sea
Will bring to them more gladness than they brought to us of yore.
~ William Roscoe Thayer, from Poems, New and Old (1894). Man in Nature

How comes it that the evil which men say spreads so widely and lasts so long, while our good, kind words don't seem somehow to take root and bear blossom? Is it that in the stony hearts of mankind these pretty flowers can't find a place to grow?
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, Roundabout Papers (1863). On a Hundred Years Hence

Man appears for a little while to laugh and weep, to work and play, and then to go to make room for those who shall follow him in the never-ending cycle.
~ Aiden Wilson (A.W.) Tozer

There is in a man an upwelling spring of life, energy, love, whatever you like to call it. If a course is not cut for it, it turns the ground round it into a swamp.
~ William Hale White, More Pages from a Journal (1910).

[I]f to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures and to be warmed with the desire of relieving their distresses, is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large.
~ William Wilberforce, Speech, House of Commons (19 June 1816).

Body and mind, and spirit, all combine
To make the Creature, human and divine.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, New Thought Pastels (1906). Affirm

It is only natural that as human beings we want to feel happy, satisfied, and secure.
~ Angel Kyodo Williams, Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living With Fearlessness and Grace (2000).

We have an ambivalent sense of what human beings have achieved, and have hopes for how they might live. . . . We know that the world was not made for us, or we for the world, that our history tells no purposive story, and that there is no position outside the world or outside history from which we might hope to authenticate our activities.
~ Bernard Williams, Shame and Necessity (1993).

Man is still responsible. He must turn the alloy of modern experience into the steel of mastery and character. His success lies not with the stars but with himself. He must carry on the fight of self-correction and discipline. He must fight mediocrity as sin and live against the imperative of life's highest ideal.
~ Frank Curtis Williams

The rest of the world did not go away because New York was attacked. There are many many problems in the world we need to address, not just that one.
~ Jody Williams, The Associated Press (25 December 2001). Sept. 11: How the World Changed

Oh, for more Quality and less Quantity in Generation
Oh, for less Suff'ring and more Wisdom in Termination.
~ Robert H. Williams, M.D., "My Life Prayer", in Northwest Medicine (July 1970). Numbers, Types and Duration of Human Lives

Snatching the eternal out of the desperately fleeting is the great magic trick of human existence.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, in The New York Times (14 January 1951). Concerning the Timeless World of a Play

We're all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, Camino Real (1953).

Whether or not we admit it to ourselves, we are all haunted by a truly awful sense of impermanence.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, The Rose Tattoo (1951). Introduction

To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from.
~ Terry Tempest Williams, Statement before the Senate Subcommittee on Forest & Public Lands Management, Washington DC (13 July 1995).

The only human value of anything, writing included, is intense vision of the facts, add to that by saying the truth and action upon them.
~ William Carlos Williams, The Descent of Winter (1928). Shakespeare

We are a half-mad race, and what we say is not to be trusted.
~ William Carlos Williams, from Selected Essays (1954). Preface

In our natural state, we are glorious beings. In the world of illusion, we are lost and imprisoned, slaves to our appetites and our will to false power.
~ Marianne Williamson, A Woman's Worth (1993).

Most Men are Cowards, all Men should be Knaves.
The Difference lies, as far as I can see,
Not in the thing it self, but the degree. . . .
~ John Wilmot, Earl Of Rochester, A Satire Against Mankind (1675).

I have no concern for the common man except that he should not be so common.
~ Angus Wilson, No Laughing Matter (1967).

The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain.
~ Colin Henry Wilson

Humanity is exalted not because we are so far above other living creatures, but because knowing them well elevates the very concept of life.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, Biophilia (1984).

In the end . . . success or failure will come down to an ethical decision, one on which those now living will be judged for generations to come.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, The Future of Life (2002).

It's obvious that the key problem facing humanity in the coming century is how to bring a better quality of life -- for 8 billion or more people -- without wrecking the environment entirely in the attempt.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, Salon.com magazine (Interview; 22 April 2000). Living in shimmering disequilibrium

To genetic evolution, the human lineage has added the parallel track of cultural evolution.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998).

As human beings, we enjoy the possession of an intellect, and it is the intellect, not the emotions that must be the supreme guiding force of our lives if we are to know any measure of happiness here.
~ John M. Wilson

All creatures and all objects, in degree,
Are friends and patrons of humanity.
~ William Wordsworth, Humanity (1829)

For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity.
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads (1798). Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey

If I these thoughts may not prevent,
If such be of my creed the plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads (1798). Lines Written in Early Spring

The eye -- it cannot choose but see;
we cannot bid the ear be still;
our bodies feel, where'er they be,
against or with our will.
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads (1798). Expostulation and Reply

There is
One great society alone on earth:
The noble Living, and the noble Dead.
~ William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1805).

There's not a man
That lives who hath not known his god-like hours.
~ William Wordsworth, The Prelude (1805).

Yet tears to human suffering are due;
And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown
Are mourned by man, and not by man alone.
~ William Wordsworth, Laodamia (1814).

Blushes are badges of imperfection.
~ William Wycherley, Love in a wood; or St. James's Park (1672). Act I, scene i

The silence of a wise man is more wrong to mankind than the slanderer's speech.
~ William Wycherley, in The Posthumous Works of William Wycherley, Esq. in Prose and Verse (1728). Maxims and Reflections

He knows death to the bone --
Man has created death.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933). Death

Many times man lives and dies
Between his two eternities,
That of race and that of soul.
~ William Butler Yeats, from Last Poems (1936-39). Under Ben Bulben

Give us to kill! -- since this is the end
Of love and labor in Nature's plan;
Give us to kill and ravish and rend,
Yea, since this is the end of man.
~ William Young, Wishmakers' Town (1885). The Pawns