Humanity cannot for long dispense with greatness. Francois Guizot, French historian & politician
So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only. Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics
Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made. Immanuel Kant
The great mystery is not that we should have been thrown down here at random between the profusion of matter and that of the stars; it is that from our very prison we should draw, from our own selves, images powerful enough to deny our own nothingness. Andre Malraux, La Condition Humaine
Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
Well, of course, people are only human ... But it really does not seem much for them to be. Ivy Compton-Burnett, 1884-1969, A Family and a Fortune, 1939
Any one watching keenly the stealthy convergence of human lots, sees a slow preparation of effects from one life on another, which tells like a calculated irony on the indifference or the frozen stare with which we look at our unintroduced neighbours. George Eliot, Middlemarch
If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heartbeat, and we should die of that roar which likes on the other side of silence. ibid.
It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self. ibid.
During my lifetime, America has been constantly waging war against much of humanity: impoverished people mostly, in stricken places. John Pilger, 2001
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck by the difference between what things are and what they might have been. William Hazlitt
Timon: What wouldst thou do with the world, Apemantus, if it lay in thy power?
Apemantus: Give it to the beasts, to be rid of the men. William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens IV iii
The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the extremity of both ends. ibid. IV iii 302-303, Apemantus
How wonder. How many goodly creatures are there here? How beauteous mankind is. Oh brave new world that has such people in ’t! The Tempest 2010 starring Helen Mirren & Felicity Jones & Chris Cooper & Russell Brand & Reeve Carney & Tom Conti & Alan Cumming & Dimon Hounsou & Alfred Molina & Ben Whishaw et al, director Julie Taymor, Miranda
In humans the brain has taken over in such a big way that it becomes positively misleading to try to explain human behaviour in a simple-minded naive vehicle for the genes ... What governs how humans behave is an extremely complicated mixture of our genetically provided brains overlain by a massive infusion of culture. Professor Richard Dawkins
We are apes. We are African apes. Richard Dawkins, lecture Adelaide Festival 2010
The twentieth century, according to Sigmund Freud, would see man’s capacity for both destruction and technology bring us closer to extinction. As his prophecy came close to reality a new breed of thinker emerged who would try to steer humanity away from disaster. Great Thinkers: In Their Own Words 1/3: Human, All Too Human, 2011
Another thinker would go on to find wickedness not in the individual but in the very structure of society. Stanley Milgram was born in New York to Jewish parents ... He began to ask unprecedented questions about the human capacity for cruelty. ibid.
A group of thinkers came on to the scene who believed that society could be cured and that human behaviour could be improved. One of these was anthropologist Margaret Mead. ibid.
In the latter part of the twentieth century a group of British thinkers would emerge who would offer radical new ideas about what makes humans tick. These thinkers would take their cues not from humans but from animals. Enter Desmond Morris who started his career as a zoologist. ibid.
This is where a century of enquiry into human behaviour fought out on the airwaves has brought us. We are undoubtedly products of our biology, and the potential for human failing will always be there. But that doesn’t mean we’re slaves to our nature. The sophistication of the human brain and the ways in which we live together have given us the power to recognise and master our worst impulses. This after all is what being human is all about. ibid.
We shall have to share out the fruits of technology among the whole of mankind. The notion that the direct and immediate producers of the fruits of technology have a proprietary right to these fruits will have to be forgotten. After all, who is the producer? Man is a social animal, and the immediate producer has been helped to produce by the whole structure of society, beginning with his own education. Arnold J Toynbee, Surviving the Future, 1971
There are times when one would like to hang the whole of the human race and finish the farce. Mark Twain
What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey. Mark Twain
I reject the idea that humans are superior to other life-forms ... Man is just an ape with an overly developed sense of superiority. Paul Watson, director of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and a founder of Greenpeace
The tragedy, the true catastrophe, is that humanity continues. Louis Wolfson
I am convinced all of humanity is born with more gifts than we know. Most are born geniuses and just get de-geniused rapidly. Richard Buckminster Fuller
Respect us, human, and relieve us, poor. Homer, The Odyssey IX i 33
There is nothing on Earth divine except humanity. Walter S Landor
Humanity is the sin of God. Theodore Parker
Who are we? We are the product of our genes and our environment. Billions of neuro chemical reactions firing every single second of our lives. In us reason and emotion are frequently at war. Thoughts, passions, memories, behaviour emerge unbidden out of the depths. Brain scans reveal many parts of the brain operation outside our conscious awareness. Michael Mosley, The Story of Science: Power, Proof and Passion, BBC 2010
Love, hope, fear, faith – these make humanity. These are its signs and notes and character. Robert Browning, Paracelsus scene 3
I cannot accept that we are nothing but thinking primates. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, v Christopher Hitchens, debate New York 30th January 2008
On the Indonesian island of Flores archaeologists recently uncovered parts of several small skeletons. Scientists are still debating whether the bones are proof that a new species of miniature human beings once lived on the island. Unexplained Mysteries
According to legend these people stood less than two feet high. For centuries few believed that these little people actually existed. But all of that changed in 1932 when two prospectors Cecil Mayne and Frank Carr explored a cave in Wyoming’s Pedro mountains. On a small ledge they found a figure just six inches high mummified in a sitting position. ibid.
What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dreamworld built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this [holds battery]. The Matrix 1999 starring Keanu Reeves & Laurence Fishburne & Carrie-Anne Moss & Hugo Weaving & Joe Pantoliano & Gloria Foster & Marcus Chong & Julian Arahanga & Matt Doran & Belinda McClory et al, directors Andy & Lana Wachowski, Morpheus
Never send a human to do a machine’s job. ibid. man in black
A virus. Human beings are a disease. A cancer of this planet. You are a plague. ibid.
There was a time when we shared this planet with other, very different types of human. By the time our ancestors left Africa 100,000 years ago most of these others had gone extinct. But not all. Other species have made the journey out of Africa before us. Planet of the Apemen: Battle for Earth I BBC 2011
For thousands of years [Homo] erectus had been one of Asia’s most successful predators. The arrival of modern humans would have threatened their world. ibid.
The first humans species to walk fully upright, [Homo] erectus would have made formidable opponents. ibid.
There is no evidence homo erectus made spears ... Their palms faced forwards. ibid.