100 Mankind Quotes

In a world that constantly evolves and shifts, the timeless wisdom of humanity often provides the most profound insights. Whether you're seeking inspiration, contemplation, or a deeper understanding of the human experience, quotes from notable figures can offer a guiding light. We've meticulously curated a collection of the top 100 mankind quotes, sourced from philosophers, writers, leaders, and thinkers throughout history. These words capture the essence of the human spirit, touching on themes of love, resilience, compassion, and the quest for knowledge. Let's embark on this journey through the echoes of time and wisdom, discovering the thoughts that have shaped and continue to influence our collective human journey.

1. “I love mankind ... it's people I can't stand!!” - Charles M. Schulz

2. “Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.” - Albert Camus

3. “What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey.” - Mark Twain

4. “Soft as the earth is mankind and both need to be altered.” - W. H. Auden

5. “God is silent. Now if only man would shut up.” - Woody Allen

6. “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” - Dalai Lama XIV

7. “The Fourteenth Book is entitled, "What can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?" It doesn't take long to read The Fourteenth Book. It consists of one word and a period. This is it: "Nothing.” - Kurt Vonnegut

8. “People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

9. “It is naturally given to all men to esteem their own inventions best.” - Sir Thomas More

10. “To me, history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me, it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is."[The Title Always Comes Last; NEH 2003 Jefferson Lecturer interview profile]” - David McCullough

11. “If mankind's greatest achievement is to produce more spaces for mankind to live in, I do not think I am so impressed.” - Sharon Shinn

12. “Humans see what they want to see.” - Rick Riordan

13. “It sounds like a fairy-tale, but not only that; this story of what man by his science and practical inventions has achieved on this earth, where he first appeared as a weakly member of the animal kingdom, and on which each individual of his species must ever again appear as a helpless infant... is a direct fulfilment of all, or of most, of the dearest wishes in his fairy-tales. All these possessions he has acquired through culture. Long ago he formed an ideal conception of omnipotence and omniscience which he embodied in his gods. Whatever seemed unattainable to his desires - or forbidden to him - he attributed to these gods. One may say, therefore, that these gods were the ideals of his culture. Now he has himself approached very near to realizing this ideal, he has nearly become a god himself. But only, it is true, in the way that ideals are usually realized in the general experience of humanity. Not completely; in some respects not at all, in others only by halves. Man has become a god by means of artificial limbs, so to speak, quite magnificent when equipped with all his accessory organs; but they do not grow on him and they still give him trouble at times... Future ages will produce further great advances in this realm of culture, probably inconceivable now, and will increase man's likeness to a god still more.” - Sigmund Freud

14. “It was the general opinion of ancient nations, that the divinity alone was adequate to the important office of giving laws to men... and modern nations, in the consecrations of kings, and in several superstitious chimeras of divine rights in princes and nobles, are nearly unanimous in preserving remnants of it... Is the jealousy of power, and the envy of superiority, so strong in all men, that no considerations of public or private utility are sufficient to engage their submission to rules for their own happiness? Or is the disposition to imposture so prevalent in men of experience, that their private views of ambition and avarice can be accomplished only by artifice? — … There is nothing in which mankind have been more unanimous; yet nothing can be inferred from it more than this, that the multitude have always been credulous, and the few artful. The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature: and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven, any more than those at work upon ships or houses, or labouring in merchandize or agriculture: it will for ever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. As Copley painted Chatham, West, Wolf, and Trumbull, Warren and Montgomery; as Dwight, Barlow, Trumbull, and Humphries composed their verse, and Belknap and Ramzay history; as Godfrey invented his quadrant, and Rittenhouse his planetarium; as Boylston practised inoculation, and Franklin electricity; as Paine exposed the mistakes of Raynal, and Jefferson those of Buffon, so unphilosophically borrowed from the Recherches Philosophiques sur les Américains those despicable dreams of de Pauw — neither the people, nor their conventions, committees, or sub-committees, considered legislation in any other light than ordinary arts and sciences, only as of more importance. Called without expectation, and compelled without previous inclination, though undoubtedly at the best period of time both for England and America, to erect suddenly new systems of laws for their future government, they adopted the method of a wise architect, in erecting a new palace for the residence of his sovereign. They determined to consult Vitruvius, Palladio, and all other writers of reputation in the art; to examine the most celebrated buildings, whether they remain entire or in ruins; compare these with the principles of writers; and enquire how far both the theories and models were founded in nature, or created by fancy: and, when this should be done, as far as their circumstances would allow, to adopt the advantages, and reject the inconveniences, of all. Unembarrassed by attachments to noble families, hereditary lines and successions, or any considerations of royal blood, even the pious mystery of holy oil had no more influence than that other of holy water: the people universally were too enlightened to be imposed on by artifice; and their leaders, or more properly followers, were men of too much honour to attempt it. Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind.[Preface to 'A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States of America', 1787]” - John Adams

15. “Nothing can illustrate these observations more forcibly, than a recollection of the happy conjuncture of times and circumstances, under which our Republic assumed its rank among the Nations; The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period, the researches of the human mind, after social happiness, have been carried to a great extent, the Treasures of knowledge, acquired by the labours of Philosophers, Sages and Legislatures, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the Establishment of our forms of Government; the free cultivation of Letters, the unbounded extension of Commerce, the progressive refinement of Manners, the growing liberality of sentiment... have had a meliorating influence on mankind and increased the blessings of Society. At this auspicious period, the United States came into existence as a Nation, and if their Citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be entirely their own.[Circular to the States, 8 June 1783 - Writings 26:484--89]” - George Washington

16. “There are such repulsive faces in the world.” - Leo Tolstoy

17. “Shall we their fond pageant see?Lord, what fools these mortals be!” - William Shakespeare

18. “Quanto mais gosto da humanidade em geral, menos aprecio as pessoas em particular, como indivíduos.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky

19. “A man's worth isn't measured by a bank register or diploma... It's about integrity” - Richard Paul Evans

20. “Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems” - Epictetus

21. “It is strange that people train themselves so carefully to go to waste so prematurely” - Robert Aickman

22. “(He) mourned mankind, and the blindness of men, who thought that the Kosmos had rules and limits that would shelter them from their own freedom. There were no shelters. There were no final purposes. Futility, and freedom, were Absolute” - Bruce Sterling

23. “A modern man registers a hundred times more sensory impressions than an eighteenth-century artist” - Fernand Leger

24. “Art – the one achievement of man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised” - James Thurber

25. “Religion is still useful among the herd - that it helps their orderly conduct as nothing else could. The crude human animal is in-eradicably superstitious, and there is every biological reason why they should be. Take away his Christian god and saints, and he will worship something else...” - H.P. Lovecraft

26. “Humans beings always do the most intelligent thing…after they’ve tried every stupid alternative and none of them have worked” - Richard Buckminster Fuller

27. “Stupidity is like bumping into a wall all the time. After a while you get tired of it and try to look the situation over and see if there’s a doorway somewhere. I think most people eventually do look for the doorway and stop bumping into the wall” - Robert Anton Wilson

28. “There is only one class of men, the privileged class.” - Albert Camus

29. “Not one little fellow need fear that he will be forbidden to pluck his shining grape from the cluster of political Power, that fruit reputed to be so full of wealth and glory. Can’t every gang become a club? and every club an assembly? an assembly, a convention? a convention, a senate? and isn’t a senate meant to rule? And what senate ever ruled without a man to rule it? And what did it all require? – Daring! – Aha! Well said! – What! is that all it takes? – Yes, all! The ones who have arrived say so. – Then courage, numskulls, give tongue and run for it! – That’s how it’s done” - Alfred de Vigny

30. “And the great question for mankind is what is to be loved or hated next, whenever and old love or fear has lost its hold.” - Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

31. “Everything is boring, boredom is the other epidemic which is making Europe ripe for decline. Boredom is the end product of each and every civilization. It is the arteriosclerosis of the great thinking peoples. The moment always arrives where even God, whether he’s called Zeus, Zebaoth or Zoroaster, has finished creating the universe and asks: “What’s the point of it, actually?” He yawns and chucks it aside. Mankind does the same with civilization. Boredom is the condition of a people which no longer believes but all the same is doing just fine. Boredom is when every clock in the country is predestined to be correct. When the same naive flowers blossom again in the month of March. When every day the deaths of good family fathers are announced in the papers. When a war breaks out in the Balkans. When poems go on about the stars. Boredom is a symptom of aging. Boredom is the diagnosis that talent and virtue are slowly being spent. Boredom is the life-long determination to a form of being which has worn itself out.” - Iwan Goll

32. “From time to time, I open a newspaper. Things seem to be proceeding at a dizzying rate. We are dancing not on the edge of a volcano, but on the wooden seat of a latrine, and it seems to me more than a touch rotten. Soon society will go plummeting down and drown in nineteen centuries of shit. There’ll be quite a lot of shouting. (1850)” - Gustave Flaubert

33. “If a man makes me keep my distance, the comfort is, he keeps his at the same time.” - Jonathan Swift

34. “To feel our character, our personality, and our personal, hard-won history fade from being is to be exposed to whatever lies beneath these comforting, operational conveniences. What remains when the conscious and functioning self has been erased is mankind's fundamental condition – irrational, violent, guilt-wracked, despairing, and mad.” - Peter Straub

35. “In olden days people were worse than us but knew much more than us.” - Vladimir Odoevsky

36. “Some actions are even baser than the people who commit them.” - Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

37. “The human race tends to remember the abuses to which it has been subjected rather than the endearments. What's left of kisses? Wounds, however, leave scars.” - Bertolt Brecht

38. “Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a portion of mankind, after nature has long since discharged them from external direction (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless remains under lifelong tutelage, and why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so easy not to be of age. If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my diet, and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think, if I can only pay - others will easily undertake the irksome work for me.That the step to competence is held to be very dangerous by the far greater portion of mankind...” - Immanuel Kant

39. “We all are men, in our own natures frail, and capable of our flesh; few are angels.” - William Shakespeare

40. “In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill will to any human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their fellow men, not knowing what they do.” - John Quincy Adams

41. “All you have to do [to win a Pulitzer Prize] is spend your life running from one awful place to another, write about every horrible thing you see. The civilized world reads about it, then forgets it, but pats you on the head for doing it and gives you a reward as appreciation for changing nothing.” - David Baldacci

42. “Supernatural is a dangerous and difficult word in any of its senses, looser or stricter. But to fairies it can hardly be applied, unless super is taken merely as a superlative prefix. For it is man who is, in contrast to fairies, supernatural; whereas they are natural, far more natural than he. Such is their doom.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

43. “Ah! I wish I had the courage to work for the debasement of my contemporaries. What good work it would be to defile their daughters: to insinuate something obscene into the infantile hands which caress each paternal beard and cheek; to poison them, even at the risk of perishing ourselves; to do as those Spanish monks did, who drank death in order that they might persuade the French rabble which had violated their monastery to do likewise.” - Remy De Gourmont

44. “Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex.” - Barbara W. Tuchman

45. “Once upon a time in the land of Shinar, God came down to see the city and the tower. People were united and spoke in one language. Then God confound their language and caused them scattered all over the planet earth. I believe, because of our technology, there will be one computer-based language on earth. Then God will come back again and make us all scattered all over the stars constellation.” - Toba Beta

46. “The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” - Jack London

47. “Incurable diseases will eventually force mankind to justify disruptive nanotech and genetic engineering.” - Toba Beta [Betelgeuse Incident]

48. “Music is a mixed mathematical science that concerns the origens, attributes, and distinctions of sound, out of which a cultivated and lovely melody and harmony are made, so that God is honored and praised but mankind is moved to devotion, virtue, joy, and sorrow.” - Christoph Wolff

49. “He blinked at the sun and dreamt that perhaps he might snare it and spare it as it went down to its resting place amidst the distant hills.” - H.G. Wells

50. “To renounce freedom is to renounce one's humanity, one's rights as a man and equally one's duties.” - Jean Jacques Rousseau

51. “Prehistory of mankind is way too horrible to be remembered.But if we choose to ignore it, then we'll be doomed to repeat it.” - Toba Beta

52. “Man, do not pride yourself on your superiority to the animals, for they are without sin, while you, with all your greatness, you defile the earth wherever you appear and leave an ignoble trail behind you -- and that is true, alas, for almost every one of us!” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

53. “In a reality known as the garden of beautiful eden, Adam is dreaming about his sinful children on earth.He is struggling to wake up from a terrible nightmare.” - Toba Beta

54. “The devil’s agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not?” - Arthur Conan Doyle

55. “Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it."[Q&A with Larry McCaffery, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Summer 1993, Vol. 13.2]” - David Foster Wallace

56. “Your ego is everything man about yourself” - Jeremy Aldana

57. “Aku kira dan bagiku itulah kesadaran sejarah. Sadar akan hidup dan kesia-siaan nilai.” - Soe Hok Gie

58. “Tension, in the long run, is a more dangerous force than any feud known to man.” - Criss Jami

59. “The only problem with her is that she is too perfect. She is bad in a way that entices, and good in a way that comforts. She is mischief but then she is the warmth of home. The dreams of the wild and dangerous but the memories of childhood and gladness. She is perfection. And when given something perfect, it is the nature of man to dedicate his mind to finding something wrong with it and then when he is able to find something wrong with it, he rejoices in his find, and sees only the flaw, becoming blind to everything else! And this is why man is never given anything that is perfect, because when given the imperfect and the ugly, man will dedicate his mind to finding what is good with the imperfect and upon finding one thing good with the extremely flawed, he will only see the one thing good, and no longer see everything that is ugly. And so....man complains to God for having less than what he wants... but this is the only thing that man can handle. Man cannot handle what is perfect. It is the nature of the mortal to rejoice over the one thing that he can proudly say that he found on his own, with no help from another, whether it be a shadow in a perfect diamond, or a faint beautiful reflection in an extremely dull mirror.” - C. JoyBell C.

60. “Heaven is always there for us; but this life... this life is a gift to us.” - C. JoyBell C.

61. “Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.” - Stanisław Lem

62. “So one must be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox...” - Stanisław Lem

63. “What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?''I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is.” - Stanisław Lem

64. “I find it odd- the greed of mankind. People only like you for as long as they perceive they can get what they want from you. Or for as long as they perceive you are who they want you to be. But I like people for all of their changing surprises, the thoughts in their heads, the warmth that changes to cold and the cold that changes to warmth... for being human. The rawness of being human delights me.” - C. JoyBell C.

65. “Apalah yang bisa pasti dari perasaan manusia?” - Seno Gumira Ajidarma

66. “I condemn equally those who choose to praise man, those who choose to condemn him and those who choose to divert themselves, and I can only approve of those who seek with groans.” - Blaise Pascal

67. “We run to place and power over the dead bodies of those who fail and fall; ay, we win the food we eat from out the mouths of starving babes.” - H. Rider Haggard

68. “And what, O Queen, are those things that are dear to a man? Are they not bubbles? Is not ambition but an endless ladder by which no height is ever climbed till the last unreachable rung is mounted? For height leads on to height, and there is not resting-place among them, and rung doth grow upon rung, and there is no limit to the number.” - H. Rider Haggard

69. “Strange are the pictures of the future that mankind can thus draw with this brush of faith and these many-coloured pigments of the imagination! Strange, too, that no one of them tallies with another!” - H. Rider Haggard

70. “Aprender acerca del presente a la luz del pasado quiere también decir aprender del pasado a la luz del presente. La función de la historia es la de estimular una mas profunda comprensión tanto del pasado como del presente por su comparación recíproca.” - Edward Hallett Carr

71. “‎Using his burgeoning intelligence, this most successful of all mammals has exploited the environment to produce food for an ever increasing population. Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it's time we controlled the population to allow the survival of the environment.” - David Attenborough

72. “He had been dazzled. Because of the dazzling brightness, he had had to kill [Seigen]. All who had encountered Seigen had had their hearts stolen by that brightness. That envy had turned to malice.” - Takayuki Yamaguchi

73. “God knows I tried my best to learn the ways of this world, even had inklings we could be glorious; but after all that's happened, the inkles ain't easy anymore. I mean - what kind of fucken life is this?” - D.B.C. Pierre

74. “There is no unmoving mover behind the movement. It is only movement. It is not correct to say that life is moving, but life is movement itself. Life and movement are not two different things. In other words, there is no thinker behind the thought. Thought itself is the thinker. If you remove the thought, there is no thinker to be found.” - Walpola Rahula

75. “[T]he concern of man is not his future but his present, not the world but his soul. We must be just, we must strive, we must engage ourselves with the business of the world for our own sake, because through that, and through contemplation in equal measure, our soul is purified and brought closer to the divine. ... Thought and deed conjoined are crucial. ... The attempt must be made; the outcome is irrelevant. Right action is a pale material reflection of the divine, but reflection it is, nonetheless. Define your goal and exert reason to accomplish it by virtuous action; successs or failure is secondary.” - Iain Pears

76. “Action is the activity of the rational soul, which abhors irrationality and must combat it or be corrupted by it. When it sees the irrationality of others, it must seek to correct it, and can do this either by teaching or engaging in public affairs itself, correcting through its practice. And the purpose of action is to enable philosophy to continue, for if men are reduced to the material alone, they become no more than beasts.” - Iain Pears

77. “[Pope] Clement waved his hands in irritation as if to dismiss the very idea. "The world is crumbling into ruin. Armies are marching. Men and women are dying everywhere, in huge numbers. Fields are abandoned and towns deserted. The wrath of the Lord is upon us and He may be intending to destroy the whole of creation. People are without leaders and direction. They want to be given a reason for this, so they can be reassured, so they will return to their prayers and their obiediences. All this is going on, and you are concerned about the safety of two Jews?” - Iain Pears

78. “I am a siren, and for my adoration of mankind, have been caught in fishing nets one time too many. And in those fishing nets I have learned too many unfavorable things about human intentions and the lack of trust and goodwill; I'm not going to allow myself to be caught, anymore. Sirens do well at singing the sirens' song and dragging vile people to their deaths, and for good reason!” - C. JoyBell C.

79. “She has man's brain--a brain that a man should have were he much gifted--and woman's heart. The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me when He made that so good combination.” - Bram Stoker

80. “Our toil must be in silence, and our efforts all in secret; for this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength.” - Bram Stoker

81. “Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing, sooner than war.” - Homer

82. “Well people are just one species too, aren't they. And it's never stopped them fighting with each other; all the same species and think of all the excuses for war they've used! It hasn't had to be about space to live in, it's been about power, prestige, influence, fame, resources and I don't know what else!” - Karel Čapek

83. “You will find that reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does; but that passions and weaknesses commonly usurp its seat, and rule in its stead.” - Philip Dormer Stanhope

84. “Is this, Miriam wonders, what they call the march of history? And even if she doesn't fully understand, it doesn't mean she can't appreciate the need, the periodic need for some people to resort to gasoline, rags, and matches. Doesn't it always come to this? Isn't history as much about tearing things down as it is about building things up?” - Peter Orner

85. “When we're in the story, when we're part of it, we can't know the outcome. It's only later that we think we can see what the story was. But do we ever really know? And does anybody else, perhaps, coming along a little later, does anybody else really care? ... History is written by the survivors, but what is that history? That's the point I was trying to make just now. We don't know what the story is when we're in it, and even after we tell it we're not sure. Because the story doesn't end.” - James Robertson

86. “I feared my own kind more than anything the natural world could ever threaten me with.” - Robin Hobb

87. “..the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.” - Yann Martel

88. “...onde está ou tenha estado um homem é preciso que esteja ou tenha estado toda a humanidade.” - Miguel Torga

89. “If mankind's destined to bite the bullet, let's bite it and be damned.” - Darren Shan

90. “Dabei wissen wir doch:Auch der Hass gegen die NiedrigkeitVerzerrt die Züge.Auch der Zorn über das UnrechtMacht die Stimme heiser. Ach, wirDie wir den Boden bereiten wollten für FreundlichkeitKonnten selber nicht freundlich sein.” - Bertolt Brecht

91. “Judged against eternity, how little of what agitates us makes any difference.” - Alain De Botton

92. “Living in a bookshop is like living in a warehouse of explosives. Those shelves are ranked with the most furious combustibles in the world--the brains of men.” - Christopher Morley

93. “Take these things to heart, my son, I warn you.All men make mistakes, it is only human.But once the wrong is done, a mancan turn his back on folly, misfortune too,if he tries to make amends, however low he's fallen,and stops his bullnecked ways. Stubbornnessbrands you for stupidity - pride is a crime.” - Sophocles

94. “What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world-and defines himself afterward.” - Jean-Paul Sartre

95. “Animals shouldn’t be hunted and nature shouldn’t be disturbed, even destroyed, to benefit the whims of mankind” - Charles Manson

96. “If one is searching for the cause of brutality in mankind, it would do well to remember that civilization is a great and vast machine.” - Christopher Dutton

97. “The fatal error of much science fiction has been to subscribe to an optimism based on the idea that revolution, or a new gimmick, or a bunch of strong men, or an invasion of aliens, or the conquest of other planets, or the annihilation of half the world--in short, pretty nearly anything but the facing up to the integral and irredeemable nature of mankind--can bring about utopian situations. It is the old error of the externalization of evil.” - Brian Aldiss

98. “MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.” - Ambrose Bierce

99. “Such is the pure movement of nature prior to all reflection. Such is the force of natural pity, which the most depraved mores still have difficulty destroying, since everyday one sees in our theaters someone affected and weeping at the ills of some unfortunate person, and who, were he in the tyrant's place, would intensify the torments of his enemy still more; [like the bloodthirsty Sulla, so sensitive to ills he had not caused, or like Alexander of Pherae, who did not dare attend the performance of any tragedy, for fear of being seen weeping with Andromache and Priam, and yet who listened impassively to the cries of so many citizens who were killed everyday on his orders. Nature, in giving men tears, bears witness that she gave the human race the softest hearts.] Mandeville has a clear awareness that, with all their mores, men would never have been anything but monsters, if nature had not given them pity to aid their reason; but he has not seen that from this quality alone flow all the social virtues that he wants to deny in men. In fact, what are generosity, mercy, and humanity, if not pity applied to the weak, to the guilty, or to the human species in general. Benevolence and even friendship are, properly understood, the products of a constant pity fixed on a particular object; for is desiring that someone not suffer anything but desiring that he be happy?” - Jean Jacques Rousseau

100. “Man was big enough to kill himself, thanks. No gods need apply.” - Scott Morse