This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view) consists of its attitudes towards those who are at its mercy." - Milan Kundera
"Altruists have a particular perspective in which all mankind is connected through a common humanity, in which each individual is linked to all others and to a world in which all living beings are entitled to a certain humane treatment merely by virtue of being alive." - Kristen Renwick Monroe
"Unless man is committed to the belief that all of mankind are his brothers, then he labors in vain and hypocritically in the vineyards of equality." - Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
"Unless man is committed to the belief that all mankind are his brothers, then he labors in vain and hypocritically in the vineyards of equality." - Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
"What institution of government could tend so much to promote the happiness of mankind as the general prevalence of wisdom and virtue? All government is but an imperfect remedy for the deficiency of these." - Adam Smith
"With the unlocking of the atom, mankind crossed one of the great watersheds of history. We have entered uncharted lands. The maps of strategy and diplomacy by which we guided ourselves until yesterday no longer reveal the way. Fusion and fission revolutionized the entire foundation of human affairs." - Adlai Ewing Stevenson
"With the unlocking of the atom, mankind crossed one of the great watersheds of history. We have entered uncharted lands. The maps of strategy and diplomacy by which we guided ourselves until yesterday no longer reveal the way. Fusion and fission revolutionized the entire foundation of human affairs." -
"With the unlocking of the atom, mankind crossed one of the great watersheds of history. We have entered uncharted lands. The maps of strategy and diplomacy by which we guided ourselves until yesterday no longer reveal the way. Fusion and fission revolutionized the entire foundation of human affairs." -
"The salvation of mankind lies only in making everything the concern of all." - Alexander Solzhenitsyn, fully Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
"The amelioration of the condition of mankind, and the increase of human happiness ought to be the leading objects of every political institution, and the aim of every individual, according to the measure of his power, in the situation he occupies." - Alexander Hamilton
"There is a law that man should love his neighbor as himself. In a few hundred years it should be as natural to mankind as breathing or the upright gait; but if he does not learn it he must perish." - Alfred Adler
"The foundation of all understanding... is that no static maintenance of perfection is possible. This axiom is rooted in the nature of things. Advance or Decadence are the only choices offered to mankind. The pure conservative is fighting against the essence of the universe." - Alfred North Whitehead
"Periods of tranquility are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up." - Alfred North Whitehead
"When we consider what religion is for mankind, and what science is, it is no exaggeration to say that the future course of history depends upon the decision of this generation as to the relations between them." - Alfred North Whitehead
"Truth is inclusive of all the virtues, is older than sects and schools, and, like charity, more ancient than mankind." - Amos Bronson Alcott
"Mankind I know not; I know men. Not freedom, but free men. Not happiness, but happy men. Not beauty, but beautiful things. Not God, but the pure flame of tapers. Those who bend their minds on definitions otherwise than as wellsprings of significance, prove but the void of their hearts, and their own inanity. And they will neither live nor die, for men do not live or die by words." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth." - Aristotle NULL
"The avarice of mankind is insatiable... it is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it." - Aristotle NULL
"Every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good; for mankind always act in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good." - Aristotle NULL
"It is not possessions but the desires of mankind which require to be equalized." - Aristotle NULL
"It is not the possessions but the desires of mankind which require to be equalized." - Aristotle NULL
"If mankind cannot now bring itself at last to live as one family, the penalty, in our new situation, must be genocide sooner or later." - Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
"In an age in which mankind’s collective power has suddenly been increased, for good or evil, a thousandfold through the tapping of atomic energy, the standard of conduct demanded from ordinary human beings can be no lower than the standard in times past by rare saints." - Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
"In an age in which mankind’s collective power has suddenly been increased, for good or evil, a thousand-fold through the tapping of atomic energy, the standard of conduct demanded from ordinary human beings can be no lower than the standard attained in times past by rare saints." - Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
"One man is more concerned with the impression he makes on the rest of mankind, another with the impression the rest of mankind makes on him. The disposition of the first is subjective, of the second objective. The one is, in the whole of his existence, more in the nature of an idea which is merely presented, the other more of the being who presents it." - Arthur Schopenhauer
"To the man who studies to gain a thorough insight into science, books and study are merely the steps of the ladder by which he climbs to the summit; as soon as a step has been advanced he leaves it behind. The majority of mankind, however, who study to fill their memory with facts do not use the steps of the ladder to mount upward, but take them off and lay them on their shoulders in order that they may take them along, delighting in the weight of the burden they are carrying. They ever remain below because they carry what should carry them." - Arthur Schopenhauer
"Love is the doorway thru which the human soul passes from selfishness to service and from solitude to kinship with all mankind." - Author Unknown NULL
"Knowledge of mankind is knowledge of their passions." - Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
"A man can know nothing of mankind without knowing something of himself. Self-knowledge is the property of that man whose passions have their full play, but who ponders over their results." - Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
"Life is so mysterious. People are in misery, and they don’t know how to get out, get help or free themselves. Life is total freedom, but we’re trapped in our own civilization, culture, religion, teachings. We’re equipped with fear, ignorance, unhappiness. Desire is the big evil, the big temptation. Many people carry on in life without knowing this. We do so much for our bodies but not for our souls. Pay attention to yourself, monitor your thinking and capture the villains within. Know what it is in you that would make people suffer more, make people suffer less. Know this and you know how to use your thinking and abilities to bring peace. Certain people have certain duties, a talent. The meaning of life is to see this mission, fulfill it and make the maximum use of your life and your benefit and mankind’s." - Bernie S. Siegel
"Men sometimes speak as though the progress of science must necessarily be a boon to mankind, but that, I fear, is one of the comfortable nineteenth century delusions which our more disillusioned age must discard." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"Boredom is ... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"If life is to be fully human it must serve some end which seems, in some sense, outside human life, some end which is impersonal and above mankind, such as God or truth or beauty. Those who promote life do not have life for their purpose. They aim rather at what seems like a gradual incarnation, a bringing into our human existence of something eternal, something that appears to imagination to live in a heaven remote from strife and failure and the devouring jaws of Time." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"Perhaps the best hope for the future of mankind is that ways will be found of increasing the scope and intensity of sympathy." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"To eternity itself there is no other handle than the present moment. Let any man examine his thoughts and he will find them ever occupied with the past or the future. We scarcely think at all of the present; or if we do, it is only to borrow the light which it gives for regulating the future. The present is never our object; the past and the present we use as means; the future only is our end. Thus, we never live, we only hope to live; and always hoping to be happy, it is inevitable that we will never be so. All the miseries of mankind come from one thing, not knowing how to remain alone." - Blaise Pascal
"By paying our other debts, we are equal with all mankind; but in refusing to pay a debt of revenge, we are superior." - Charles Caleb Colton
"In the age of acorns, a single barleycorn had been of more value to mankind than all the diamonds in the mines of India." - Charles Caleb Colton
"Who are they that would have all mankind look backward instead of forward, and regulate their conduct by things that have been done? Those who are most ignorant as to all things that are doing. Bacon said, time is the greatest of innovators; he might also have said the greatest of improvers." - Charles Caleb Colton
"In death, there are no rulers above and no subjects below. The course of the four seasons is unknown; our life is eternal. Even a king among men can experience no greater happiness than is ours… If I could restore your body to you, renew your bones and your flesh and take you back to your parents, your wife, and children and old friends, would you not gladly accept my offers?… Why should I throw away a happiness greater than a king’s to once again thrust myself into the troubles and anxieties of mankind?" - Chuang Tzu, also spelled Chuang-tsze, Chuang Chou, Zhuangzi, Zhuang Tze, Zhuang Zhou, Chuang Tsu, Chouang-Dsi, Chuang Tse, or Chuangtze
"World government is necessary for the world... World government must be understood in the sense that it governs mankind on the basis of what all have in common and that by a common law it leads all toward peace." - Dante, full name Durante degli Alighieri, aka Dante Alighieri NULL
"Few things are needful to make the wise man happy, but nothing satisfies the fool; and this is the reason why so many of mankind are miserable." - François de La Rochefoucauld, François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac, Francois A. F. Rochefoucauld-Liancourt