This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Whatever you do in life, do with love! We have no alternative save to act from motives of hate - yet how doleful to make this our choice! For hate is the destroyer of life, where love is its guardian. Hate blinds our vision and warps our talents; but love releases our energies for the creative action that sustains mankind. while all human behavior springs from a mixture of both these great forces of nature, it is within our power to determine which shall prevail as we journey through life... We must tip the balance ever in favor of love if we wish to hurdle the obstacles before us on the road to normal happiness and success." - Smiley Blanton
"Nine-tenths of the miseries and vices of mankind proceed from idleness." - Thomas Carlyle
"No country can find eternal peace and comfort where the vote of Judas Iscariot is as good as the vote of the Saviour of mankind." - Thomas Carlyle
"Work is the grand cure for all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind." - Thomas Carlyle
"Thou must content thyself to see the world imperfect as it is. Thou wilt never have any quiet if thou vexest thyself because thou canst not bring mankind to that exact notion of things and rule of life which thou hast formed in thy own mind." - Thomas Fuller
"The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all the other woes fo mankind, is wisdom. Teach a man to read and write, and yo have put into his hands the great keys of the wisdom box. But it is quite another matter whether he ever opens the box or not." - Thomas Henry Huxley, aka T.H. Huxley and Darwin's Bulldog
"There is no alleviation for the sufferings of mankind except veracity of thought and of action, and the resolute facing of the world as it is when the garment of make-believe by which pious hands have hidden its uglier features is stripped off.." - Thomas Henry Huxley, aka T.H. Huxley and Darwin's Bulldog
"For the aims of my own career, I want to promote the increase of natural knowledge, and to forward the application of scientific methods of investigation to all the problems of life, in the conviction that there is no alleviation for the sufferings of mankind except veracity of thought and action, and the resolute facing of the world as it is, when the garment of make-believe is stripped off." - Thomas Henry Huxley, aka T.H. Huxley and Darwin's Bulldog
"The question of questions for mankind - the problem which underlies all others, and is more deeply interesting than any other - is the ascertainment of the placed which man occupies in nature and of his relations to the universe of things. Whence our race has come; what are the limits of our power over nature, and of nature’s power over us; to what goal we are tending; are the problems which present themselves anew and with undiminished interest to every man born into the world." - Thomas Henry Huxley, aka T.H. Huxley and Darwin's Bulldog
"The plague of mankind is the fear and rejection of diversity: monotheism, monarchy, monogamy and, in our age, mono-medicine. The belief that there is only one right way to live only one right way to regulate religious, political, sexual, medical affairs is the root cause of the greatest threat to man: members of his own species, bent on ensuring his salvation, security, and sanity." - Thomas Szasz, fully Thomas Stephen Szasz
"What we seek is the reign of law, based upon the consent of the governed and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
"No man is a true Christian who does not think constantly of how he can lift his brother, how he can assist his friend, how he can enlighten mankind, how he can make virtue the rule of conduct in the circle in which he lives." - Woodrow Wilson, fully Thomas Woodrow Wilson
"Mankind apparently find it easier to drive away adversity than to retain prosperity." - Thucydides NULL
"The most valuable thing you can ever own is your image of yourself as a winner in the great game of life, as a contributor to the betterment of mankind, as an achiever of worthy goals. Unless you have that image of yourself, nothing worth having will stay with you for long." - Tom Hopkins
"Self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles that provision for the perpetuity of mankind; it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, but we must conceal it." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
"Philosopher, lover of wisdom, that is to say, of truth. All philosophers have had this dual character; there is not one in antiquity who has not given mankind examples of virtue and lessons in moral truths. They have all contrived to be deceived about natural philosophy; but natural philosophy is so little necessary for the conduct of life, that the philosophers had no need of it. It has taken centuries to learn a part of nature’s laws. One day was sufficient for a wise man to learn the duties of man." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
"The sentiment of justice is so natural, and so universally acquired by all mankind, that is seems to be independent of all law, all party, all religion." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
"When man was placed in the garden of Eden, he was placed there... to cultivate it; which proves that mankind are not created to be idle." - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
"The individual succumbs, but they do not die if they have left something to mankind." - Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
"Mankind are so ready to bestow their admiration on the dead, because the latter do not hear it, or because it gives no pleasure to the objects of it. Even fame is the offspring of envy." - William Hazlitt
"To think ill of mankind, and not to wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue." - William Hazlitt
"The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance." - William Shakespeare
"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." - Woody Allen, formally Heywood "Woody" Allen, born Allan Stewart Konigsberg
"Any development of knowledge of the rules of nature which may help to give greater command of the powers of nature holds the hope of improving the living conditions of mankind; but also holds dangers which put our entire civilization to a serious test. The responsibilities, however, that these dangers are defeated in the right way, rests not only upon the scientist but must be shared by all circles of every nation." - Niels Bohr, fully Aage Niels Bohr
"This span of life was lent for lofty duties; not for selfishness; not to be whiled away in aimless dreams, but to improve ourselves and serve mankind." - Aubrey de Vere, fully Aubrey Albericus de Vere NULL
"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind... the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. " - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"The principle of self-interest rightly understood produces no great acts of self-sacrificed, but it suggest daily small acts of self-denial. By itself it cannot suffice to make a man virtuous; but it disciplines a number of person sin habits of regularity, temperance, moderation, foresight, self-command; and if it does not lead men straight to virtue by the will, it gradually draws them in that direction by their habits. If the principle of interest rightly understood were to sway the whole moral world, extraordinary virtues would doubtless be more rare; but I think that gross depravity would then also be less common. The principle of interest rightly understood perhaps prevents men from rising far above the level of mankind, but a great number of other men, who were falling far below it, are caught and restrained by it." - Alexis de Tocqueville, fully Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville
"If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos. " - E. O. Wilson, fully Edward Osborne "E.O." Wilson
"Idealists are foolish enough to throw caution to the winds. They have advanced mankind and have enriched the world. " - Emma Goldman
"The system of morality which Socrates made it the business of his life to teach was raised upon the firm basis of religion. The first principles of virtuous conduct which are common to all mankind are, according to this excellent moralist, laws of God; and the conclusive argument by which he supports this opinion is, that no man departs from these principles with impunity." - William Enfield, aka "The Enquirer"
"In spite of the universalistic spirit of the monotheistic Western religions and of the progressive political concepts that are expressed in the idea "that all men are created equal," love for mankind has not become a common experience. Love for mankind is looked upon as an achievement which, at best, follows love for an individual or as an abstract concept to be realized only in the future. But love for man cannot be separated from love for one individual. To love one person productively means to be related to his human core, to him as representing mankind. Love for one individual, in so far as it is divorced from love for man, can refer only to the superficial and to the accidental; of necessity it remains shallow." - Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
"To a mankind that recognizes the equality of man everywhere, every war becomes a civil war." - Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy
"It is unlikely that many of us will be famous, or even remembered. But not less important than the brilliant few that lead a nation or a literature to fresh achievements, are the unknown many whose patient efforts keep the world from running backward; who guard and maintain the ancient values, even if they do not conquer new; whose inconspicuous triumph it is to pass on what they inherited from their fathers, unimpaired and undiminished, to their sons. Enough, for almost all of us, if we can hand on the torch, and not let it down; content to win the affection, if it may be, of a few who know us and to be forgotten when they in their turn have vanished. The destiny of mankind is not governed wholly by its “stars." " - F. L. Lucas, fully Frank Laurence "F. L." Lucas
"Everything is a struggle, everything requires courage, effort. There is no response to history without effort, and effort is required because everything is difficult: passions, interests, rivalries, mankind just emerging from prehistory. Just look around us. Yes, history is tragic." - François Mitterand, fully François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterand
"The history of mankind is the instant between two strides taken by a traveler." - Franz Kafka
"My first wish is, to see this plague of mankind banished from the earth, and the sons and daughters of this world employed in more pleasing and innocent amusements, than in preparing implements, and exercising them, for the destruction of mankind." - George Washington
"The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support." - George Washington
"We have been gradually brought to the pitch of imagining and framing our preliminary ideas of a federal world control of such things as communications, health, money, economic adjustments, and the suppression of crime. In all these material things we have begun to foresee the possibility of a world-wide network being woven between all men about the earth. So much of the World Peace has been brought into the range of -- what shall I call it? -- the general imagination. But I do not think we have yet given sufficient attention to the prior necessity, of linking together its mental organizations into a much closer accord than obtains at the present time. All these ideas of unifying mankind's affairs depend ultimately for their realization on mankind having a unified mind for the job. The want of such effective mental unification is the key to most of our present frustrations. While men's minds are still confused, their social and political relations will remain in confusion, however great the forces that are grinding them against each other and however tragic and monstrous the consequences." - H. G. Wells, fully Herbert George Wells
"The march of invention has clothed mankind with powers of which a century ago the boldest imagination could not have dreamt. " - Henry George
"There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher. " - Henry Van Dyke, fully Henry Jackson Van Dyke
"The loss of popular respect for religion is the dry rot of social institutions. The idea of God as the Creator and Father of all mankind is in the moral world, what gravitation is in the natural; it holds all together and causes them to revolve around a common center. Take this away, and men drop apart; there is no such thing as collective humanity, but only separate molecules, with no more cohesion than so many grains of sand." - Henry Martyn Field
"Man may doubt here and there, but mankind does not doubt.—The universal conscience is larger than the individual conscience, and that constantly comes in to correct and check our infidelity." - Hugh Reginald Haweis
"I call Zen the only living religion because it is not a religion, but only a religiousness. It has no dogma, it does not depend on any founder. It has no past; in fact it has nothing to teach you. It is the strangest thing that has happened in the whole history of mankind – strangest because it enjoys in emptiness, it blossoms in nothingness. It is fulfilled in innocence, in not knowing. It does not discriminate between the mundane and the sacred. For it, all that is, is sacred." - Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL
"Neither in the life of the individual nor in that of mankind is it desirable to know the future." - Jacob Burckhardt, fully Carl Jacob (or Jakob) Christoph Burckhardt
"The future of mankind is going to be decided within the next two generations, and there are two absolute requisites: We must aim at a stable-state society [with limited population growth] and the destruction of nuclear stockpiles. … Otherwise I don't see how we can survive much later than 2050. " - Jacques Monod
"A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property." - James Madison
"Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure - they govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm." - Jeremy Bentham
"Geometry is unique and eternal, a reflection from the mind of God. That mankind shares in it is because man is an image of God." - Johannes Kepler