Mankind Quotes (31)
All the human culture, all the results of art, science and technology that we see before us today, are almost exclusively the creative product of the Aryan. This very fact admits of the not unfounded inference that he alone was the founder of all higher humanity, therefore representing the prototype of all that we understand by the word 'man.' He is the Prometheus of mankind from whose shining brow the divine spark of genius has sprung at all times, forever kindling anew that fire of knowledge which illuminated the night of silent mysteries and thus caused man to climb the path to mastery over the other beings of the earth ... It was he who laid the foundations and erected the walls of every great structure in human culture.
Mein Kampf (1925-26), American Edition (1943), 290. In William Lawrence Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1990), 86-87.
But when you come right down to it, the reason that we did this job is because it was an organic necessity. If you are a scientist you cannot stop such a thing. If you are a scientist you believe that it is good to find out how the world works; that it is good to find out what the realities are; that it is good to turn over to mankind at large the greatest possible power to control the world and to deal with it according to its lights and values.
Regarding the atomic bomb project.
Regarding the atomic bomb project.
From speech at Los Alamos (17 Oct 1945). Quoted in David C. Cassidy, J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century (2009), 214.
See also: | Atomic Bomb (36) | Control (9) | Enquiry (55) | Light (33) | Necessity (15) | Reality (16) | Research (204) | Scientist (65)
Ever so often in the history of human endeavour, there comes a breakthrough that takes humankind across a frontier into a new era. ... today's announcement is such a breakthrough, a breakthrough that opens the way for massive advancement in the treatment of cancer and hereditary diseases. And that is only the beginning.
From White House press conference broadcast on the day of the publication of the first draft of the human genome. Blair spoke by video link from London. Quoted in CNN.com, transcript, 'President Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair Deliver Remarks on Human Genome Milestone' (26 Jun 2000).
See also: | Beginning (10) | Breakthrough (5) | Cancer (11) | Disease (115) | Endeavour (5) | Heredity (24) | Human Genome (7) | Progress (112) | Treatment (32)
Few problems are less recognized, but more important than, the accelerating disappearance of the earth's biological resources. In pushing other species to extinction, humanity is busy sawing off the limb on which it is perched.
In Ashton Applewhite, William R. Evans and Andrew Frothingham, And I Quote (2003)
See also: | Extinction (26)
For I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
Letter to John Adams, 28 Oct 1813. In Paul Witstach (ed.), Correspondence of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson 1812-1826 (1925), 92.
I have come to the conclusion that mankind consume twice too much food.
In Louis Klopsch, Many Thoughts of Many Minds (1896), 110.
I would... establish the conviction that Chemistry, as an independent science, offers one of the most powerful means towards the attainment of a higher mental cultivation; that the study of Chemistry is profitable, not only inasmuch as it promotes the material interests of mankind, but also because it furnishes us with insight into those wonders of creation which immediately surround us, and with which our existence, life, and development, are most closely connected.
Familiar Letters on Chemistry (1859), 4th edn., 1.
See also: | Attainment (2) | Chemistry (85) | Creation (44) | Development (16) | Existence (40) | Independence (4) | Insight (14) | Life (146) | Wonder (13)
If a psychiatric and scientific inquiry were to be made upon our rulers, mankind would be appalled at the disclosures.
Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics (1958), 78.
If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insect were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.
In Rosemarie Jarski, Words From The Wise (2007), 269. [Contact webmaster if you know the primary print source.]
See also: | Chaos (21) | Collapse (3) | Disappear (2) | Environment (34) | Equilibrium (6) | Insect (19) | World (39)
If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima. The people must unite, or they will perish.
Speech at Fuller Lodge when the U.S. Army was honouring the work at Los Alamos. (16 Oct 1945). Quoted in Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005), 323.
See also: | Atomic Bomb (36) | Curse (2) | Hiroshima (3) | Name (17) | Nation (14) | War (50) | World (39)
If the Eiffel Tower were now representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; and anybody would perceive that that skin was what the tower was built for.
[Declaiming Alfred Russel Wallace's 'anthropocentric' theory, that the universe was created specifically for the evolution of mankind.]
[Declaiming Alfred Russel Wallace's 'anthropocentric' theory, that the universe was created specifically for the evolution of mankind.]
"What Is Man? (1903). Reprinted inMark Twain and Bernard Augustine De Voto, Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings (2004), 226.
See also: | Age Of The Earth (8) | Eiffel Tower (5) | Evolution (223) | Paint (2) | Universe (134) | Alfred Russel Wallace (7)
It appears, nevertheless, that all such simple solutions of the problem of vertebrate ancestry are without warrant. They arise from a very common tendency of the mind, against which the naturalist has to guard himself,—a tendency which finds expression in the very widespread notion that the existing anthropoid apes, and more especially the gorilla, must be looked upon as the ancestors of mankind, if once the doctrine of the descent of man from ape-like forefathers is admitted. A little reflexion suffices to show that any given living form, such as the gorilla, cannot possibly be the ancestral form from which man was derived, since ex-hypothesi that ancestral form underwent modification and development, and in so doing, ceased to exist.
'Vertebrata', entry in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th edition (1899), Vol. 24, 180.
See also: | Ancestor (6) | Ape (20) | Descent Of Man (3) | Development (16) | Exist (4) | Gorilla (4) | Mind (107) | Modification (5) | Naturalist (10) | Problem (59) | Solution (41) | Vertebrate (7)
It is easier to understand mankind in general than any individual man.
Maxims (1678), no. 436, trans. F. G. Stevens (1939), 137.
It is impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or in any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little else left us but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights.
Spectator, No. 253. In Samuel Austin Allibone, Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay (1880), 60.
Mankind have been slow to believe that order reigns in the universe—that the world is a cosmos and a chaos.
… The divinities of heathen superstition still linger in one form or another in the faith of the ignorant, and even intelligent men shrink from the contemplation of one supreme will acting regularly, not fortuitously, through laws beautiful and simple rather than through a fitful and capricious system of intervention.
... The scientific spirit has cast out the demons, and presented us with nature clothed in her right mind and living under the reign of law. It has given us, for the sorceries of the alchemist, the beautiful laws of chemistry; for the dreams of the astrologer, the sublime truths of astronomy; for the wild visions of cosmogony, the monumental records of geology; for the anarchy of diabolism, the laws of God.
… The divinities of heathen superstition still linger in one form or another in the faith of the ignorant, and even intelligent men shrink from the contemplation of one supreme will acting regularly, not fortuitously, through laws beautiful and simple rather than through a fitful and capricious system of intervention.
... The scientific spirit has cast out the demons, and presented us with nature clothed in her right mind and living under the reign of law. It has given us, for the sorceries of the alchemist, the beautiful laws of chemistry; for the dreams of the astrologer, the sublime truths of astronomy; for the wild visions of cosmogony, the monumental records of geology; for the anarchy of diabolism, the laws of God.
Speech (16 Dec 1867) given while a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, introducing resolution for the appointment of a committee to examine the necessities for legislation upon the subject of the ninth census to be taken the following year. Quoted in John Clark Ridpath, The Life and Work of James A. Garfield (1881), 216.
See also: | Alchemy (9) | Astrology (14) | Astronomy (64) | Chaos (21) | Chemistry (85) | Cosmogony (2) | Cosmos (6) | Faith (27) | Geology (108) | God (120) | Ignorance (62) | Intelligence (30) | Law (128) | Order (19) | Science And Religion (76) | Superstition (21) | Universe (134)
Mankind is a science that defies definitions.
In James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893), 267:30.
Mankind will not remain on the earth forever, but, in search of light and space, will at first timidly penetrate beyond the limits of the atmosphere and then finally conquer the spaces of the solar system.
tombstone inscription
See also: | Space Travel (9)
Mapping the human genome has been compared with putting a man on the moon, but I believe it is more than that. This is the outstanding achievement not only of our lifetime, but in terms of human history. A few months ago I compared the project to the invention of the wheel. On reflection, it is more than that. I can well imagine technology making the wheel obsolete. But this code is the essence of mankind, and as long as humans exists, this code is going to be important and will be used.
Quoted in the press release 'The first draft of the Book of Humankind has been read', 26 Jun 2000. On the Sanger Institute web site at www.sanger.ac.uk/HGP/draft2000/mainrelease.shtml
See also: | Achievement (32) | History (56) | Human Genome (7) | Invention (84) | Moon (34) | Technology (37) | Wheel (3)
My dear friend, to be both powerful and fair has always been difficult for mankind. Power and justice have always been seen like day and night; this being the case, when one of them is there the other disappears.
From the play Galileo Galilei (2001) .
Nature in her unfathomable designs had mixed us of clay and flame, of brain and mind, that the two things hang indubitably together and determine each other's being but how or why, no mortal may ever know.
Principles of Psychology (1918), 200.
See also: | Nature (231)
Our survival, the future of our civilization, possibly the existence of mankind, depends on American leadership
Quoted in 'Antiseptic Christianity', book review of Lindbergh, Of Flight and Life in Time magazine, (6 Sep 1948).
The life and soul of science is its practical application, and just as the great advances in mathematics have been made through the desire of discovering the solution of problems which were of a highly practical kind in mathematical science, so in physical science many of the greatest advances that have been made from the beginning of the world to the present time have been made in the earnest desire to turn the knowledge of the properties of matter to some purpose useful to mankind.
From 'Electrical Units of Measurement', a lecture delivered at the Institution of Civil Engineers, London (3 May 1883), Popular Lectures and Addresses Vol. 1 (1891), 86-87.
See also: | Advance (8) | Advance (8) | Application (11) | Discovery (159) | Knowledge (318) | Life (146) | Mathematics (217) | Physical Science (10) | Practical (8) | Problem (59) | Purpose (15) | Solution (41) | Soul (14)
The ocean ... like the air, is the common birth-right of mankind.
Reply to the Society of Tammany, or Columbian Order, No. 1, of the City of New York', 29 Feb 1808. In H. A. Washington (ed.), The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 8 (1854), 127.
The progress of mankind is due exclusively to the progress of natural sciences, not to morals, religion or philosophy.
Letter to Schoenbein (1 Aug 1866). In Liebig und Schoenbein: Briefwechsel (1900), 221. Trans. W. H. Brock.
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 place which Man occupies in nature and of his relations to the universe of things.
'On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals' (1863). In Collected Essays (1894). Vol. 7, 77.
See also: | Question (41)
The reproduction of mankind is a great marvel and mystery. Had God consulted me in the matter, I should have advised him to continue the generation of the species by fashioning them of clay.
Martin Luther and William Hazlitt (trans.), Alexander Chalmers, The Table Talk of Martin Luther (1872), 307.
See also: | Advice (9) | Evolution (223) | God (120) | Mystery (26) | Reproduction (23) | Species (43)
This missing science of heredity, this unworked mine of knowledge on the borderland of biology and anthropology, which for all practical purposes is as unworked now as it was in the days of Plato, is, in simple truth, ten times more important to humanity than all the chemistry and physics, all the technical and indsutrial science that ever has been or ever will be discovered.
Mankind in the Making (1903), 72.
See also: | Anthropology (26) | Biology (39) | Chemistry (85) | Discovery (159) | Heredity (24) | Importance (10) | Knowledge (318) | Mine (3) | Physics (61) | Plato (15) | Technology (37)
We are here to celebrate the completion of the first survey of the entire human genome. Without a doubt, this is the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by human kind.
From White House press conference broadcast on the day of the publication of the first draft of the human genome. Quoted in CNN.com, transcript, 'President Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair Deliver Remarks on Human Genome Milestone' (26 Jun 2000).
What more powerful form of study of mankind could there be than to read our own instruction book?
From White House press conference broadcast on the day of the publication of the first draft of the human genome. Quoted in CNN.com, transcript, 'President Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair Deliver Remarks on Human Genome Milestone' (26 Jun 2000).
Without my attempts in natural science, I should never have learned to know mankind such as it is. In nothing else can we so closely approach pure contemplation and thought, so closely observe the errors of the senses and of the understanding, the weak and strong points of character.
Fri 13 Feb 1829. Johann Peter Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe, ed. J. K. Moorhead and trans. J. Oxenford (1971), 293.
See also: | Character (9)
[Science] dissipates errors born of ignorance about our true relations with nature, errors the more damaging in that the social order should rest only on those relations. TRUTH! JUSTICE! Those are the immutable laws. Let us banish the dangerous maxim that it is sometimes useful to depart from them and to deceive or enslave mankind to assure its happiness.
Exposition du Système du Monde (1796), 2, 312, trans. Charles Coulston Gillispie, Pierre-Simon Laplace 1749-1827: A Life in Exact Science (1997), 175.
See also: | Damage (2) | Dangerous (8) | Deceive (2) | Error (93) | Ignorance (62) | Immutable (2) | Justice (3) | Law (128) | Maxim (2) | Nature (231) | Relationship (8) | Science (433) | Social Order (3) | Truth (232) | Usefulness (15)