Every man has three characters-that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.

Alphonse Karr (1808-1890)

So long as we live among men, let us cherish humanity.

Andre Gide (1869 - 1951)

One man with courage makes a majority.

Andrew Jackson (1767 - 1845)

To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human.

Andy and Larry Wachowski, The Matrix, 1999

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.

Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room.

Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)

Our notion of symmetry is derived¹ from the human face. Hence, we demand symmetry horizontally and in breath only, not vertically² nor in depth.

Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)

It is vain to say human beings might be satisfied with tranquility; they must have action, and they will make it if they can not find it.

Charlotte Bronte (1816 - 1855)

What mattered was not what happens to you, but how you handle it. Self-command is required to overcome the dangerous misinformation of our emotions, and because for the most part the self is the only thing that we can command. We have no control, ultimately, over what people do or think. What we can influence is our understanding of these circumstances and how we respond to them.

Daniel Akst, We Have Met the Enemy: Self-Control in an Age of Excess, 2011

What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge³ what we think of ourselves.

George Santayana (1863 - 1952)

The fates have given mankind a patient soul.

Homer (800 BC - 700 BC), The Iliad

From such crooked⁴ wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.

Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804)

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

Joseph Baretti, quoted in Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)

It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), Following the Equator (1897)

A curious part of the human psyche⁵ is that the moment that a person presumed to be in danger is discovered to be safe, everyone's anxiety turns into anger.

Monica Fairview, Darcy Cousins, 2010

His passions make man live, his wisdom merely makes him last.

Nicholas Chamfort (1741 - 1794)

People are governed by the head; a kind heart is of little value in chess.

Nicholas Chamfort (1741 - 1794)

I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated⁶ his ability.

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.

Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902)

As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly⁷.

Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)

A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes.

Thomas Henry Huxley

The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.

Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809)

People are not an interruption of our business. People are our business.

Walter E. Washington, Mayor of Washington, D.C., c. 1971

There is no more miserable⁸ human being than one in whom nothing is habitual⁹ but indecision.

William James (1842 - 1910)

In the last analysis, my fellow country men, as we in America would be the first to claim, a people are responsible for the acts of their government.

Woodrow Wilson (1856 - 1924), Address, Columbus, Ohio, September 4, 1919