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Mankind QUOTES

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* The interdependency of humankind, the relevance of relationship, the sacredness of creation is ancient, ancient wisdom.
-- Rebecca Adamson

* The indigenous understanding has its basis of spirituality in a recognition of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all living things, a holistic and balanced view of the world. All things are bound together. All things connect. What happens to the Earth happens to the children of the earth. Humankind has not woven the web of life; we are but one thread. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
-- Rebecca Adamson

"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

In some ways more painful is the fact that their experience appears to be fading from the collective memory of humankind. Having never experienced an atomic bombing, the vast majority around the world can only vaguely imagine such horror, and these days, John Hersey’s Hiroshima and Jonathan Schell’s The Fate of the Earth are all but forgotten. As predicted by the saying, ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,’ the probability that nuclear weapons will be used and the danger of nuclear war are increasing.”
-- Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba

* If the entire history of mankind were condensed into a single year, our knowledge of how to destroy life on earth with weapons of mass destruction has been acquired in the last thirty seconds. Never again will we lack the knowledge to eliminate the world in a single act of madness. Therefore, we are faced with a dilemma unique in our history. We must not only control the weapons that can kill us, we must bridge the great disparities of wealth and opportunity among the peoples of the world, the vast majority of whom live in poverty without hope, opportunity or choices in life. These conditions are a breeding ground for division that can cause a desperate people to resort to nuclear weapons as a last resort. Our only hope lies in the power of our love, generosity, tolerance and understanding and our commitment to making the world a better place for all...
-- Muhammad Ali
* Since the beginning, Native Peoples lived a life of being in harmony with all that surrounds us. It is a belief that all humankind are related to each other. Each has a purpose, spirit and sacredness. It is an understanding with the Great Spirit or Creator that we will follow these ways. And in this understanding we believe we are related to all other living species...
-- Dennis Banks

* Today social justice represents one of the most serious challenges to the conscience of the world. The abyss between those who are within the world 'order' and those who are excluded is widening day by day. The use of leading-edge technologies has made it possible to accumulate wealth in a way that is fantastic but perverse because it is unjustly distributed. Twenty-percent of humankind control eighty percent of all means of life. That fact creates a dangerous imbalance in the movement of history.
-- Leonardo Boff

* …the first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind. Food is the moral right of all who are born into this world.
-- Norman Borlaug

* Internal peace is an essential first step to achieving peace in the world. How do you cultivate it? It's very simple. In the first place by realizing clearly that all mankind is one, that human beings in every country are members of one and the same family. - The Dalai Lama

* "I believe that to meet the challenge of our times, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. We must all learn to work not just for our own self, family, or nation but for the benefit of all humankind. Universal responsibility is the key to human survival. It is the best foundation for world peace, the equitable use of natural resources, and through concern for future generations, the proper care of the environment." -- The Dalai Lama

Today's world is one in which the age-old risks of humankind - the drought, floods, communicable diseases - are less of a problem than ever before. They have been replaced by risks of humanity's own making - the unintended side-effects of beneficial technologies and the intended effects of the technologies of war. Society must hope that the world's ability to assess and manage risks will keep pace with its ability to create them.
~ J. Clarence Davies

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent …
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
-- John Donne

“The splitting of the atom has changed everything except the way we think. Thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.”
-- Albert Einstein

Any power must be an enemy of mankind which enslaves the individual by terror and force, whether it arises under the Fascist or the Communist flag. All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded to the individual.
-- Albert Einstein

It is the ignorant and childish part of mankind that is the fighting part. Idle and vacant minds want excitement
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

* "Whilst so much is being done in the world, to ameliorate the condition of mankind, and the spirit of Freedom is marching with rapid strides and causing tyrants to tremble, may America awake from the apathy in which she has long slumbered."
--
James Forten

* When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?
-- Benjamin Franklin

Nonviolence, therefore, can be described as an honest and diligent pursuit of truth. It could also mean the search for the meaning of life or the purpose of life, questions that have tormented humankind for centuries. The fact that we have not been able to find satisfactory answers to these questions does not mean there is no answer. It only means we have not searched with any degree of honesty. The search has to be both external and internal. We seek to ignore this crucial search because the sacrifices it demands are revolutionary. It means moving away from greed, selfishness, possessiveness, and dominance to love, compassion, understanding, and respect.
-- Arun Gandhi

My life is an indivisible whole, and all my attitudes run into one another; and they all have their rise in my insatiable love for mankind.
-- Mohandas K. Gandhi

"Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man."
-- Mohandas K. Gandhi

* ...convince all nuclear powers, including those which have been more reluctant up to now, of the necessity to respect the "vital interests" of all peoples and to become fully aware of the profound truth of the following conclusion which the United Nations approved by unanimity four years ago: "Mankind is confronted with a choice: we must halt the arms race and proceed to disarmament or face annihilation".
~ Alfonso García Robles

* "My country is the world; my countrymen are mankind."
-- William Lloyd Garrison

* The UN wasn’t created to take mankind into paradise, but rather, to save humanity from hell.
-- Dag Hammarskjöld


I would like to appeal to all those in whose hands the future of mankind lies, to use their power not to destroy or kill, nor to create suffering in a grasping search for selfish objectives, but to help alleviate the plight of the needy; to aim at justice and freedom for the individual.
-- Poul Hartling

In the dark, equality for all of mankind couldn't seem brighter.
-- Robert M. Hensel

* For the first time in the history of mankind, one generation literally has the power to destroy the past, the present and the future, the power to bring time to an end
-- Hubert Humphrey

The goal toward which all history tends is peace, not peace through the medium of war, not peace through a process of universal intimidation, not peace through a program of mutual impoverishment, not peace by any means that leaves the world too weak or too frightened to go on fighting, but peace pure and simple based on that will to peace which has animated the overwhelming majority of mankind through countless ages. This will to peace does not arise out of a cowardly desire to preserve one's life and property, but out of conviction that the fullest development of the highest powers of men can be achieved only in a world of peace.
-- Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899-1977)

* ...the fullest development of the highest powers of men can be achieved only in a world of peace.
-- Robert Maynard Hutchins

* There is so much each one of us can do to make a difference. We are at a dangerous juncture in the history of mankind. … We need to defend our principles and values, human rights, civil liberties and the rule of international law. If we don’t our world will further descend into a state of chaos.
-- Bianca Jagger

* Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
-- Thomas Jefferson

In times of danger large groups rise to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, courage and sacrifice . . . Mankind will be refashioned and history rewritten when this law is understood and obeyed.
--
Helen Keller

* The war against hunger is truly mankind's war of liberation.
-- John F. Kennedy

Never before has man had such capacity to control his own environment, to end thirst and hunger, to conquer poverty and disease, to banish illiteracy and massive human misery. We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world -- or to make it the last. -- John F. Kennedy

"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind...War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."
--John F. Kennedy

* Where are the unusual individuals, the daring pioneers, who will devote their lives to making a better history for humanity? In order to create a new history for mankind, human beings will first have to create a new history within themselves. They will have to liberate themselves from national, religious, racial, and class prejudices and from enslavement to honor, fame, and pleasure...
-- Frederick Kettner

 

* I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word. -- Martin Luther King, Jr

* Why should there be hunger and deprivation in any land, in any city, at any table, when man has the resources and the scientific know-how to provide all mankind with the basic necessities of life? There is no deficit in human resources. The deficit is in human will. -- Martin Luther King, Jr

"If people destroy something replaceable made by mankind, they are called vandals;
if they destroy something irreplaceable made by God, they are called developers."
~ Joseph Wood Krutch

If we could raise one generation with unconditional love, there would be no Hitlers…
Mankind's greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice.
We can make our choices built from love or from fear.
--Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Internationalism is a community theory of society which is founded on economic, spiritual, and biological facts. It maintains that respect for a healthy development of human society and of world civilization requires that mankind be organized internationally. Nationalities should form the constitutive links in a great world alliance, and must be guaranteed an independent life in the realm of the spiritual and for locally delimited tasks, while economic and political objectives must be guided internationally in a spirit of peaceful cooperation for the promotion of mankind's common interests. -- Christian Lange

Civilization has ceased to be that delicate flower which was preserved and painstakingly cultivated in one or two sheltered areas of a soil rich in wild species ... Mankind has opted for monoculture; it is in the process of creating a mass civilization, as beetroot is grown in the mass. Henceforth, man's daily bill of fare will consist only of this one item.
-- Claude Levi-Strauss

All mankind... being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.
-- John Locke

nuclear bombs have made mass murder a reality. Nuclear bombs threaten humankind.
-- Bernard Lown

* "We can work together for a better world with men and women of goodwill, those who radiate the intrinsic goodness of humankind."
-- Wangari Maathai

"It is wrong to suppose the world was created primarily to serve mankind's purposes and pleasures. A conviction about having dominion over land and water and living things breeds ideas of unwarranted self importance. It is a sobering thought that man's place in Nature's scheme is, after all, a small one."
~ J. Grant MacEwan

* ...recognize and respect Earth’s beautiful systems of balance, between the presence of animals on land, the fish in the sea, birds in the air, mankind, water, air, and land. Most importantly there must always be awareness of the actions by people that can disturb this precious balance."
-- Margaret Mead

* The reasons for legal intervention in favour of children apply not less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves and victims of the most brutal part of mankind - the lower animals.
-- John Stuart Mill

The fatal tendency of mankind to leave off thinking about a thing when it is no longer doubtful, is the cause of half their errors.
-- John Stuart Mill

"If I knew something that would serve my country but would harm mankind, I would never reveal it; for I am a citizen of humanity first and by necessity, and a citizen of France second, and only by accident"
-- Charles de Montesquieu

* Our immediate striving must be aimed at preventing what, in the present situation, is the greatest threat to the very survival of mankind, the nuclear threat.
-- Alva Myrdal

* "The fate of the living planet
is the most important issue facing mankind."
~ Gaylord Nelson

* "The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."
-- Thomas Paine
We are privileged to have the opportunity of contributing to the achievement of the goal of the abolition of war and its replacement by world law. I am confident that we shall succeed in this great task; that the world community will thereby be freed not only from the suffering caused by war but also through the better use of the earth's resources, of the discoveries of scientists, and of the efforts of mankind, from hunger, disease, illiteracy, and fear; and that we shall in the course of time be enabled to build a world characterized by economic, political, and social justice for all human beings and a culture worthy of man's intelligence.
-- Linus Pauling

No more war, war never again! Peace, it is peace which must guide the destinies of people and of all mankind.
-- Pope Paul VI

"In faith and hope the world will disagree,
But all mankind's concern is charity."
-- Alexander Pope

"What may be possible for a minority of humankind, albeit at great cost, simply cannot work for the humankind. Our kind of progress depends on lacerating the Earth, on gouging out its riches, on stripping is life-sustaining skin of soil and forest, on poisoning its pure air, on defecating copiously in its pure water... the single most important indicator of environmental decline is the extent to which the damage done is reversible. The most heinous ecological crime of all is for any one generation so seriously to assault the web of life that the damage done is literally irreversible for every generation that follows."
~ Jonathon Porritt

* Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.
-- Theodore Roosevelt

* Technology is driving us together. In many ways we are becoming like one family. With the global threats resulting from science and technology, the whole of humankind now needs protection. We have to extend our loyalty to the whole of the human race. -- Joseph Rotblat

Whatever system of governance is eventually adopted, it is important that it carries the people with it. We need to convey the message that safeguarding our common property, humankind, will require developing in each of us a new loyalty: a loyalty to mankind. It calls for the nurturing of a feeling of belonging to the human race. We have to become world citizens.
-- Joseph Rotblat

“The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.”
-- Bertrand Russell

* "Until mankind can extend the circle of his compassion to include all living things, he will never, himself, know peace." ~ Albert Schweitzer

Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind. -- Albert Schweitzer

Because I have confidence in the power of truth, and of the spirit, I have confidence in the future of mankind. -- Albert Schweitzer

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
~ Chief Seattle

* Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to this country and to mankind is to bring up a family.
-- George Bernard Shaw

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world,
to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
-- Adam Smith

Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have even lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor.
-- Henry David Thoreau

We have now reached the stage where disarmament alone, although an absolute necessity, is not enough. The stockpiles of arms are in themselves a mortal threat to mankind but there are also other threats to our existence.Disarmament for peace is not sufficient: it must be supported by development for peace.
-- Inga Thorsson

It is sufficient that people should understand that what is enunciated to them as public opinion, and maintained by such complex, energetic, and artificial means, is not public opinion, but only the lifeless outcome of what was once public opinion; and, what is more important, it is sufficient that they should have faith in themselves, that they should believe that what they are conscious of in the depths of their souls, what in every one is pressing for expression, and is only not expressed because it contradicts the public opinion supposed to exist, is the power which transforms the world, and to express which is the mission of mankind...
-- Leo Tolstoy

Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.
-- Mark Twain

"We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal right of men and women and of nations large and small....And for these ends to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors...have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims."
-- Preamble, Charter of the United Nations.

Nonviolent revolution does not seek the liberation simply of a class or race or nation. It seeks the liberation of mankind…
-- Council of the War Resisters' International

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.
-- Voltaire

* In many parts of the world the people are searching for a solution which would link the two basic values: peace and justice. The two are like bread and salt for mankind.
-- Lech Walesa

* "Our true nationality is mankind."
-- H.G. Wells
* Mankind needs peace more than ever, for our entire planet, threatened by nuclear war, is in danger of total destruction. A destruction only man can provoke, only man can prevent.
-- Elie Wiesel

* The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind.
-- Woodrow Wilson

If we are to have faith that mankind will survive and thrive on the face of the earth, we must believe that each succeeding generation will be wiser than its progenitors. We transmit to you, the next generation, the total sum of our knowledge. Yours is the responsibility to use it, add to it, and transmit it to your children.
-- Rosalyn Yalow

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