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1 " If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood? "
― Arthur Schopenhauer , Studies in Pessimism: The Essays
2 " You must remember what you are and what you have chosen to become, and the significance of what you are doing. There are wars and defeats and victories of the human race that are not military and that are not recorded in the annals of history. Remember that while you're trying to decide what to do. "
― John Williams , Stoner
3 " If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings. "
― Dave Barry
4 " If we would learn what the human race really is at bottom, we need only observe it in election times. "
― Mark Twain
5 " Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women - black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. "
― Harper Lee , To Kill a Mockingbird
6 " If you were meant to cure cancer or crack cold fusion and you don't do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children, you hurt me, you hurt the planet. You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite God Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter further along its path back to God. "
7 " We could say that the human race is a great coauthorship in which we are collaborating with God and nature in the making of ourselves and one another. From this there is no escape. We may collaborate either well or poorly or we may refuse to collaborate, but even to refuse to collaborate is to exert an influence and to affect the quality of the product. This is only a way of saying that by ourselves we have no meaning and no dignity; by ourselves we are outside the human definition, outside our identity. "
― Wendell Berry , The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays
8 " Were God to show grace to all of Adam's descendants, men would at once conclude that He was righteously compelled to take them to heaven as meet compensation for allowing the human race to fall into sin. But the great God in under no obligation to any of his creatures, least of all to those who are rebels against him. "
― Arthur W. Pink , The Attributes of God
9 " I'm just tired of hearing about God all the time. What has He got to do with anything?... I'm not going to be immoral or commit crimes because I don't believe. I don't even think about that. I just get so tired of Him getting the credit for things the human race achieves through its own effort. Now, there simply is no God. There's only man. And it's he who makes miracles. "
― Lorraine Hansberry
10 " The history of the human race doesn’t make happy reading, does it? I’ve seen a lot of sadness during my time, but I’ve seen seen a lot of things that have kept my faith in humanity alive too. If there were no bad things in the world, we’d have nothing to measure the good against, would we? The light can only shine in darkness. "
11 " After all, when ‘the Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become’ He resolved to ‘wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created – and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground – for I regret that I have made them’ (Genesis 6:7). The Bible thinks it is perfectly all right to destroy all animals as punishment for the crimes of Homo sapiens, as if the existence of giraffes, pelicans and ladybirds has lost all purpose if humans misbehave. The Bible could not imagine a scenario in which God repents having created Homo sapiens, wipes this sinful ape off the face of the earth, and then spends eternity enjoying the antics of ostriches, kangaroos and panda bears. "
― Yuval Noah Harari , Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow
12 " Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, this is recognised: that the human race has been harshly treated, but that it has advanced. "
― Victor Hugo , Les Misérables
13 " The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a star. "
― Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin , The Physiology of Taste: Or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy
14 " The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonourable belief against the character of the divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist. It is better, far better, that we admitted, if it were possible, a thousand devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doctrine of devils, if there were any such, than that we permitted one such impostor and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God in his mouth, and have credit among us.Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called revealed religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man? The lies of the Bible have been the cause of the one, and the lies of the Testament of the other. "
― Thomas Paine , The Age of Reason
15 " I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I even simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant...I AM HAUNTED BY HUMANS. "
― Markus Zusak , The Book Thief
16 " Years ago I asked my friend, the great actress Ruth Gordon, to articulate in a few words the secret to her indomitable, unsinkable spirit. Her reply was a gift that became a mantra for me:“It takes courage.It takes believing in it.It takes work.It takes rising above it.It takes me liking you, and you liking me.It takes the dreaming soul of the human race that wants it to go right.Never stop dreaming.Think about it. "
― Anderson Cooper , The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss
17 " The most sensitive period of their developmental age, when the kids are supposed to be taught to question everything and nourish their reasoning skills, they are taught that God created the world in seven days – that the human race did not evolve from apes through millions of years, rather it came from the amorous congress between two God-made humans, named Adam and Eve. And if you ask why? The answers of the uneducated primordial teachers would be that the scriptures say so. And now if you ask, can’t the scriptures be wrong – do I have to take these stories literally? They would lash out with rage and shout at you – how dare you question the scriptures! Every single word in it is true. There is no greater truth than the truth of these sacred texts. "
― Abhijit Naskar , The Education Decree
18 " The thing about the human race is, It turns up against everything or everyone that it loses its faith and belief on. And the saddest thing to witness is, Most of it have lost its faith towards humanity. "
― Akshay Vasu
19 " I hope that the epitaph of the human race when the world ends will be: Here perished a species which lived to tell stories. We tell stories to strangers to ingratiate ourselves, stories to lovers to better adhere us skin to skin, stories in our heads to banish the demons. When we tell truth, often we are callous; when we tell lies, often we are kind. Through it all, we tell stories, and we own an uncanny knack for the task. "
― Lyndsay Faye , Jane Steele
20 " The turmoil and dislocations confronting present-day society will not be solved until both the scientific and religious genius of the human race are fully utilized. "
― Baha'i International Community