If the changes we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  A Dictionary of the English Language, preface.

Aus so krummen Holze, als woraus der Mensch gemacht ist, kann nichts ganz Gerades gezimmert werden. Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing can ever be made.

-Kant, Immanuel
  Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbu«  rgerlicher Absicht (Idea for a General History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose), prop.6.

Handle so, dass du die Menschheit, sowohl in deiner Person, als in der Person eines jeden andern, jederzeit zugleich als Zweck, niemals bloÞ als Mittel brauchst. Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.

-Kant, Immanuel
  Grundlagen zur Metaphysik der Sitten (Groundwork to a Metaphysic of Morals), ch.2 (translated by H  J Paton).

The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium.What a very feware acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return of barbarism.

-Levi, Primo
  Other People's Trades,'News from the Sky' (translated by Raymond Rosenthal,1989).

Humanitydoesnot passthrough phases as a train passes through stations: being alive, it has the privilege of always moving yet never leaving anything behind.

-Lewis, C(live) S(taples)
  The Allegory of Love, ch.1.

Thou, too, sail on,O Ship of State! Sail on,O UNION, strong and great! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

-Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
  The Seaside and Fireside,'The Building of the Ship', l.377^81.

Herein may be seen noble chyvalrye, curtosye, humanyte¤  , frendlynesse, hardynesse, love, frendshyp, cowardyse, murdre, hate, vertue, and synne.

-Malory, SirThomas   d.1471
c.1485  Morte d'Arthur, Caxton's preface.

We are a breed apart from the rest of humanity, we theatre folk.We are the original displaced personalities, concentrated gatherings of neurotics, egomaniacs, emotional misfits and precocious children.

-Mankiewicz, Herman
  George Sanders as  Addison De Witt in  All  About Eve.

Les grands artistes sont ceux qui imposent a'   l'humanite¤ leur illusion particulie'  re. Great artistsimposetheir particular illusiononhumanity.

-Maupassant, Guy de
  Pierre et  Jean, pre¤  face.

The greatest of all the contributions of the Americanway of life to the salvation of humanity.

-Mencken, H(enry) L(ouis)
Of the cocktail. Quoted by William Grimes in'The  American Cocktail',  Americana, Dec1992.

I am imbued with two deep impressions; the first, that science knows no country; the second, which seems to contradict the first, although it is really a direct consequence of it†that science is the highest personification of the nation. Science knows no country because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world. Science is the highest personification of the nation because that nation will remain the first which carries the furthest the works of thought and intelligence.

-Pasteur, Louis
  Toast at the banquet of the International Congress of Sericulture (translated by Rene¤   Dubois).

Le mensonge est essentiel a'   l'humanite¤  . Il y joue peut- e"  tre un aussi grand ro"  le que la recherche du plaisir, et d'ailleurs est commande¤   par cette recherche. Lies are essential to humanity.They play perhaps asgreat a role as the pursuit of pleasure, and are indeed controlled by this pursuit.

-Proust, Marcel
' 1925  A la recherche du temps perdu,'Albertine disparue'.

Art of all periods teaches us that humanity changes, and that a period, once past, never returns.

-Runge, Philipp Otto
  Letter, Feb. Quoted in L Eitner Neoclassicism and Romanticism1750^1850 (1964).

  Butforme, theAlps and their peoplewerealikebeautiful in their snow, and their humanity; and I wanted, neither for them nor myself, sight of any thrones in heaven but the rocks, or of any spirits in heaven but the clouds.

-Ruskin,John
^3  The Stones ofVenice, vol.i, ch.2.

This idea of weapons of mass extermination is utterly horrible, and is something that no one with a spark of humanity can tolerate. I will not pretend to obeya Government that is organizing a mass massacre of mankind.

-Russell, Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl
  Speech urging civil disobedience in support of nuclear disarmament, Birmingham,15 Apr.

In my dreams is a country where the State is the Church and the Church the people: three in one and one in three. It is a commonwealth in which work is play and play is life: three in one and one in three. It is a temple in which the priest is the worshipper and the worshipper the worshipped: three in one and one in three. It is a godhead in which all life is human and all humanity divine: three in one and one in three. It is, in short, the dream of a madman.

-Shaw, George Bernard
  Of Heaven, Keegan speaking. John Bull's Other Island, act 4.

A man is like a phonograph with half-a-dozen records. You soon get tired of them all; and yet you have to sit at table whilst he reels them off to every new visitor. In the end you have to be content with his common humanity.

-Shaw, George Bernard
 The Bishop of Chelsea. Getting Married.

From this foul drain the greatest stream of human industry flows out to fertilize the whole world. From this filthy sewer pure gold flows. Here humanity attains its most complete development and its most brutish, here civilizationworks its miracles and civilized man isturned almost into a savage.

-Tocqueville, Alexis Charles Henri Cle¤  rel de
  Of Manchester. Journal entry, 2 Jul. Journeys to England and Ireland (translatedby George Lawrence andJPMayer,1958).

Be nice to whites. They need you to rediscover their humanity.

-Tutu, Desmond Mpilo
  In the NewYorkTimes,19 Oct.

The new industrial revolution is a two-edged sword. It may be used for the benefit of humanity, assuming that humanity survives long enough to reach a period in whichsuch a benefit ispossible.If, however, we proceed along the clear and obvious lines of our traditional behavior, and follow our traditional worship of progress and the fifth freedomöthe freedom to exploitöit is practically certain that we shall have to face a decade or more of ruin and despair.

-Wiener, Norbert
  The Human Use of Human Beings.