Theme

Humanity philosophy quotes

Humanity names both the species and the moral quality of being humane—bridging anthropology and ethics.

Why this theme matters

Philosophers ask what makes humans distinctive, what we owe one another as humans, and how “humanity” can include or exclude.

In the history of philosophy

Confucian ren, Renaissance humanism, Enlightenment rights, and critiques of humanism from various directions keep the theme contested.

Thinkers in this collection

Immanuel Kant , Seneca , Albert Camus , Jean-Paul Sartre , The Doctrine of the Mean , Protagoras , Blaise Pascal , John Locke

Frequently asked questions

What is humanity in philosophy?

It can mean the human species, shared capacities, or the virtue of humane regard for others.

Is human nature fixed?

Debates range from fixed essences to historical and cultural formation of human possibilities.

Where are philosophy quotes about humanity?

Browse this theme and related pages on dignity, society, and ethics.

  1. Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never merely as a means.
  2. Man is a sacred thing to man.
  3. There are more things to admire in men than to despise.
  4. In choosing himself, man chooses all men.
  5. Sincerity is the Way of Heaven; making oneself sincere is the way of human beings.
  6. Of all things the measure is man.
  7. All our dignity consists, then, in thought.
  8. As far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person.
  9. The good is the realization of personality.
  10. There is nothing so beautiful and legitimate as to play the man well and properly.
  11. I am looking for a human being.
  12. Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
  13. Man is visibly made to think; that is his whole dignity and his whole merit.
  14. Man is a rope stretched between animal and overman — a rope over an abyss.