Human Achievement Quotes

All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.

We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share.

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.

The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.

Humans have always used our intelligence and creativity to improve our existence. After all, we invented the wheel, discovered how to make fire, invented the printing press and found a vaccine for polio.

The only limits on human achievement are self-imposed.

Evolution doesn't care whether you believe in it or not, no more than gravity does. I want to rekindle excitement over what we've achieved as a species with the space program. We can't afford to regress back to the days of superstition.

This increase in the world's population represents humanity's victory against death.

I have always been a friend to hero-worship; it is the only rational one, and has always been in use amongst civilized people - the worship of spirits is synonymous with barbarism - it is mere fetish. ... There is something philosophic in the worship of the heroes of the human race.

Almost every man who has by his life-work added to the sum of human achievement of which the race is proud, of which our people are proud, almost every such man has based his life-work largely upon the teachings of the Bible

The space program is not only scientific in purpose but also is an expression of man's insistent determination to do the nearly impossible - to explore the unknown, even at great risk.

There is nothing in the world common to man, that man cannot do.

The concept of individual rights is so prodigious a feat of political thinking that few men grasp it fully - and two hundred years have not been enough for other countries to understand it. But this is the concept to which we owe our lives - the concept which made it possible for us to bring into reality everything of value that any of us did or will achieve or experience.

Finds progress, man's distinctive mark alone, Not God's, and not the beast's; God is, they are, Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be.

This has been far more than three men on a mission to the Moon; more still than the efforts of a government and industry team; more, even, than the efforts of one nation. We feel this stands as a symbol of the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown.

Every day sees humanity more victorious in the struggle with space and time.

Of all the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things we call books.

Find a beautiful piece of art. If you fall in love with Van Gogh or Matisse or John Oliver Killens, or if you fall love with the music of Coltrane, the music of Aretha Franklin, or the music of Chopin - find some beautiful art and admire it, and realize that that was created by human beings just like you, no more human, no less.

All human victories, all human progress, stand upon the inner force.

He [Winston Churchill] refers to a defeat as a disaster as though it came from God, but to a victory as though it came from himself.

Civilization has always been a bust.

A great city is that which has the greatest men and women.

Man has left footprints on the moon but still hasn't walked on the ocean floor.

Children sweeten labours. But they make misfortune more bitter. They increase the care of life. But they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity of generation is common to beasts. But memory, merit and noble works are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men which have sought to express the images of their minds where those of their bodies have failed.