John Steinbeck Quotes

The genre of science fiction is a fun house, an amusement park ride, but it's also a problem. The question that's always being indirectly asked is this: 'Just who do we think we are and, further, who do we want to be?'

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.

The world may be driven by the same ancient impulses. We will continue to see human struggles and successes. We will witness human glory and tragedies.

At some time in their careers, most good historians itch to write a history of the world, endeavor to discover what makes humanity the most destructive and creative of species.

Probably all the books I've ever written have been efforts to define the boundaries of humanity.

I viewed my fellow man not as a fallen angel, but as a risen ape.

Man would be otherwise. That is the essence of the specifically human.

When the human mind exists in the light of reason and no more than reason, we may say with absolute certainty that Man and all that made him will be in that instant gone.

Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

I am primarily concerned with the condition of man.

There is no doubt: the study of man is just beginning, at the same time that his end is in sight.

Civilization develops man, and if he is, according to his whole character and destiny, made for development, civilization is his truly natural state …

We know, deep down, that repression is not the wave of the future. We know that the desire for freedom is not confined to, or owned by, any culture; it is the inborn hope of our humanity. We know that free governments are the only way to ensure that the strong are just and the weak are valued. And we know that when we lose sight of our ideals, it is not democracy that has failed. It is the failure of those charged with preserving and protecting democracy.

'Star Trek' speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow - it's not all going to be over with a big flash and a bomb; that the human race is improving; that we have things to be proud of as humans.

Since I'm essentially optimistic, I can't imagine a world in which man is totally decimated or degraded.

Obviously the idea of being human is a very human idea.

I am hopeful about the future of humanity.

The human mind has to ask "Who, what, whence, whither, why am I?" And it is very doubtful if the human mind can answer any of these questions.

for in the absence of God he had found Man. Man killing man, man helping man, both of them anonymous: the scourge and the blessing.

It may be that there was no reason or purpose, for mankind must always be finding reasons where there are none, and comfort in a purpose that hardly exists.

Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman-a rope over an abyss. A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting

There is hope in people, not in society, not in systems, but in you and me.

Free man is by necessity insecure, thinking man by necessity uncertain.