Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 3 (2015), p. 130
Context: I have not read Nietzsche or Ibsen, nor any other philosopher, and have not needed to do it, and have not desired to do it; I have gone to the fountain-head for information—that is to say, to the human race. Every man is in his own person the whole human race, with not a detail lacking. I am the whole human race without a detail lacking; I have studied the human race with diligence and strong interest all these years in my own person; in myself I find in big or little proportion every quality and every defect that is findable in the mass of the race. I knew I should not find in any philosophy a single thought which had not passed through my own head, nor a single thought which had not passed the heads of millions and millions of men before I was born; I knew I should not find a single original thought in any philosophy, and I knew I could not furnish one to the world myself, if I had five centuries to invent it in. Nietzsche published his book, and was at once pronounced crazy by the world—by a world which included tens of thousands of bright, sane men who believed exactly as Nietzsche believed, but concealed the fact, and scoffed at Nietzsche. What a coward every man is! and how surely he will find it out if he will just let other people alone and sit down and examine himself. The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.
"A Humble Protest," Harvard Monthly, 1916
Short Drive, Sweet Chariot (1966)
Context: I am interested in madness. I believe it is the biggest thing in the human race, and the most constant. How do you take away from a man his madness without also taking away his identity? Are we sure it is desirable for a man's spirit not to be at war with itself, or that it is better to be serene and ready to go to dinner than to be excited and unwilling to stop for a cup of coffee, even?
“The human race has improved everything but the human race.”
In "Wages are Going Lower!" (1951), William Joseph Baxter wrote, "One might almost say that the human race seems to have improved everything except people." Variations of this quote have appeared since both with and without attribution to Adlai Stevenson, but no documented connection to Stevenson is known.
Misattributed
“Race hate isn't human nature; race hate is the abandonment of human nature.”
Orson Welles, "Race hate must be outlawed" (an editorial), Free World (July, 1944). http://www.wellesnet.com/orson-welles-race-hate-must-outlawed/
Source: [Higham, Charles, Orson Welles: The Rise and Fall of an American Genius, St. Martin's Press, New York, NY, 1985, 216, 0-312-31280-6, https://books.google.com/books?id=pJBlaIC-VG4C&lpg=PA216&dq=%22race%20hate%20isn't%20human%20nature%22&pg=PA216#v=onepage&q=%22race%20hate%20isn't%20human%20nature%22&f=false]
“Imagine what could be accomplished if only the human race would shed its humanity.”
Source: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
“The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.”
Source: Alone (1938), Ch. 6
