“Lights of the world, and stars of human race.”

Source: The Progress of Error (1782), Line 97.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Lights of the world, and stars of human race." by William Cowper?
William Cowper photo
William Cowper 174
(1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist 1731–1800

Related quotes

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin photo

“The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a star.”

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755–1826) French lawyer, politician and writer

Source: The Physiology of Taste: Or, Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy

Steven Erikson photo
Gene Roddenberry photo

“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.”

Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991) American television screenwriter and producer

Interview (20 September 1988), included in Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5, DVD 7, "Mission Logs: Year Five", "A Tribute to Gene Roddenberry", 0:26:09)
Context: 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. No, ancient astronauts did not build the pyramids — human beings built them, because they're clever and they work hard. And Star Trek is about those things.

Robert Frost photo
Richard Evelyn Byrd photo
Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo

“Follow you the star that lights a desert pathway, yours or mine.
Forward, till you see the Highest Human Nature is divine.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

Source: Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Line 275

Adlai Stevenson photo

“The human race has improved everything but the human race.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

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

George Bernard Shaw photo

“You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.”

O'Flaherty V.C. (1919)
1910s
Source: Heartbreak House

Philip José Farmer photo

“We hope to breed a race of men whose power
Dwells in hearts as open as all Space
Itself, who ask for nothing but the light
That rinses the heart of hate so that the stars
Above will be below when man has Love.”

Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) American science fiction writer

Sestina of the Space Rocket (1953)
Context: Yes, we hope to seed a new, rich earth.
We hope to breed a race of men whose power
Dwells in hearts as open as all Space
Itself, who ask for nothing but the light
That rinses the heart of hate so that the stars
Above will be below when man has Love.

Related topics