Human Nature Quotes - Page 12

• It is true that water will flow indifferently to east and west, but will it flow equally well up and down? Human nature is disposed toward goodness, just as water tends to flow downwards. There is no water but flows downwards, and no man but shows his tendency to be good. Now, by striking water hard, you may splash it higher than your forehead, and by damming it, you may make it go uphill. But, is that the nature of water? It is external force that causes it to do so. Likewise, if a man is made to do what is not good, his nature is being similarly forced.

  Mencius

  Men, Water, East

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• It is usually the case with most men that their nature is so constituted that they pity those who fare badly and envy those who fare well.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Men, Envy, Pity

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• It seems a pity that psychology has destroyed all our knowledge of human nature.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Psychology, Pity, Psychiatrist

  Observer 9 December (1934)

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• The best aphorisms are.... portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feeling. They furnish the largest amount of intellectual stimulus and nutriment in the smallest compass. About every weak point in human nature, or vicious spot in human life, there is deposited a crystallization of warning and protective proverbs.

  William Rounseville Alger

  Feelings, Intellectual, Weak Points

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• What does reason demand of a man? A very easy thing-to live in accord with his own nature.

  Seneca the Younger

  Men, Doe, Demand

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• There are times when you have to choose between being human and having good taste.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Taste, Being Human, Humans

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• Law is born from despair of human nature.

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Law, Despair, Born

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• Order always weighs on the individual. Disorder makes him wish for the police or for death. These are two extreme circumstances in which human nature is not at ease.

  Paul Valery

  Order, Two, Police

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• Just because we think we're so wonderful doesn't mean we really are. We could be really terrible animals and just never admit it because it would hurt so much.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Hurt, Mean, Animal

  Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.42, Penguin

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• Whenever man forgets that man is an animal, the result is always to make him less humane.

  Joseph Wood Krutch

  Animal, Men, Forget

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• It is disastrous to own more of anything than you can possess, and it is one of the most fundamental laws of human nature that our power actually to possess is limited.

  Joseph Wood Krutch

  Law, Fundamentals, Possession

  Joseph Wood Krutch (1964). “If You Don't Mind My Saying So ...: Essays on Man and Nature”

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• Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Different, Humans

  Lord Chesterfield (1998). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.416, OUP Oxford

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• Man is a talking animal and he will always let himself be swayed by the power of the word. Machines won't change human nature.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Animal, Men, Talking

  Simone de Beauvoir (1968). “Les belles images”

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• Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Future, Looks, Humans

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• There is a hearty Puritanism in the view of human nature which pervades the instrument of 1787. It is the work of men who believed in original sin, and were resolved to leave open for transgressors no door which they could possibly shut.

  James Bryce

  Men, Doors, Views

  "The American Commonwealth: Vol. 1: The National Government".

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• Religion is the reaction of human nature to its search for God.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Religion, Reactions, Humans

  Alfred North Whitehead (1997). “Science and the Modern World”, p.191, Simon and Schuster

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• Those who would extirpate evil from the world know little of human nature. As well might punch be palatable without souring as existence agreeable without care.

  James Boswell

  Evil, World, Care

  James Boswell (1956). “London Journal, 1762-1763, as First Published in 1950 from the Original Manuscript”

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• If human nature eventually is going to take the place of nature everywhere, those of us who have been naturalists will have to transpose the faith in nature which is inherent in the profession to a faith in man-if necessary, man alone in the world.

  Edward Hoagland

  Men, World, Naturalist

  Edward Hoagland, HOAGLAND EDWARD. (1995). “Tugman's Passage”, Lyons Press

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• The pull, the attraction of history, is in our human nature. What makes us tick? Why do we do what we do? How much is luck the deciding factor?

  David McCullough

  Luck, Tick, Humans

  Interview with Bruce Cole, www.neh.gov.

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• God showers upon us his gifts-more than enough for all; But like swine scrambling for food, we tread them in the mire, and rend each other.

  Henry George

  Enough, Swine, Showers

  Henry George, Kenneth C. Wenzer (1997). “An Anthology of Henry George's Thought”, p.2, University Rochester Press

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• My contemplation of life and human nature in that secluded place [cell 54 of Cairo Central Prison] taught me that he who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never, therefore, make any progress.

  Anwar Sadat

  Cells, Progress, Fabric

  Anwar Sadat (1978). “In Search of Identity: An Autobiography”, New York : Harper & Row

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• No man thinks there is much ado about nothing when the ado is about himself.

  Anthony Trollope

  Men, Thinking, Vanity

  'The Bertrams' (1859) ch. 27

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• The essence of being human is that, in the brief moment we exist on this spinning planet, we can love some persons and some things, in spite of the fact that time and death will ultimately claim us all.

  Rollo May

  Essence, Spinning, Facts

  Rollo May (1994). “The Courage to Create”, p.25, W. W. Norton & Company

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• When people have peace, they hate it and long for excitement, and when they have excitement, they want peace.

  Amos Oz

  Hate, Long, People

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• Happy Hour: a depressing comment on the rest of the day and a victory for the most limited Dionysian view of human nature.

  John Ralston Saul

  Happiness, Depressing, Views

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense”, p.157, Simon and Schuster

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