Human Nature Quotes - Page 15

• Knowing comedy is knowing human nature.

  Patton Oswalt

  Knowing, Comedy, Humans

  Source: collider.com

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• I came to the conclusion is that we have a very shallow view of human nature in the policy world. We're really good at talking about material things, really bad at talking about emotions, really good at stuff we can count, really bad at the deeper stuff that actually drives behavior.

  David Brooks

  Views, Talking, World

  "David Brooks: From Spouses to Sofas, Emotions Tell Us What to Value". Interview with Jeffrey Brown, www.pbs.org. March 8, 2011.

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• My frank response to all sex questions is that there is too much significance put on them to begin with. Sex is part of human nature, and I don't know why such a big deal is made out of it.

  John Travolta

  Sex, Too Much, Made

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• We're always going to be a society that's going to slow down and look at the wreck on the side if the road if there is one. We're always going to do that because it's still fascinating and it's human nature.

  George Clooney

  Looks, Wrecks, Down And

  Interview with Norman Lear, www.interviewmagazine.com. February 7, 2012.

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• It is good to be often reminded of the inconsistency of human nature, and to learn to look without wonder or disgust on the weaknesses which are found in the strongest minds.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Humanity, Mind, Weakness

  "Warren Hastings". Book by Thomas B. Macaulay, 1851.

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• At the core of every moral code there is a picture of human nature, a map of the universe, and a version of history. To human nature (of the sort conceived), in a universe (of the kind imagined), after a history (so understood), the rules of the code apply.

  Walter Lippmann

  Maps, Moral, Kind

  Walter Lippmann (2012). “Public Opinion”, p.67, Courier Corporation

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• A piece of simple goodness--a letter gushing from the heart; a beautiful unstudied vindication of the worth and untiring sweetness of human nature--a record of the invulnerability of man, armed with high purpose, sanctified by truth.

  Douglas William Jerrold

  Beautiful, Heart, Simple

  Douglas William Jerrold (1853). “Punch's letters to his son, Punch's complete letter writer, and Sketches of the English”, p.211

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• A man without force, is without the essential dignity of humanity. Human nature is so constituted, that it cannot honor a helpless man, although it can pity him.

  Frederick Douglass

  Men, Humanity, Honor

  Frederick Douglass (2016). “The Essential Douglass: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.19, Hackett Publishing

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• Pride of origin, whether high or low, springs from the same principle in human nature; one is but the positive, the other the negative, pole of a single weakness.

  James Russell Lowell

  Spring, Pride, Weakness

  James Russell Lowell (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)”, p.1818, Delphi Classics

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• Hypocrisy itself does great honor, or rather justice, to religion, and tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The hypocrite would not be at so much pains to put on the appearance of virtue, if he did not know it was the most proper and effectual means to gain the love and esteem of mankind.

  Joseph Addison

  Pain, Hypocrite, Mean

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steel (1858). “The Spectator”, p.304

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• Human nature is good, just as water seeks low ground. There is no man who is not good, just as there is no water that does not flow downward.

  Mencius

  Men, Water, Humanity

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• Very strange is this quality of our human nature which decrees that unless we feel a future before us we do not live completely in the present.

  Phillips Brooks

  Future, Quality, Strange

  Phillips Brooks, John Cotton Brooks (1910). “Sermons: Visions and tasks, and other sermons”

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• Human nature loses its most precious quality when it is robbed of its sense of things beyond, unexplored and yet insistent.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Humanity, Quality, Humans

  Alfred North Whitehead (2014). “Science and Philosophy”, p.142, Open Road Media

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• When the laws are written and administered by the most powerful leaders in a society, it is human nature for them to understand, justify, and protect the interests of themselves and people like them. Many injustices arise from this natural human failing.

  Jimmy Carter

  Powerful, Law, Justice

  Jimmy Carter (2011). “Living Faith”, p.113, Three Rivers Press

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• The greatest need in the world at this moment is the transformation of human nature.

  Billy Graham

  Humanity, Needs, World

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• See, here's a shadow found; the human nature Is made th' umbrella to the Deity, To catch the sunbeams of thy just Creator; Beneath this covert thou may'st safely lie.

  Francis Quarles

  Lying, Shadow, May

  Francis Quarles (1777). “Emblems”, p.87

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• Civilized ages inherit the human nature which was victorious in barbarous ages, and that nature is, in many respects, not at all suited to civilized circumstances.

  Walter Bagehot

  Society, Age, Circumstances

  Walter Bagehot (1873). “Physics and Politics: Or, Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of "natural Selection" and "inheritance" to Political Society”, p.185

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• The practical life of a vast number of people is not, as a matter of fact, worth while at all. It is like an impressive fur coat with no one inside it. One sees many of these coats occupying positions of great responsibility. Hans Andersen's story of the king with no clothes told one bitter and common truth about human nature; but the story of the clothes with no king describes a situation just as common and even more pitiable.

  Evelyn Underhill

  Kings, Responsibility, Clothes

  Evelyn Underhill (2003). “Evelyn Underhill: Essential Writings”

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• People who think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic, among them influential political leaders and businessmen as well as go-getters and hustlers of smaller caliber, tend to take it for granted that human nature is selfish and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive. According to this philosophy, the basic law by which man must live, in spite of his surface veneer of civilization, is the law of the jungle. The "fittest" are those who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior cunning, and superior ruthlessness.

  S. I. Hayakawa

  Philosophy, Selfish, Struggle

  "Language in Thought and Action". Book by S. I. Hayakawa (p. 8), 1949.

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• In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Christian, Country, Religious

  Alexis De Tocqueville (2015). “Democracy in America: Book One”, p.575, eKitap Projesi via PublishDrive

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• It would take too long to explain the intimate alliance of contradictions in human nature which makes love itself wear at times the desperate shape of betrayal. And perhaps there is no possible explanation.

  Joseph Conrad

  Betrayal, Long, Making Love

  Joseph Conrad (2015). “Under Western Eyes (Unabridged Deluxe Edition): An Intriguing Tale of Espionage and Betrayal in Czarist Russia From the Renowned Author of Heart of Darkness, Nostromo & The Secret Agent (Including Author’s Memoirs, Letters & Critical Essays)”, p.307, e-artnow

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• I think you gotta have an honesty and a humility about human nature and that it's not about you at the end of the day.

  Philip Seymour Hoffman

  Honesty, Humility, Thinking

  Source: www.esquire.com

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• Analysis of rebellion leads at least to the suspicion that, contrary to the postulates of contemporary thought, a human nature does exist, as the Greeks believed. Why rebel if there is nothing permanent in oneself worth preserving? ... Rebellion, though apparently negative, since it creates nothing, is profoundly positive in that it reveals the part of man which must always be defended.

  Albert Camus

  Self Worth, Men, Greek

  "The Rebel". Book by Albert Camus, 1951.

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• Running a multi-million dollar business can be frustrating at times, especially when someone does something I am not happy with. It might not even be their fault, but it is human nature to reach in an angry or heated way. However, I have learned an important and effective lesson. Rather than complain to my member of staff about their actions, I search my memory bank for things I find wonderful about them. This changes the energy around the issue instantly. People tend to live up to what you expect of them.

  Vishen Lakhiani

  Running, Memories, Issues

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• Acting is my way of investigating human nature and having fun at the same time

  Meryl Streep

  Fun, Acting, Way

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