Human Nature Quotes - Page 19

• We imagine much more appropriately an artisan on his toilet seat or on his wife than a great president, venerable by his demeanorand his ability. It seems to us that they do not stoop from their lofty thrones even to live.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Imagination, Wife, President

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.615, Stanford University Press

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• What a wonderful thing it is that drop of seed, from which we are produced, bears in itself the impressions, not only of the bodily shape, but of the thoughts and inclinations of our fathers!

  Michel de Montaigne

  Children, Father, Inheritance

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

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• Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most arrogant.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Self, Arrogance

  Michel de Montaigne (1973). “Selections from the Essays”, Harlan Davidson

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• My opinion is that we must lend ourselves to others and give ourselves only to ourselves. If my will happened to be prone to mortgage and attach itself, I would not last: I am too tender, both by nature and by practice.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Self, Practice, Giving

  Michel de Montaigne (1976). “The Complete Essays of Montaigne”

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• There is a certain amount of purpose, acquiescence, and satisfaction in nursing one's melancholy.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Sadness, Nursing, Self

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

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• Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgment on him.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Diversity, Uniforms

  Essais bk. 1, ch. 1 (1580)

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• Our own peculiar human condition is that we are as fit to be laughed at as able to laugh.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Laughter, Laughing, Peculiar

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• The most beautiful lives, to my mind, are those that conform to the common human pattern, with order, but without miracle and without eccentricity.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Beautiful, Order, Miracle

  Michel de Montaigne (1973). “Selections from the Essays”, Harlan Davidson

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• There is nothing so noble and so right as to play our human life well and fitly, nor anything so difficult to learn as how to livethis life well and according to Nature.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Play, Noble, Behavior

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• We perceive no charms that are not sharpened, puffed out, and inflated by artifice. Those which glide along naturally and simply easily escape a sight so gross as ours.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Sight, Charm, Gross

  Michel de Montaigne (1976). “The Complete Essays of Montaigne”

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• Those who make a practice of comparing human actions are never so perplexed as when they try to see them as a whole and in the same light; for they commonly contradict each other so strangely that it seems impossible that they have come from the same shop.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Light, Practice, Diversity

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.239, Stanford University Press

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• O human creature,you are the investigator without knowledge, the magistrate without jurisdiction, and all in all, the fool of the farce.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Arrogance, Farce, Fool

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• Badgered, snubbed and scolded on the one hand; petted, flattered and indulged on the other-it is astonishing how many children work their way up to an honest manhood in spite of parents and friends. Human nature has an element of great toughness in it.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Children, Hands, Parent

  Henry Ward Beecher (1862). “Eyes and Ears”, p.78

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• The gods cannot misunderstand, man cannot explain.

  Henry David Thoreau

  God, Communication, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1644, Delphi Classics

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• Men, in general, are not this or that, they are what they are made to be.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Men, Society, Made

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• Love is like some fresh spring, first a stream and then a river, changing its aspect and its nature as it flows to plunge itself in some boundless ocean, where restricted natures only find monotony, but where great souls are engulfed in endless contemplation.

  Honore de Balzac

  Love, Spring, Ocean

  Honore de Balzac (2011). “The Magic Skin: Or The Wild Ass's Skin”, p.121, The Floating Press

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• But does not happiness come from the soul within?

  Honore de Balzac

  Happiness, Soul, Doe

  Honore de Balzac (2011). “The Magic Skin: Or The Wild Ass's Skin”, p.76, The Floating Press

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• Women, perhaps even require a little hypocrisy.

  Honore de Balzac

  Women, Hypocrisy, Littles

  Honore de Balzac (2011). “The Magic Skin: Or The Wild Ass's Skin”, p.94, The Floating Press

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• An indiscriminate distrust of human nature is the worst consequence of a miserable condition, whether brought about by innocence or guilt. And though want of suspicion more than want of sense, sometimes leads a man into harm; yet too much suspicion is as bad as too little sense.

  Herman Melville

  Men, Guilt, Too Much

  Herman Melville (2015). “Israel Potter: Works of Melville”, p.39, 谷月社

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• However exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers, the true practical system can be learned only in the world.

  Henry Fielding

  World, May, Practicals

  Henry Fielding (1836). “The history of Tom Jones: a foundling”, p.407

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• In an interview, former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan said he does not have a racist bone in his body. However, he admitted he has three sexist bones and his spine is homophobic.

  Conan O'Brien

  Presidential, Racist, Body

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• Human nature is a scoundrel's favorite explanation.

  Mason Cooley

  Humanity, Scoundrels, Explanation

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• What is human in me is not what is best in me. What is human in me is that I desire, and to obtain what I desire, I believe I would crush anything that stood in my way.

  Albert Camus

  Crush, Believe, Desire

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• The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man.

  James Madison

  Men, Differences, Causes

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, J.R. Pole (2005). “The Federalist”, p.49, Hackett Publishing

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• Man is known to be a selfish, as well as a social being.

  James Madison

  Selfish, Men, Being Human

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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