Human Nature Quotes - Page 24

• Berkshire was built on the eternal verities: basic mathematics, basic horse sense, basic fear, and basic diagnosis of human nature to make predictions regarding human behavior. We stuck to the basics with a certain amount of discipline and it has worked out quite well.

  Charlie Munger

  Horse, Discipline, Investing

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• We have not to construct human nature afresh, but to take it as we find it, and make the best of it.

  Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

  Make The Best Of It, Constructs, Humans

  "A Woman's Thoughts About Women" by Dinah Maria Murlock Craik, (Ch. 11), 1858.

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• People yearn to be in one of the best--a combat marine regiment, an elite college, the executive committee of a company, a religious sect, a fraternity, a garden club--any collectivity that can be compared favorably with other, competing groups.

  E. O. Wilson

  Religious, Marine, College

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• No doubt hard work is a great police agent. If everybody were worked from morning till night, and then carefully locked up, the register of crime might be greatly diminished. But what would become of human nature? Where would be the room for growth in such a system of things? It is through sorrow and mirth, plenty and need, a variety of passions, circumstances, and temptations, even through sin and misery, that men's natures are developed.

  Arthur Helps

  Morning, Hard Work, Passion

  Sir Arthur Helps (1848). “Friends in Council: A Series of Readings and Discourse Thereon”, p.55

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• Societies as well as people become afraid of change as they grow older. It's human nature. The young have adventures while the old sit at home and nurture their memories.

  Paul J. McAuley

  Memories, Home, Adventure

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• It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that there is no passion so deeply rooted in human nature as that of pride.

  Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

  Passion, Pride, Humans

  Susan Edmonstone Ferrier (1841). “The inheritance, by the author of Marriage. By the author of 'Marriage'. Revised by the author”, p.1

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• I am persuaded that the people of the world have no grievances, one against the other. The hopes and desires of a man who tills the soil are about the same whether he lives on the banks of the Colorado or on the banks of the Danube.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Peace, Men, People

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• All human beings hang by a thread, an abyss may open under their feet at any moment, and yet they have to go and invent all sortsof difficulties for themselves and spoil their lives.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Feet, May, Moments

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• Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Change, Animal, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.187, Penguin

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• The incarnation of God is a necessity of human nature. If we reap and truly have a Father, we must be able to clasp His feet in our penitence, and to lean on His breast in our weary sorrowfulness.

  Charles Deems

  Father, Feet, Able

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• ... it is not the color of the skin that makes the man or the woman, but the principle formed in the soul. Brilliant wit will shine, come from whence it will; and genius and talent will not hide the brightness of its lustre.

  Maria W. Stewart

  Men, Race, Color

  Maria W. Stewart, Marilyn Richardson (1987). “Maria W. Stewart, America's First Black Woman Political Writer: Essays and Speeches”, p.70, Indiana University Press

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• The introduction of the Christian religion into the world has produced an incalculable change in history. There had previously been only a history of nations--there is now a history of mankind; and the idea of an education of human nature as a whole.--an education the work of Jesus Christ Himself--is become like a compass for the historian, the key of history, and the hope of nations.

  Jean-Henri Merle d'Aubigne

  Christian, Jesus, Keys

  Jean Henri Merle d'Aubigné (1843). “History of the Great Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in Germany, Switzerland, Etc”, p.341

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• Human nature is so weak that the honest men who have no religion make me fret with their perilous virtue, as rope-dancers with their dangerous equilibrium.

  Francis de Gaston, Chevalier de Levis

  Men, Dancer, Rope

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• we are beginning to understand that this instinct of sex which has been so great a cause of suffering and shame and has been treated as a subject fit only for furtive whispers or silly jokes, is in fact one of the greatest powers in human nature, and that its misuse is indeed 'the expense of spirit in a waste of shame.

  Maude Royden

  Sex, Silly, Suffering

  Agnes Maude Royden (1924). “Sex and Common-sense”, p.3, Reprofis LLC

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• We must trust infinitely to the beneficent necessity which shines through all laws. Human nature expresses itself in them as characteristically as in statues, or songs, or railroads, and an abstract of the codes of nations would be an abstract of the common conscience.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Song, Law, Shining

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1870). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.527, Рипол Классик

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• The religion of the Bible is the best in the world. I see the infinite value of religion. Let it be always encouraged. A world ofsuperstition and folly have grown up around its forms and ceremonies. But the truth in it is one of the deep sentiments in human nature.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Bible, Religion, World

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• The true contrast between science and religion is that science unites the world and makes it possible for people of widely differing backgrounds to work together and to cooperate. Religion, on the other hand, by its very claim to know “The Truth” through “revelation,” is inherently divisive and a creator of separatism and hostility.

  Hermann Bondi

  Hands, People, Religion

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• It is easy enough to say, Be true to your values. But what if your values are irrational? Or what if the virtues you have committed yourself to are so much against human nature that they cannot be practiced consistently? Be careful of what you accept as your code of morality. Think carefully about whether its tenets serve your life and well being. Exercise critical judgment. Realize how much is at stake-your life, your happiness, your self-esteem.

  Nathaniel Branden

  Self Esteem, Exercise, Thinking

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• Nor is any evidence to be found, either in History or Human Nature, that nations are to be bribed out of a spirit of encroachment and aggression, by humiliations which nourish their pride, or by concessions that extend their resources and power.

  James Madison

  Pride, Spirit, Resources

  James Madison, David B. Mattern (1997). “James Madison's "Advice to My Country"”, p.16, University of Virginia Press

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• The most important misunderstanding seems to me to lie in a confusion between the human necessities which I consider part of human nature, and the human necessities as they appear as drives, needs, passions, etc., in any given historical period.

  Erich Fromm

  Lying, Passion, Confusion

  "Human Nature and Social Theory". Letter by Erich Fromm to Vladimir Dobrenkov, March 10, 1969.

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• In contrast to our own social environment which brings out different aspects of human nature and often demonstrated that behavior which occurs almost invariably in individuals within our society is nevertheless due not to original nature but to social environment; and a homogeneous and simple development of the individual may be studied.

  Margaret Mead

  Simple, May, Our Society

  Margaret Mead (1962). “Growing Up in New Guinea: A Comparative Study of Primitive Education”

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• I love man-kind, but I hate the institutions of the dead unkind. Men execute nothing so faithfully as the wills of the dead, to the last codicil and letter. They rule this world, and the living are but their executors. Such foundation too have our lectures and our sermons, commonly.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Education, Hate, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.109, Delphi Classics

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• We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice. Where is the skillful swordsman who can give clean wounds, and not rip up his work with the other edge?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Rip, Evil, Giving

  Henry David Thoreau (1996). “The nature writings of Henry David Thoreau”

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• Some have asked if the stock of men could not be improved,--if they could not be bred as cattle. Let Love be purified, and all therest will follow. A pure love is thus, indeed, the panacea for all the ills of the world.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love Is, Men, World

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Familiar Letters (Annotated Edition)”, p.165, Jazzybee Verlag

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• No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature, knowing himself for a man, and the equal of any and all governments. In that sense he was the most American of us all.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Knowing, America

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Essential Thoreau”, p.322, Simon and Schuster

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