Human Nature Quotes - Page 3

• Scenery is fine - but human nature is finer.

  John Keats

  Fine, Scenery, Humans

  Letter to Benjamin Bailey, 13 March 1818, in H. E. Rollins (ed.) 'The Letters of John Keats' (1958) vol. 1, p. 242

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• There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify - so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of new heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in rubbish.

  John Keats

  Nature, Fire, Heroism

  John Keats (1820). “The Complete Works of John Keats”, p.37

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• Self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment.

  Maxwell Maltz

  Integrity, Self, Accomplishment

  Maxwell Maltz (2015). “Psycho-Cybernetics: Updated and Expanded”, p.8, Penguin

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• Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Humility, Perfection, Dull

  W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

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• When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.

  George Orwell

  Leadership, Courage, Empowering Others

  George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.114, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• You can tell alot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans.

  Ronald Reagan

  Food, Character, Patriotic

  In New York Times 15 Jan. 1981

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• Our lives teach us who we are.

  Salman Rushdie

  Character, Who We Are, Teach

  Salman Rushdie (1990). “In good faith”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.

  Bertrand Russell

  Change, Happiness, Success

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.90, Lulu Press, Inc

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• To describe happiness is to diminish it.

  Stendhal

  Happiness, Laughter, Joy

  Stendhal (1955). “The private diaries of Stendhal [pseud.]”

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• It belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured.

  Tacitus

  Hate, Anger, Politics

  "Agricola". Book by Tacitus. Chapter 42. "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th edition", 1919.

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• Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.

  Mark Twain

  Integrity, Real, Carpe Diem

  Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain on Common Sense: Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America's Most-Revered Humorist”, p.17, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.

  Peter De Vries

  Inspirational, Marriage, Children

  Tunnel of Love (1954) ch. 8

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• The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Change, Sarcastic

  The Importance of Being Earnest act 2 (1895)

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• Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Government

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1971). “The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.413, Harvard University Press

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• No wind favors he who has no destined port.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Inspirational, Change, Inspiring

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• All happy people are grateful. Ungrateful people cannot be happy. We tend to think that being unhappy leads people to complain, but it’s truer to say that complaining leads to people becoming unhappy.

  Dennis Prager

  Happiness, Ungrateful People, Adversity

  FaceBook post by Dennis Prager from Sep 30, 2016

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• Don't wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

  Mark Twain

  Dirty, Pigs, Likes

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• Satire is tragedy plus time.

  Lenny Bruce

  Tragedy, Satire, Plus

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• Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name!

  Emma Goldman

  Nature, Names, Crime

  Emma Goldman (2015). “Anarchism: Top Crime Collections”, p.34, 谷月社

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• Everyone who has something is afraid of losing it, and people with nothing are worried they'll forever have nothing. Everyone is the same.

  Haruki Murakami

  Fear, People, Worry

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• If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

  Quoted in Observer, 15 Jan. 1950

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• People who truly love us can be divided into two categories: those who understand us, and those who forgive us our worst sins. Rarely do you find someone capable of both.

  Jonathan Carroll

  Love, Forgiveness, Two

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• You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.

  Billie Holiday

  Body, Littles, Holding On

  Billie Holiday, William Dufty (2011). “Lady Sings the Blues: The 50th-Anniversay Edition with a Revised Discography”, p.198, Broadway Books

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• I believe in art that is connected to real human feeling, that extends itself beyond the limits of the art world to embrace all people who are striving for alternatives in an increasingly dehumanized world. I am trying to make art that relates to the deepest and most mythic concerns of human kind and I believe that, at this moment of history, feminism is humanism.

  Judy Chicago

  Art, Real, Believe

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• When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them, they show us the state of our decay.

  Brian Aldiss

  Love, Fear, Children

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