“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.” PeopleHumansMatterFactsStoriesCommonNumbersResponsibilitySituationHuman NaturePositionKingsClothesPracticalsBitterRealismCoatsImpressiveFurMatter Of FactGreat ResponsibilityFur CoatsPractical Life Book:Evelyn Underhill: Essential Writings Source: Evelyn Underhill: Essential Writings
“The fact that the apes exist and that we can study them is extremely important and makes us reflect on ourselves and our human nature. In that sense alone, you need to protect the apes.” NeedsHumansImportantFactsStudyHuman NatureProtectApes Author:Frans de Waal
“Willpower is what separates us from the animals. It's the capacity to restrain our impulses, resist temptation - do what's right and good for us in the long run, not what we want to do right now. It's central, in fact, to civilisation.” WantLongFactsRunningHumanityAnimalHuman NatureDisciplineRight NowGoodnessCapacitySeparationResistanceTemptationImpulseCivilizedLong RunsSelf ControlWillpowerCivilisationRestraining Author:Roy Baumeister
“I also came to see that liberalism's superficial optimism concerning human nature caused it to overlook the fact that reason is darkened by sin. The more I thought about human nature the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin causes us to use our minds to rationalize our actions. Liberalism failed to see that reason by itself is little more than an instrument to justify man's defensive ways of thinking. Reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations.” ThinkingMenWayMindHumansLittlesReasonFactsUseActionCausesSinSawsHuman NatureOptimismInstrumentsLiberalismTragicJustifySuperficialInclinationOur ActionsWay Of ThinkingDistortionRationalizePurifying Book:The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: Source: The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.:
“It is a fact of human nature that we derive pleasure from watching others engage in pleasurable acts. This explains the popularity of two enterprises: pornography and cafés.” HumansTwoFactsPleasureHuman NatureEnterprisePopularityPornography Author:Eric Weiner
“Comics play a trite but lusty tune on the C natural keys of human nature. They rouse the most primitive, but also the most powerful, reverberations in the noisy cranial sound-box of consciousness, drowning out more subtle symphonies. Comics scorn finesse, thereby incurring the wrath of linguistic adepts. They defy the limits of accepted fact and convention, thus amortizing to apoplexy the ossified arteries of routine thought.” HumansBookPlayFactsSoundNaturalPowerfulConsciousnessHuman NatureKeysLimitsBoxesAcceptedComicTunesSubtleMost PowerfulRoutineConventionsPrimitiveComic BookWrathScornDrowningSymphonyNoisyArteriesFinesseReverberationIncurring Author:William Moulton Marston
“One fact must be familiar to all those who have any experience of human nature - a sincerely religious man is often an exceedingly bad man.” MenHumansFactsReligiousAtheismHuman NaturePositive AtheismFamiliarSincerelyBad Man Book:The Martyrdom of Man Source: The Martyrdom of Man
“Beyond the fact that it is a limitless arena for the full play of human nature, there is no sure accounting for golf's fascination... Perhaps it is nothing more than the best game man has ever devised.” MenHumansPlayFactsGamesHuman NatureGolfArenaLimitlessFascinationAccounting Author:Herbert Wind