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Human Nature Quotes

Browse 4693 quotes about Human Nature.

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Human Nature Quotes

“Pride... is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or the other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”

ThinkingBelieveHumansMayPersonsDifferentRealSelfFeelingsUsedI BelieveCommonQualityOpinionFailingHuman NaturePrideProudConvincedVanityRelateVainScoreDifferent ThingsCherishImaginaryBe ProudComplacencyVanity And Pride
Author:Jane Austen
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“...in any land, in any country under modern free competition, to lay any class of weak and despised people, be they white, black, or blue, at the political mercy of their stronger, richer, and more resourceful fellows, is a temptation which human nature seldom has withstood and seldom will withstand.”

PeopleHumansCountryPoliticalBlackWhiteClassModernLandHuman NatureWeakMercyStrongerBlueFellowsLaysCompetitionTemptationDespisedResourceful
Book:The Souls of Black Folk: The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois
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“Anything's possible in Human Nature," Chacko said in his Reading Aloud voice. Talking to the darkness now, suddenly insensitive to his little fountain-haired niece. "Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite joy." Of the four things that were Possible in Human Nature, Rahel thought that Infinnate Joy sounded the saddest. Perhaps because of the way Chacko said it. Infinnate Joy. With a church sound to it. Like a sad fish with fins all over.”

WayHumansLittlesSaidJoyReadingSoundVoiceChurchTalkingDarknessFourHuman NatureMadnessInfiniteFishesFountainSaddestInsensitiveNieceFinsReading Aloud
Book:The God of Small Things
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“Under capitalism the common man enjoys amenities which in ages gone by were unknown and therefore inaccessible even to the richest people. But, of course, these motorcars, television sets and refrigerators do not make a man happy. In the instant in which he acquires them, he may feel happier than he did before. But as soon as some of his wishes are satisfied, new wishes spring up. Such is human nature.”

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Author:Ludwig von Mises
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“What is a Poet? He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endued with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them.”

MenHumansDoeSoulSpiritUniversePassionCommonGreaterMankindHuman NaturePoetEnthusiasmSupposed To BeRejoiceContemplatingTendernessSensibilityComprehensiveLivelyVolitionSpirit Of Life
Book:Poems
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“Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. It is a moral aesthetic, an ethical alchemy. If you behave in a certain way, you will be transformed. The myths and laws of religion are not true because they they conform to some metaphysical, scientific or historical reality but because they are life enhancing. They tell you how human nature functions, but you will not discover their truth unless you apply these myths and doctrines to your own life and put them into practice.”

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Author:Karen Armstrong
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“School was more than academics; an education prepared you for the humdrum of real life: working with others, tempering one's personality to assimilate with the group but without losing your individual identity, understading the factors of logic, reasoning, and debate. For a person - vampire or human - to succeed in the world, unlocking the mysteries of the universe was insufficient. One would also need to grasp the mysteries of human nature.”

WorldNeedsHumansPersonsRealSchoolUniverseIndividualGroupsMysteryHuman NatureIdentityPersonalitySucceedLosingLogicPreparedDebateReal LifeFactorsVampireReasoningInsufficientHumdrumUnlockingWorking With Others
Book:The Van Alen Legacy: Number 4 in series
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“How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of Adam Smith (Illustrated)
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“Could you understand the meaning of light if there were no darkness to point the contrast? Day and night, life and death, love and hatred, since none of these things can have any being at all apart from the existence of the other, you can no more separate them than you can separate the two sides of a coin.”

IfsHumansHardLightNightSidesExistenceDarknessHuman NatureHatredLife And DeathContrastDay And NightPierceIndolenceHatred And Love
Author:Elizabeth Goudge
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“Some people think that evolutionary psychology claims to have discovered that human nature is selfish and wicked. But they are flattering the researchers and anyone who would claim to have discovered the opposite. No one needs a scientist to measure whether humans are prone to knavery. The question has been answered in the history books, the newspapers, the ethnographic record, and the letters to Ann Landers. But people treat it like an open question, as if someday science might discover that it's all a bad dream and we will wake up to find that it is human nature to love one another.”

PeopleIfsThinkingNeedsHumansHas BeensBookDreamMightPsychologyRecordsHuman NatureLettersOppositesScientistTreatsClaimsWake UpSelfishNewspapersWickedSomedayEvolutionary PsychologyResearchersFlatteringLove One AnotherHistory BooksBad DreamKnavery
Author:Steven Pinker
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“I hate the world and almost all the people in it. I hate the Labour Congress and the journalists who send men to be slaughtered, and the fathers who feel a smug pride when their sons are killed, and even the pacifists who keep saying human nature is essentially good, in spite of all the daily proofs to the contrary. I hate the planet and the human race—I am ashamed to belong to such a species.”

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Book:Autobiography
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“We want to believe in the essential, unchanging goodness of people, in their power to resist external pressures, in their rational appraisal and then rejection of situational temptations. We invest human nature with God-like qualities, with moral and rational faculties that make us both just and wise. We simplify the complexity of human experience by erecting a seemingly impermeable boundary between Good and Evil.”

PeopleWantBelieveHumansEvilQualityMoralWiseHuman NatureEssentialsGoodnessPressureBoundariesRationalTemptationRejectionComplexityGood And EvilFacultyHuman ExperienceSimplifyUnchangingAppraisalComplexity Of Human
Author:Philip Zimbardo
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