Quotessence
Home / Topics / Human Nature Quotes

Human Nature Quotes

Browse 4693 quotes about Human Nature.

Related topics

MenPeopleIfsThinkingWorldMayWantWayKnowsHas BeensBelieveCharacterHuman BeingsMankindNeedsSelfInspirationalMeanWellsReasonDoeLawShouldTryingPersonsSeemsTwoDifferentGivingHumanityLongRealityLittlesPrinciplesUnderstandingFactsFeelsEvilKindWarMadeAnimalMindFirstsInterestLifeHeartLooksIdeasNaturalPassionDesirePoliticalSoulCommunitySidesVirtueArtCommonGovernmentMightRealSocialHappinessSpiritStudyActionAgeConditionsFeelingsFormIndividualSometimesWisdomWritingEndsExistenceFoundLanguagePleasureSpiritualViewsBornChangeDivineForceGivenIndividualityJusticeLiteratureQualityShowsWholeGreaterHateMatterMomentsPhilosophyPoliticsSciencemore

Human Nature Quotes

“We doubt not the destiny of our country that she is to accomplish great things for human nature, and be the mother of a nobler race than the world has yet known. But she has been so false to the scheme made out at her nativity, that it is now hard to say which way that destiny points.”

WorldWayHumansHas BeensMadeCountryHardMotherRaceKnownDestinyDoubtHuman NatureAccomplishGreat ThingsOur CountrySchemesNativity
Book:Memoirs, [ed.] by R.W. Emerson, W.H. Channing, and J.F. Clarke
Create image

“I am a thing not new, I am as old As human nature. I am that which lurks, Ready to spring whenever a bar is loosed; The ancient trait which fights incessantly Against restraint, balks at the upward climb; The weight forever seeking to obey The law of downward pull; and I am more: The bitter fruit am I of planted seed; The resultant, the inevitable end Of evil forces and the powers of wrong.”

HumansEndsLawFightingEvilForceForeverHuman NatureReadySpringWeightFruitAncientSeekingSeedsBarsBitterInevitableClimbsTraitsRestraintIncessantly
Author:James Weldon Johnson
Create image

“The separation of Science from Knowledge was effected step by step as the Subjective Method was replaced by the Objective Method: i.e., when in each inquiry the phenomena of external nature ceased to be interpreted on premisses suggested by the analogies of human nature.”

HumansStepsHuman NatureMethodSeparationObjectivesReplacedInquirySubjectiveAnalogies
Book:Aristotle: A Chapter from the History of Science, Including Analyses of Aristotle's Scientific Writings
Create image

“In some mysterious way, once one has gained an insight into human nature, that insight grows from day to day, and he to whom it has given to experience vicariously even one single form of earthly suffering acquires, by reason of this tragic lesson, an understanding of all its forms, even those most foreign to him, and apparently abnormal.”

WayHumansReasonFormSufferingGivenGrowsUnderstandingHuman NatureLessonsInsightMysteriousAcquireTragicDay To DayAbnormalMysterious Ways
Author:Stefan Zweig
Create image

“For human nature is so made that only what is unusual and infrequent excites wonder or is regarded as of value. We make no wonder of the rising and the setting of the sun which we see every day; and yet there is nothing in the universe more beautiful, or worthy of wonder. When, however, an eclipse of the sun takes place, everyone is amazed - because it happens rarely.”

HumansMadeHappensBeautifulValuesUniverseWonderSunHuman NatureWorthySettingSettingsRisingUnusualAmazedEclipseEclipse Of The Sun
Author:Gerald of Wales
Create image

“Human nature turns out to be more complicated than the idea that people will get along if only the rules are clear enough. Uncertainty, the ultimate evil that modern law seeks to eradicate, generally fosters cooperation, not the opposite.”

PeopleIfsHumansIdeasEnoughLawTurnsEvilClearModernHuman NatureOppositesUltimateComplicatedUncertaintyCooperation
Book:The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America
Create image

“Whatever was in the human nature of Christ was moved at the bidding of the divine will; yet it does not follow that in Christ there was no movement of the will proper to human nature, for the good wills of other saints are moved by God's will... For although the will cannot be inwardly moved by any creature, yet it can be moved inwardly by God.”

HumansDoeChristHuman NatureMovementDivineCreaturesMovedSaintGods WillGood WillBiddingDivine Will
Book:Summa Theologica, Volume 4 (Part III, First Section)
Create image

“In a large congregation, while there is a wide diversification of interest, it is also true that there are only a few basic human problems. It must also be taken into consideration that people are people regardless of who they are or what their backgrounds may be. There are certain deep universal appeals to human interest and to these human nature always responds.”

PeopleHumansMayProblemCertainInterestTakenHuman NatureUniversalWideBackgroundsAppealsConsiderationCongregationDiversificationHuman Problems
Book:A Guide to Confident Living
Create image

“There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature. They are like gigantic trees that we sometimes see on the banks of a stream; which, by their vast and deep roots, penetrating through the mere surface, and laying hold on the very foundations of the earth, preserve the soil around them from being swept away by the ever-flowing current, and hold up many a neighboring plant, and perhaps worthless weed, to perpetuity.”

HumansSometimesSeemsEarthLiteratureLanguagePrinciplesTreeHuman NatureRootsFoundationPlantMereCurrentsSurfaceProofPreservesStreamsSoilWeedRootedNow And ThenWorthlessUnchangingSwept AwayDeep RootsMutability
Book:The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. – The Complete Collection: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle, The Voyage, Roscoe, A Royal Poet, A Sunday in London and many more (Illustrated)
Create image

“Advertising is the modern substitute for argument, its function is to make the worse appear the better article. A confused competition of all propagandas -- those insults to human nature -- is carried on by the most expert psychological methods -- for instance, by always repeating a lie.”

HumansLyingModernHuman NatureArgumentFunctionMethodCompetitionPsychologicalAdvertisingInstancePropagandaExpertsConfusedInsultSubstitutesArticles
Book:The Works of George Santayana
Create image

“A highly developed moral nature joined to an undeveloped intellectual nature, an undeveloped artistic nature, and a very limited religious nature, is of necessity repulsive. It represents a bit of human nature a good bit, of course, but a bit only in disproportionate, unnatural and revolting prominence.”

HumansCoursesBitsReligiousMoralHuman NatureIntellectualArtisticUnnaturalProminence
Book:Edward Gibbon (1856) Bishop Butler (1854) Sterne and Thackeray (1864) The Waverley novels (1858) Charles Dickens (1858) Thomas Babington Macaulay (1856) Béranger (1857) Mr. Clough's poems (1862) Henry Crabb Robinson (1869) Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browni
Create image

“Thus society is born, as something required by nature, and (because this nature is human nature) as something accomplished through a work of reason and will, and freely consented to. Man is a political animal, which means that the human person craves political life, communal life, not only with regard to the family community, but with regard to the civil community.”

MenHumansMeanPersonsReasonPoliticalBornCommunityAnimalHuman NatureRegardAccomplishedCravePolitical LifePolitical Animals
Author:Jacques Maritain
Create image

“It is visible then that it was not any Heathen Religion or other Idolatrous Superstition, that first put Man upon crossing his Appetites and subduing his dearest Inclinations, but the skilful Management of wary Politicians; and the nearer we search into human Nature, the more we shall be convinced, that the Moral Virtues are the Political Offspring which Flattery begot upon Pride.”

MenFirstsHumansPoliticalMoralVirtueHuman NaturePridePoliticianManagementConvincedVisibleAppetiteSuperstitionsFlatteryInclinationCrossingsOffspringHeathenMoral Virtues
Book:The Fable of the Bees
Create image

“All political movements are like this - we are in the right, everyone else is in the wrong. The people on our own side who disagree with us are heretics, and they start becoming enemies. With it comes an absolute conviction of your own moral superiority. There's oversimplification in everything, and a terror of flexibility.”

PeopleRealityPoliticalPoliticsSidesCommunityPartyMoralEnemyGenerationsHuman NatureMovementBecomingEthicsAbsolutesStrategyUnityTerrorConvictionIdeologyTeaVotingDisagreeFree SpeechSuperiorityPolitical PartiesFlexibilityCivilityDisobedienceTea PartyCivil DisobedienceHereticPartisanshipThird PartiesPolitical MovementsOversimplificationMoral Superiority
Author:Doris Lessing
Create image

“If we have system in which government is in a position to give large favor - it's human nature to try to get this favor - whether those people are large enterprises, or whether they're small businesses like farmers, or whether they're representatives of any other special group. The only way to prevent that is to force them to engage in competition one with the other.”

PeopleIfsWayGivingTryingHumansGovernmentForceGroupsSpecialHuman NaturePositionCompetitionFavorsEnterpriseFarmersRepresentativesSmall Business
Author:Milton Friedman
Create image

“In the Germany of the l920s, the Weimar Republic, both orga­nismic biology and Gestalt psychology were part of a larger intellectual trend that saw itself as a protest movement against the increasing fragmentation and alienation of human nature. The entire Weimar culture was characterized by an antimechanistic outlook, a "hunger for wholeness". Organismic biology, Gestalt psychology, ecology, and, later on, general systems theory all grew out of this holistic zeitgeist.”

HumansCulturePsychologySawsHuman NatureMovementTheoryGrewIntellectualHungerGermanyProtestBiologyRepublicTrendsEcologyWholenessOutlookAlienationHolisticZeitgeistFragmentationGestaltSystems TheoryProtest Movements
Author:Fritjof Capra
Create image

“Born and nurtured when the human being first asked questions about the reason for things and their purpose, philosophy shows in different modes and forms that the desire for truth is part of human nature itself.”

FirstsHumansDifferentReasonPhilosophyShowsFormDesirePurposeBornHuman BeingsHuman NatureTruth Is
Book:Faith and Reason: Encyclical Letter Fides Et Ratio of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Relationship Between Faith and Reason
Create image

“I think it's going to be remembered as the last major war on planet Earth, if we're lucky, if we maintain our foreign policy properly. It will be remembered as the last time major countries had to put people in the field and put them in harm's way. It may be the last of all human nature wars, which is a nice way to remember any kind of a war, as the last one.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWayHumansKindMayWarCountryEarthLastsRememberNiceHuman NaturePolicyFieldsPlanetsLuckyMajorsHarmRememberedForeign PolicyLast TimePlanet Earth
Author:Tom Clancy
Create image