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Human Nature Quotes

Browse 4693 quotes about Human Nature.

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Human Nature Quotes

“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.”

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Author:Jacques Maritain
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“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
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“Most men appear to think that the art of despotic government is statesmanship, and what men affirm to be unjust and inexpedient in their own case they are not ashamed of practicing towards others; they demand just rule for themselves, but where other men are concerned they care nothing about it. Such behavior is irrational; unless the one party is, and the other is not, born to serve, in which case men have a right to command, not indeed all their fellows, but only those who are intended to be subjects; just as we ought not to hunt mankind, whether for food or sacrifice . .”

ThinkingMenArtGovernmentCareBornPartyCasesSacrificeSubjectsMankindHuman NatureOughtDemandBehaviorConcernedFellowsCommandAshamedIrrationalUnjustHuntsStatesmanshipCommand Not
Author:Aristotle
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“Also our fellow competitors, who are indeed the people just mentioned - we do not compete with men who lived a hundred centuries ago, or those yet not born, or the dead, or those who dwell near the Pillars of Hercules, or those whom, in our opinion or that of others, we take to be far below us or far above us. So too we compete with those who follow the same ends as ourselves; we compete with our rivals in sport or in love, and generally with those who are after the same things; and it is therefore these whom we are bound to envy beyond all others. Hence the saying.”

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Author:Aristotle
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“We have no participation in Being, because all human nature is ever midway between being born and dying, giving off only a vague image and shadow of itself, and a weak and uncertain opinion. And if you chance to fix your thoughts on trying to grasp its essence, it would be neither more nor less than if your tried to clutch water.”

IfsThinkingGivingTryingHumansWould BeWaterBornChanceOpinionDyingHuman NatureShadowWeakEssenceThoughtfulUncertainVagueParticipationClutchMidway
Book:The Essays
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“I believe that He was made man, joining the human nature with the divine in one person; being conceived by the singular operation of the Holy Ghost, and born of the blessed Virgin Mary, who, as well after as before she brought Him forth, continued a pure and unspotted virgin.”

MenBelieveHumansWellsPersonsMadeI BelieveBornHuman NatureDivineHolyPureBlessedGhostOperationsMaryVirginsJoiningHoly GhostVirgin MaryBlessed Virgin Mary
Book:The Works of the Rev. John Wesley: The doctrine of original sin, and tracts on various subjects of polemical divinity
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“The classic theology of my tradition comes from the French Renaissance. [William] Shakespeare was born in 1564, the year [John] Calvin died, and that theology was very influential in England in his lifetime. I think Shakespeare was attentive to questions raised by it, about human nature, history, reality itself. I find the two literatures to be mutually illuminating.”

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Author:Marilynne Robinson
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“If it be taught that all who are born have a right to support on the land, whatever be their number, and that there is no occasion to exercise any prudence in the affair of marriage so as to check this number, the temptations, according to all the known principles of human nature, will inevitably be yielded to, and more and more will gradually become dependent on parish assistance.”

IfsHumansBornNumbersKnownPrinciplesSupportLandHuman NatureTaughtExerciseAffairChecksTemptationOccasionsDependentAssistancePrudenceParish
Book:An Essay on the Principle of Population: Or, A View of Its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness; with an Inquiry Into Our Prospects Respecting the Future Removal Or Mitigation of the Evils which it Occasions
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“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

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Author:Nelson Mandela
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“I believe a man is born first unto himself - for the happy developing of himself, while the world is a nursery, and the pretty things are to be snatched for, and pleasant things tasted; some people seem to exist thus right to the end. But most are born again on entering manhood; then they are born to humanity, to a consciousness of all the laughing, and the never-ceasing murmur of pain and sorrow that comes from the terrible multitudes of brothers.”

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Book:The Selected Letters of D. H. Lawrence
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“Man's ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy-that he live in accordance with his own nature.”

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Author:Seneca the Younger
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“Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there is in that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty born of the imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance. Believing himself to be the slave of God, he imitates his master, and of all tyrants the worst is a slave in power.”

MenBelieveHumansSpiritReligionBornAtheismWorstHuman NatureMastersSlaveTyrannyIgnorantCompromiseCertaintyArroganceImperfectionTyrantsModestyAssuranceTheological
Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll
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“At the heart of the message of the Savior of the world is a single, glorious, wonderful, still largely untried concept. In its simplest terms the message is that we should seek to overcome the selfishness we all seem to be born with, that we should overcome human nature and think of others before self.”

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Author:James E. Faust
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“Feminism as a movement for political and social equity is important, but feminism as an academic clique committed to eccentric doctrines about human nature is not. Eliminating discrimination against women is important, but believing that women and men are born with indistinguishable minds is not. Freedom of choice is important, but ensuring that women make up exactly 50 percent of all professions is not. And eliminating sexual assaults is important, but advancing the theory that rapists are doing their part in a vast male conspiracy is not.”

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Author:Steven Pinker
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“If idioms are more to be born than to be selected, then the things of life and human nature that a man has grown up with--(not that one man's experience is better than another's, but that it is 'his.')--may give him something better in his substance and manner than an over-long period of superimposed idiomatic education which quite likely doesn't fit his constitution. My father used to say, 'If a poet knows more about a horse than he does about heaven, he might better stick to the horse, and some day the horse may carry him into heaven'”

IfsKnowsMenGivingHumansMayLongDoeMightUsedFatherHeavenBornHuman NaturePoetPeriodsFitConstitutionHorseSticksSubstanceOne ManSomething BetterSelectedIdiom
Author:Charles Ives
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