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Human Nature Quotes

Browse 4693 quotes about Human Nature.

Human Nature Quotes

“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.”

“He who expects from a great name in politics, in philosophy, in art, equal greatness in other things, is little versed in human nature. Our strength lies in our weakness. The learned in books are ignorant of the world. He who is ignorant of books is often well acquainted with other things; for life is of the same length in the learned and unlearned; the mind cannot be idle; if it is not taken up with one thing, it attends to another through choice or necessity; and the degree of previous capacity in one class or another is a mere lottery.”

Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)

“Enslave a man and you destroy his ambition, his enterprise, his capacity. In the constitution of human nature, the desire of bettering one's condition is the mainspring of effort. The first touch of slavery snaps this spring.”

Men Firsts Humans Desire Effort Conditions Human Nature Ambition Spring Capacity Constitution Slavery Enterprise Snaps

Book:Slavery

Source: Slavery

“The history of the world, as it is written and handed down by word of mouth, often fails us completely; but man's intuitive capacity, though it often misleads, does lead, does not ever abandon one.”

Men World Love Doe Failing Written Human Nature Mouths Capacity Abandon Intuitive One Love World History Mislead Word Of Mouth

Book:The Blue Octavo Notebooks

Source: The Blue Octavo Notebooks

“Never underestimate the human capacity for delusion.”

Humans Human Nature Capacity Delusion Underestimate Never Underestimate Human Capacity

Author:Roger Cohen

“No one should dogmatize about the capacity of human nature for degradation or exaltation.”

Men Should Humans Mankind Human Nature Capacity Degradation Exaltation

Book:All Men Are Brothers

Source: All Men Are Brothers

“A commander should have a profound understanding of human nature, the knack of smoothing out troubles, the power of winning affection while communicating energy, and the capacity for ruthless determination where require by circumstances. He needs to generate an electrifying current, and to keep a cool head in applying it.”

“The capacity of the mind is broad and huge, like the vast sky. Do not sit with a mind fixed on emptiness. If you do, you will fall into a neutral kind of emptiness. Emptiness includes the sun, moon, stars, and planets, the great earth, mountains and rivers, all trees and grasses, bad people and good people, bad things and good things, heaven and hell; they are all in the midst of emptiness. The emptiness of human nature is also like this.”

Source: The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch

“Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”

“No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.”

Inspirational Heart Made Fear Plans Human Nature Capacity Guilt Hollowness

Book:The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

Source: The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

“Inference is founded upon obvious reasons. Regard to reputation has a less active influence, when the infamy of a bad action is to be divided upon a number, than when it is to fall singly upon one. A spirit of faction . . . will often hurry the persons of whom they were composed into improprieties and excesses for which they would blush in a private capacity.”

Source: America's Founding Documents: The Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the United States Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and the Bill of Rights

“I found that I faced a highly complex situation, and that I couldnt hope to change it until I had armed myself with the necessary psychological and intellectual capacity. My contemplation of life and human nature in that secluded place had taught me that he who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality, and will never, therefore, make any process.”

Humans Reality Able Found Process Situation Human Nature Taught Intellectual Capacity Complexes Psychological Contemplation Fabric Secluded

Book:In Search of Identity: An Autobiography

Source: In Search of Identity: An Autobiography

“It is not human nature which can assign the variable limits necessary to our needs. They are thus unlimited so far as they depend on the individual alone. Irrespective of any external regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss.”

Needs Humans Feelings Individual Force Human Nature Depends Limits Capacity Unlimited Abyss Variables Insatiable

Book:Suicide

Source: Suicide

“The capacity to suffer varies more than anything that I have observed in human nature.”

Humans Suffering Human Nature Capacity Vary

Book:More Memories

Source: More Memories

“Movement has the capacity to take us to the home of the soul, the world within for which we have no name. Movement reaches our deepest nature, and dance creatively expresses it. Through dance, we gain new insights into the mystery of our lives. When brought forth from the inside and forged by the desire to create personal change, dance has the profound power to heal the body, psyche and soul.”

“After all, I quite naturally want to live in order to fulfill my whole capacity for living, and not in order to fulfill my reasoning capacity alone, which is no more than some one-twentieth of my capacity for living. What does reason know? It knows only what it has managed to learn (and it may never learn anything else; that isn't very reassuring, but why not admit it?), while human nature acts as a complete entity, with all that is in it, consciously or unconsciously; and though it may be wrong, it's nevertheless alive.”

Knows Want Life Humans May Doe Reason Whole Order Alive Human Nature Capacity Live Life Reasoning Why Not Entity Nevertheless Reassuring

Author:Fyodor Dostoevsky