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Human Nature Quotes

Browse 4693 quotes about Human Nature.

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Human Nature Quotes

“The typical atheist rebels against God as a teenager rebels against his parents. When his own desires or standards are not fulfilled in the way that he sees fit, he, in revolt, storms out of the house in denial of the Word of God and in scrutiny of a great deal of those who stand by the Word of God. The epithet 'Heavenly Father' is a grand reflection, a relation to that of human nature.”

WayHumansDesireFatherHouseParentDealsHuman NatureFitStandardsReflectionRelationAtheistStormDenialTeenagerHeavenlyWord Of GodRebelFulfilledTypicalRevoltHeavenly FatherScrutinyTheistEpithet
Book:Killosophy
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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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“I think that the desire to be cruel and to hurt (with words because any other way might be dangerous to ourself) is part of human nature. Parties are battles (most parties), a conversation is a duel (often). Everybody's trying to hurt first, to get in the dig that will make him or her feel superior, feel triumph.”

ThinkingWayFeelsTryingFirstsHumansMightDesireHurtPartyDangerousHuman NatureBattleConversationSuperiorsTriumphUnkindness
Book:The letters of Jean Rhys
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“Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts can argue down or mask your passions--tell me, what trespass is it that man should have them?... If nature has so wove her web of kindness, that some threads of love and desire are entangled with the piece--must the whole web be rent in drawing them out?”

IfsMenShouldHeartWholeDesirePassionKindnessPiecesHuman NatureColdShould HaveWarmArguingDrawingTemptationMaskThreadClayLukeWarm Heart
Book:The Works of Laurence Sterne: Containing The Life and Opinions of Tristan Shandy ... [etc.] ; with a Life of the Author Written by Himself
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“Finding God in all things is not an 'empirical eureka.' When we desire to encounter God, we would like to verify him immediately by an empirical method. But you cannot meet God this way...A contemplative attitude is necessary: it is the feeling that you are moving along the good path of understanding and affection toward things and situations. Profound peace, spiritual consolation, love of God, and love of all things in God-this is the sign that you are on this right path.”

WayFeelingsWisdomSpiritualMovingDesireReligionUnderstandingAttitudeSituationPathHuman NatureFindingsAll ThingsAnd LoveMethodProfoundAffectionGod LoveEncountersConsolationRight PathContemplativeVerifyGod And LoveFinding God
Author:Pope Francis
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“Fun... human nature... does no one any harm... Regular as clockwork the old excuses came back into the alert, sad and dissatisfied brain--nothing ever matched the deep excitement of the regular desire. Men always failed you when it came to the act. She might just as well have been to the pictures.”

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Book:The Collected Edition: Brighton rock
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“Many of the obstacles for change which have been attributed to human nature are in fact due to the inertia of institutions and to the voluntary desire of powerful classes to maintain the existing status.”

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Book:The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925 - 1953: 1931-1932, Essays, Reviews, and Miscellany
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“But the 20th century suffered "two" ideologies that led to genocides. The other one, Marxism, had no use for race, didn't believe in genes and denied that human nature was a meaningful concept. Clearly, it's not an emphasis on genes or evolution that is dangerous. It's the desire to remake humanity by coercive means (eugenics or social engineering) and the belief that humanity advances through a struggle in which superior groups (race or classes) triumph over inferior ones.”

BelieveHumansMeanTwoUseDesireHumanityBeliefSocialRaceClassStruggleGroupsCenturyDangerousHuman NatureEvolutionConceptsMeaningfulSuperiorsIdeologyTriumphGenocideDeniedGenesEngineeringInferiors20th CenturyEmphasisMarxismEugenicsRemakesSocial Engineering
Author:Steven Pinker
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“You might declare that global warming and energy insecurity, not to mention urban sprawl and pollution, have intensified the sin of indulging one's motoring desires. And I would not argue with that point. You're right. I am a bad man. But over the long term, if you want to develop a new transportation and energy policy, you'd probably want to err on the side of assuming that people won't change much. And it is human nature to like to be empowered.”

PeopleIfsMenWantHumansLongMightDesireEnergySidesTermSinHuman NaturePolicyAssumingArguingLong TermGlobal WarmingInsecurityPollutionUrbanEmpoweredTransportationBad ManEnergy PolicyUrban Sprawl
Author:Joel Achenbach
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“A lot of people just go to movies that feed into their preexisting and not so noble needs and desires: They just go to action pictures, and things like that. But if you go to foreign films, if you go to documentaries, if you go to independent films, if you go to good films, you will become a better person because you will understand human nature better. Movies record human nature in a better way than any other art form, that's for sure.”

PeopleIfsWayNeedsHumansPersonsArtActionFilmFormDesireRecordsHuman NatureIndependentNobleDocumentariesBetter WaysBetter PersonIndependent FilmGood Films
Author:Roger Ebert
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“The desire for story is very, very deep in human beings. We are the only creature in the world that does this; we are the only creature that tells stories, and sometimes those are true stories and sometimes those are made up stories. Then there are the larger stories, the grand narratives that we live in, which are things like nation and family and clan and so on. Those stories are considered to be treated reverentially. They need to be part of the way in which we conduct the discourse of our lives and to prevent people from doing something very damaging to human nature.”

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Author:Salman Rushdie
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“The strongest argument against totalitarianism may be a recognition of a universal human nature; that all humans have innate desires for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of the blank slate... is a totalitarian's dream.”

HumansMayDreamDesireLibertyHuman NatureArgumentUniversalPursuitDoctrineRecognitionStrongestBlankInnatePursuit Of HappinessTotalitarianismSlateLife Liberty And The Pursuit Of HappinessBlank Slates
Author:Steven Pinker
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“Even the sober desire for progress is sustained by faith—faith in the intrinsic goodness of human nature and in the omnipotence of science. It is a defiant and blasphemous faith, not unlike that held by the men who set out to build a "city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven" and who believed that "nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.”

MenHumansMayDesireHeavenCitiesProgressHuman NatureGoodnessTowersSoberOmnipotenceProgressivism
Book:The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
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“This position will not be disputed so long as it is admitted that the desire of reward is one of the strongest incentives of human conduct, or that the best security for the fidelity of mankind is to make their interest coincide with their duty. Even the love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds... would on the contrary deter him from the undertaking, when he foresaw that he must quit the scene before he could accomplish the work.”

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Author:Alexander Hamilton
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“We suffer not from overproduction but from undercirculation. You have heard of technocracy. I wish I had those fellows for my competitors. I'd like to take the automobile it is said they predicted could be made now that would last fifty years. Even if never used, this automobile would not be worth anything except to a junkman in ten years, because of the changes in men's tastes and ideas. This desire for change is an inherent quality in human nature, so that the present generation must not try to crystallize the needs of the future ones.”

IfsMenNeedsTryingYearsHumansMadeSaidIdeasLastsUsedDesireSufferingWishQualityGenerationsHeardHuman NatureTasteTenFellowsFiftyDaily LifeInherentCompetitorsAutomobile
Author:Charles Kettering
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“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.”

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Author:Anna Halprin
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“We must remember with Heine that Aristophanes is the God of this ironic earth, and that all argument is apparently vitiated from the start by the simple fact that Wagner and a rooster are given an analogous method of making love. And therefore it seems impeccable logic to say that all that is most unlike the rooster is the most spiritual part of love. All will agree on that, schisms only arise when one tries to decide what does go farthest from the bird's automatic mechanism. Certainly not a Dante-Beatrice affair which is only the negation of the rooster in terms of the swooning bombast of adolescence, the first onslaught of a force which the sufferer cannot control or inhabit with all the potentialities of his body and soul. But the rooster is troubled by no dreams of a divine orgy, no carnival-loves like Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, no heroic and shining lust gathering and swinging into a merry embrace like the third act of Siegfried. It is desire in this sense that goes farthest from the animal.”

LoveDesireSexHuman NatureHuman ConditionClassicsExceptionalismHumanocentrism
Book:Lysistrata
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“There is not the same willingness to admit that our desires and should be our own likewise, or that to possess impulses of our own, and of any strength, is anything but a peril and a snare. Yet desires and impulses are as much a part of a perfect human being as beliefs and restraints; and strong impulses are only perilous when not properly balanced.”

DesireHuman NatureBalancePerfectionBeliefsRestraintUtilitarianismImpulses
Book:On Liberty
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