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Human Nature Quotes

Browse 4693 quotes about Human Nature.

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Human Nature Quotes

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

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Book:The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi
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“A political life, I've often said, is a continuing education in human nature, including one's own. My involvement on the ground floor of two presidential campaigns and my duties as First Lady took me to every state in our union and to seventy-eight nations. In each place, I met someone or saw something that caused me to open my mind and my heart and deepen my understanding of the universal concerns that most of humanity shares.”

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Author:Hillary Clinton
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“Government began in tyranny and force, began in the feudalism of the soldier and bigotry of the priest; and the ideas of justice and humanity have been fighting their way, like a thunderstorm, against the organized selfishness of human nature.”

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Book:Speeches, Lectures, and Letters
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“Among all the many great transitions that have marked the evolution of Western civilisation ... there has been only one-the triumph of Christianity -that can be called in the fullest sense a "revolution": a truly massive and epochal revision of humanity's prevailing vision of reality, so pervasive in its influence and so vast in its consequences as to actually have created a new conception of the world, of history, of human nature, of time, and of the moral good.”

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Author:David Bentley Hart
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“A struggle for liberty is in itself respectable and glorious. . . . When conducted with magnanimity, justice and humanity, it ought to command the admiration of every friend to human nature. But if sullied by crimes and extravagancies, it loses its respectability.”

IfsHumansHumanityLosesJusticeLibertyStruggleHuman NatureCrimeOughtCommandGloriousAdmirationRespectableRespectabilityMagnanimity
Book:Citizen Hamilton: The Wit and Wisdom of an American Founder
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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.”

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Author:Steven Pinker
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“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”

LoveBelieveWarRealityTruthFaithHumanityI BelievePeaceBlackFreedomViewsAcceptingMankindHuman NatureMonthsKingsRacismFinalsWordsBoundsRefuseI Believe InOptimisticPeacefulAfrican AmericanTragicUnconditional LoveBrotherhoodAmerican DreamMidnightUnconditionalBlack HistoryBrightnessPeace WarPeace And LoveBeliveRacial DiscriminationBlack History MonthUnarmedInternational PeaceBlack History Month InspirationalBrotherhood Of ManUnconditional AcceptanceKings SpeechFinal WordsWorld Peace DayDaybreakKings And LoveBlack History InspirationalBlack ChurchAfrican American LoveBlack InspirationalBlack RacismPeace With OthersRacism And PrejudiceDiscrimination And RacismEnding RacismFlotsamBrotherhood And PeaceTruth Will PrevailTrue Brotherhood
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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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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“... In contrast to the "banality of evil," which posits that ordinary people can be responsible for the most despicable acts of cruelty and degradation of their fellows, I posit the "banality of heroism," which unfurls the banner of the heroic Everyman and Everywoman who heed the call to service to humanity when their time comes to act. When that bell rings, they will know that it rings for them. It sounds a call to uphold what is best in human nature that rises above the powerful pressures of Situation and System as the profound assertion of human dignity opposing evil.”

PeopleKnowsHumansHumanityEvilSoundPowerfulSituationHuman NatureHeroOrdinaryDignityPressureResponsibleFellowsProfoundRingsCrueltyHeroicContrastBellsHeroismOrdinary PeopleRise AboveAssertionOpposingHeedDegradationBeing ResponsibleHuman DignityBannerDespicableService To HumanityBanalityEveryman
Author:Philip Zimbardo
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“Today [the voice of women] is being heard loud and clear. But I do not read the welcome triumph of feminism, social, economic, and creative, as a brief for postmodernism. The advance, while opening new avenues of expression and liberating deep pools of talent, has not exploded human nature into little pieces. Instead, it has set the stage for a fuller exploration of the universal traits that unite humanity.”

HumansLittlesTodayHumanitySocialVoiceCreativeClearPiecesHeardFeminismEconomicStageTalentHuman NatureExpressionUniversalFeministOpeningWelcomeTriumphLoudExplorationPoolTraitsLiberatingAvenuesPostmodernism
Author:E. O. Wilson
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“Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again... Closed in the darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captives, we awaited a Savior... Are these things minor or insignificant? Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state?”

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Author:Gregory of Nyssa
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“I believe in art that is connected to real human feeling, that extends itself beyond the limits of the art world to embrace all people who are striving for alternatives in an increasingly dehumanized world. I am trying to make art that relates to the deepest and most mythic concerns of human kind and I believe that, at this moment of history, feminism is humanism.”

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Author:Judy Chicago
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“Our life as consumers seems light years away from that of our grandparents. But you don't change human nature. Optimism, for me, is the belief that we can spread the opportunity for everyone to be fully human. Sustainability, like music, is an impulse to make sense of the world around us. It is core to our humanity. If you only like one composer, or think all the best music has already been written, you have reason for pessimism. If not, it is within us to have good reason for hope”

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Author:Ed Mayo
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“A sad truth of human nature is that it is hard to care for people when they are abstractions, hard to care when it is not you or somebody close to you. Unless the world community can stop finding ways to dither in the face of this monstrous threat to humanity those words Never Again will persist in being one of the most abused phrases in the English language and one of the greatest lies of our time.”

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Book:An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography
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“To check centralization and usurping of power ... we require a new laissez-faire. The old laissez-faire was founded upon a misapprehension of human nature, an exultation of individuality (in private character often a virtue) to the condition of a political dogma, which destroyed the spirit of community and reduced men to so many equipollent atoms of humanity, without sense of brotherhood or purpose.”

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Book:The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot
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“That soul-destroying, meaningless, mechanical, moronic work is an insult to human nature which must necessarily and inevitably produce either escapism or aggression, and that no amount of 'bread and circuses' can compensate for the damage done-these are facts which are neither denied nor acknowledged but are met with an unbreakable conspiracy of silence-because to deny them would be too obviously absurd and to acknowledge them would condemn the central preoccupation of modern society as a crime against humanity.”

HumansSoulDoneFactsWould BeHumanitySilenceModernHuman NatureCrimeProduceAmountMetsDenyBreadAbsurdMaking MoneyAcknowledgeDamageInsultDestroyingMeaninglessDeniedConspiracyAggressionCircusEscapismPreoccupationModern SocietyUnbreakableCrimes Against HumanitySmall Is BeautifulBread And Circuses
Book:SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL
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“Human beings, in a sense, may be thought of as multidimensional creatures composed of such poetic considerations as the individual need for self-realization, subdued passions for overwhelming beauty, and a hunger for meaning beyond the flavors that enter and exit the physical body. A person might even be described as a self-contained multiverse.”

NeedsHumansMayPersonsSelfBodyMightHumanityPassionIndividualHuman BeingsBeautyPsychologyHuman NatureCreaturesHungerIndividualitySelf RealizationRealizationConsiderationPoeticOverwhelmingFlavorExitPhysical BodyMultiverseSelf Contained
Author:Aberjhani
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“Today the human race is a single twig on the tree of life, a single species on a single planet. Our condition can thus only be described as extremely fragile, endangered by forces of nature currently beyond our control, our own mistakes, and other branches of the wildly blossoming tree itself. Looked at this way, we can then pose the question of the future of humanity on Earth, in the solar system, and in the galaxy from the standpoint of both evolutionary biology and human nature. The conclusion is straightforward: Our choice is to grow, branch, spread and develop, or stagnate and die.”

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Book:Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization
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