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Human Nature Quotes

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Human Nature Quotes

“Though business conditions may change, corporations and securities may change, and financial institutions and regulations may change, human nature remains the same. Thus the important and difficult part of sound investment, which hinges upon the investor's own temperament and attitude, is not much affected by the passing years.”

Source: The Intelligent Investor: A Book of Practical Counsel

“A small knowledge of human nature will convince us, that, with far the greatest part of mankind, interest is the governing principle... Few men are capable of making a continual sacrifice of all views of private interest, or advantage, to the common good. It is vain to exclaim against the depravity of human nature on this account; the fact is so, the experience of every age and nation has proved it and we must in a great measure, change the constitution of man, before we can make it otherwise. No institution, not built on the presumptive truth of these maxims can succeed.”

“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.”

Humans Has Beens Facts Desire Powerful Class Human Nature Institutions Obstacles Dues Inertia

Book:The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925 - 1953: 1931-1932, Essays, Reviews, and Miscellany

Source: The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925 - 1953: 1931-1932, Essays, Reviews, and Miscellany

“Most people believe they know how they themselves think, how others think too, and even how institutions evolve. But they are wrong. Their understanding is based on folk psychology, the grasp of human nature by common sense ¾ defined (by Einstein) as everything learned to the age of 18 ¾ shot through with misconceptions, and only slightly advanced over ideas employed by the Greek philosophers”

“Under the Providence of God, our means of education are the grand machinery by which the 'raw material' of human nature can be worked up into inventors and discoverers, into skilled artisans and scientific farmers, into scholars and jurists, into the founders of benevolent institutions, and the great expounders of ethical and theological science.”

Source: The Republic and the School: The Education of Free Men

“I always compare marriage to communism. They're both institutions that don't conform to human nature, so you're going to end up with lying and hypocrisy.”

Humans Ends Lying Marriage Human Nature Institutions Communism Compare Hypocrisy Conform

Author:Bill Maher

“Democracy must stand or fall on a platform of possible human perfectibility. If human nature cannot be improved by institutions, democracy is at best a more than usually safe form of political organization . . . . But if it is to work better as well as merely longer, it must have some leavening effect on human nature; and the sincere democrat is obliged to assume the power of the leaven. [Progressive]”

Ifs Humans Wells Form Political Fall Democracy Effects Human Nature Safe Organization Institutions Assuming Democrat Sincere Progressive Platforms Obliged

Book:The Promise of American Life

Source: The Promise of American Life

“Only our deep moral values and our strong social institutions can hold back that jungle and restrain the darker impulses of human nature.”

Humans Values Strong Social Moral Human Nature Institutions Impulse Jungle Moral Values Social Institutions

Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1981

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1981

“Our big social institutions do not reflect human nature; they distort it.”

Humans Bigs Social Human Nature Institutions Social Institutions

Book:A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

Source: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

“The value of money has been settled by general consent to express our wants and our property, as letters were invented to express our ideas; and both these institutions, by giving a more active energy to the powers and passions of human nature, have contributed to multiply the objects they were designed to represent.”

Want Giving Humans Has Beens Ideas Values Passion Energy History Human Nature Objects Letters Institutions Property Active Consent Roman Empire Value Of Money

Book:The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Source: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“If human nature does alter it will be because individuals manage to look at themselves in a new way. Here and there people - a very few people, but a few novelists are among them - are trying to do this. Every institution and vested interest in against such a search: organized religion, the state, the family in its economic aspect, have nothing to gain, and it is only when outward prohibitions weaken that it can proceed: history conditions it to that extent.”

“Human nature means that institutions at some point lose their sense of mission. That sense of vulnerability drives Pimco.”

Humans Mean Loses Human Nature Institutions Missions Vulnerability Gross

Author:Bill Gross

“Human nature being what it is, peace must inevitably be a relative condition. The essence of life is struggle and competition, and to that extent perfect peace is an almost meaningless abstraction. Struggle and competition are stimulating, but when they degenerate into conflict it is usually both destructive and disruptive. The aim of political institutions like the United Nations is to draw the line between struggle and conflict and to make it possible for nations to stay on the right side of that line.”

“A fundamental element of human nature is the need for creative work, for creative inquiry, for free creation without the arbitrary limiting effects of coercive institutions. A decent society should maximize the possibilities for this fundamental human characteristic to be realized.”

Needs Should Humans Creative Effects Human Nature Creation Possibility Elements Institutions Fundamentals Characteristics Decent Inquiry Arbitrary Creative Work

Book:The Chomsky - Foucault Debate: On Human Nature

Source: The Chomsky - Foucault Debate: On Human Nature