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Human Nature Quotes

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Human Nature Quotes

“In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.”

Source: Democracy in America: Book One

“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.”

“We Americans are not an inherently more violent people than folks in other countries. We're not inherently more prone to mental health problems. The main difference that sets our nation apart is what makes us so susceptible to so many mass shootings is that we don't do enough, we don't take the basic commonsense actions to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people. What's different in America is it's easy to get your hands on a gun.”

“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.”

“The introduction of the Christian religion into the world has produced an incalculable change in history. There had previously been only a history of nations--there is now a history of mankind; and the idea of an education of human nature as a whole.--an education the work of Jesus Christ Himself--is become like a compass for the historian, the key of history, and the hope of nations.”

World Humans Ideas Whole Christian Jesus Nations Christ Christianity Mankind Human Nature Keys Jesus Christ Historian Compass Introduction Changes In History

Book:History of the Great Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in Germany, Switzerland, Etc

Source: History of the Great Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in Germany, Switzerland, Etc

“We must trust infinitely to the beneficent necessity which shines through all laws. Human nature expresses itself in them as characteristically as in statues, or songs, or railroads, and an abstract of the codes of nations would be an abstract of the common conscience.”

Humans Would Be Law Song Nations Common Human Nature Conscience Shining Code Abstract Statues Railroads

Book:The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Source: The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nor is any evidence to be found, either in History or Human Nature, that nations are to be bribed out of a spirit of encroachment and aggression, by humiliations which nourish their pride, or by concessions that extend their resources and power.”

Humans Spirit Found Nations Human Nature Pride Evidence Resources Aggression Humiliation Concessions Encroachment

Book:James Madison's

Source: James Madison's

“I have long been settled in my own opinion that neither Philosophy, nor Religion, nor Morality, nor Wisdom, nor Interest, will ever govern nations or Parties, against their vanity, their Pride, their Resentment, or Revenge, or their Avarice, or Ambition. Nothing but Force and Power and Strength can restrain them.”

Long Philosophy Force Nations Interest My Own Party Opinion Human Nature Pride Morality Ambition Revenge Vanity Resentment Avarice Power And Strength Force And Power

Book:John Adams: Writings from the New Nation, 1784-1826

Source: John Adams: Writings from the New Nation, 1784-1826

“Communism is an aspiration, an aspiration is an ideal, a dream, a longing of something that would be perfect, but hard to build because it has to clash with human nature and against the egotism of humans and the egotism of the elites which usually try to guarantee their own interests above those of their nations and of their own people. But they are the ones that prevail because they have the economic power, the political power and the military power.”

“The four cornerstones of character on which the structure of this nation was built are: Initiative, Imagination, Individuality and Independence.”

Character Nations Imagination Four Human Nature Built Independence Structure Individuality Individualism Initiative Cornerstones Character Education Personality Flaws

Author:Eddie Rickenbacker

“What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. The threat of violence, the fear of violence, or actual violence, is the instrument of this dreadful will. You can see the will to power in bedrooms, kitchens, factories, unions and the borders of states. Listen to this and remember it. The nation state is merely human nature inflated to monstrous proportions. QED, nations are entities whose laws are written by violence. Thus it ever was, so ever shall it be.”

Humans War States Remember Law Nations Violence Written Human Nature Instruments Unions Threat Borders Kitchen Proportion Sparks Factories Entity Bedroom Monstrous Will Power Backbone

Author:David Mitchell

“A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.”

Persons Form Nations Responsibility Moral Society Human Nature Identity Morality Integrity Members Responsible Hypocrisy Citizenship American Citizens Moral Responsibility Moral Society

Book:Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness

Source: Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness

“The history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion of human virtue which would make it wise in a nation to commit interests of so delicate and momentous a kind as those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world, to the sole disposal of a magistrate, created and circumstanced, as would be a president of the United States.”

Source: The Federalist on the New Constitution

“Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human Nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?”

Humans Nations Virtue Impossible Human Nature Vices Connected Experiments Permanent Sentiments Providence Alas Felicity Farewell Address

Book:Washington's Farewell Address: The Proclamation of Jackson Against Nullification, and the Declaration of Independence

Source: Washington's Farewell Address: The Proclamation of Jackson Against Nullification, and the Declaration of Independence

“America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government.”

Humans Government America Nations Voice Existence Rights Mankind Human Nature Foundation Presidential Spokes

Book:An Address, Delivered at the Request of the Committee of Arrangements for Celebrating the Anniversary of Independence: At the City of Washington on the Fourth of July 1821, Upon the Occasion of Reading the Declaration of Independence. ...

Source: An Address, Delivered at the Request of the Committee of Arrangements for Celebrating the Anniversary of Independence: At the City of Washington on the Fourth of July 1821, Upon the Occasion of Reading the Declaration of Independence. ...

“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.”

“Fraternity among nations, however, touches the deepest desire of human nature”

Humans Desire Nations Human Nature Fraternity

Author:Hjalmar Branting

“There is only One Human race; Humankind.”

People Nations Peace Human Beings Human Nature Wise Words Humankind Co Existence

Author:Lailah Gifty Akita