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Human Nature Quotes

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Human Nature Quotes

“The biggest mischief in the past century has been perpetrated by Rousseau with his doctrine of the goodness of human nature. The mob and the intellectuals derived from it the vision of a Golden Age which would arrive without fail once the noble human race could act according to its whims.”

Humans Has Beens Age Past Race Vision Failing Society Century Human Nature Goodness Noble Doctrine Golden Human Race Mischief Whim Golden Age

Author:Jacob Burckhardt

“All men, or most men, wish what is noble but choose what is profitable; and while it is noble to render a service not with an eye to receiving one in return, it is profitable to receive one. One ought therefore, if one can, to return the equivalent of services received, and to do so willingly; for one ought not to make a man one's friend if one is unwilling to return his favors.”

Ifs Men Eye Wish Human Nature Return Ought Noble Favors Receiving Profitable Unwilling

Author:Aristotle

“There is nothing so noble and so right as to play our human life well and fitly, nor anything so difficult to learn as how to livethis life well and according to Nature.”

Humans Wells Play Difficult Human Nature Behavior Noble Human Life

Author:Michel de Montaigne

“I have come to realize that in every person there is something fine and pure and noble, along with a desire for self-fulfillment.”

Persons Self Desire Realizing Human Nature Fine Pure Noble Fulfillment Purity Nobility Self Fulfillment

Book:I'll Never Lie to You

Source: I'll Never Lie to You

“It is essential to the sanity of mankind that each one should think the other crazy - a condition with which the cynicism of human nature so cordially complies, one could wish it were a concurrence upon a subject more noble.”

Thinking Should Humans Wish Crazy Conditions Subjects Mankind Human Nature Essentials Noble Sanity Cynicism Concurrence

Author:Emily Dickinson

“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.”

People Ifs Way Needs Humans Persons Art Action Film Form Desire Records Human Nature Independent Noble Documentaries Better Ways Better Person Independent Film Good Films

Author:Roger Ebert

“Better not be at all than not be noble.”

Human Nature Noble

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Illustrated)

“Thus we have given to man a pedigree of prodigious length, but not, it may be said, of noble quality.”

Men May Said Given Quality Human Nature Noble Length Prodigious Pedigree

Book:The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

Source: The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

“The ordinary politician has a very low estimate of human nature. In his daily life he comes into contact chiefly with persons who want to get something or to avoid something. Beyond this circle of seekers after privileges, individuals and organized minorities, he is aware of a large unorganized, indifferent mass of citizens who ask nothing in particular and rarely complain. The politician comes after a while to think that the art of politics is to satisfy the seekers after favors and to mollify the inchoate mass with noble sentiments and patriotic phrases.”

Source: The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy