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Human Nature Quotes

Browse 4693 quotes about Human Nature.

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Human Nature Quotes

“Human nature is full of riddles; . . . one of those riddles is: how is it that people who have been crushed by the sheer weight of slavery and cast to the bottom of the pit can nevertheless find strength in themselves to rise up and free themselves first in spirit and then in body while those who soar unhampered over the peaks of freedom suddenly lose the taste of freedom, lose the will to defend it, and, hopelessly confused and lost, almost begin to crave slavery?'”

PeopleFirstsHumansHas BeensBodySpiritLostLosesHuman NatureTasteWeightSlaveryBottomCastsConfusedSheerNeverthelessSoarCravePitsCrushedRiddleFinding StrengthLost And Confused
Author:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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“It appears an extraordinary thing to me, that since there is such a diabolical spirit in the depravity of human nature, as persecution for difference of opinion in religious tenets, there never happened to be any inquisition, any auto da fe, any crusade, among the Pagans.”

HumansSpiritDifferencesReligiousOpinionHappenedHuman NatureExtraordinaryIntolerancePersecutionPaganCrusadesDepravityExtraordinary ThingsInquisitionDiabolicalDifferences Of Opinion
Book:The Works of Laurence Sterne ...: With a Life of the Author, Written by Himself ...
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“The spirit of God, like the sun, always gives all its light at once. The spirit of man resembles the pale moon, which has its phases, its absences and its returns, its lucidity and its spots, its fullness and its disappearance, which borrows all its light from the rays of the sun, and which still dares to intercept them on occasion.”

MenGivingStillsGodLightSpiritSunHuman NaturePrideReturnMoonDareAbsenceSpotsOccasionsRaysPalePhasesFullnessSpirit Of GodDisappearanceLucidity
Author:Victor Hugo
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“we are beginning to understand that this instinct of sex which has been so great a cause of suffering and shame and has been treated as a subject fit only for furtive whispers or silly jokes, is in fact one of the greatest powers in human nature, and that its misuse is indeed 'the expense of spirit in a waste of shame.”

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Book:Sex and Common-sense
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“To will the obligatory in relation to death is to fall in line with the major immutable cycles of Nature, especially human nature, and to understand that (whether or not there is a purpose or meaning to life or a life of the spirit beyond the life of the body) no one, absolutely no one, escapes being finite and mortal. And knowing this, and then to accept it, to will it, and not to be in an unnecessary state of angst or rebellion or terror over it.”

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Author:Edwin S. Shneidman
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“Life is holy and it is for all of us. God's design, I cannot understand myself and I never will, but I do know that what we are experiencing now will pass and in the end we will all be brothers, not just blood brothers, as we are, but brothers in spirit. Neither you nor I can change the world or human nature and we can only aim at changing attitudes - and perhaps teach those who have so much to give a portion of their blessings to those who have less.”

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Author:F. Sionil José
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“What is a Poet? He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endued with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them.”

MenHumansDoeSoulSpiritUniversePassionCommonGreaterMankindHuman NaturePoetEnthusiasmSupposed To BeRejoiceContemplatingTendernessSensibilityComprehensiveLivelyVolitionSpirit Of Life
Book:Poems
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“By experience; by a sense of human frailty; by a perception of "the soul of goodness in things evil;" by a cheerful trust in human nature; by a strong sense of God's love; by long and disciplined realization of the atoning love of Christ; only thus can we get a free, manly, large, princely spirit of forgiveness.”

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Book:Sermons Preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton
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“Whenever a man believes that he has the exact truth from God, there is in that man no spirit of compromise. He has not the modesty born of the imperfections of human nature; he has the arrogance of theological certainty and the tyranny born of ignorant assurance. Believing himself to be the slave of God, he imitates his master, and of all tyrants the worst is a slave in power.”

MenBelieveHumansSpiritReligionBornAtheismWorstHuman NatureMastersSlaveTyrannyIgnorantCompromiseCertaintyArroganceImperfectionTyrantsModestyAssuranceTheological
Book:The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll
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“It is a misfortune, inseparable from human affairs, that public measures are rarely investigated with that spirit of moderation which is essential to a just estimate of their real tendency to advance or obstruct the public good; and that this spirit is more apt to be diminished than prompted, by those occasions which require an unusual exercise of it.”

HumansRealSpiritHuman NatureExerciseEssentialsAffairTendenciesOccasionsMisfortunesUnusualModerationInseparablePublic Good
Book:The Federalist: With Letters of Brutus
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“Inference is founded upon obvious reasons. Regard to reputation has a less active influence, when the infamy of a bad action is to be divided upon a number, than when it is to fall singly upon one. A spirit of faction . . . will often hurry the persons of whom they were composed into improprieties and excesses for which they would blush in a private capacity.”

PersonsReasonActionSpiritFallNumbersInfluenceHuman NatureCapacityRegardObviousActiveReputationDividedExcessFactionsInferenceInfamyBad Actions
Book:America's Founding Documents: The Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the United States Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and the Bill of Rights
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“It is astonishing that so simple a truth should ever have had an adversary; and it is one among a multitude of proofs, how apt a spirit of ill-informed jealousy, or of too great abstraction and refinement is to lead men astray from the plainest paths of reason and conviction.”

MenShouldReasonSpiritSimplePathHuman NatureIllConvictionProofMultitudesAbstractionAdversariesAstonishingRefinement
Book:The Federalist on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788, with an Appendix Containing the Letters of Pacificus and Helvidius on the Proclamation of Neutrality of 1793
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“The aim of life is some way of living, as flexible and gentle as human nature; so that ambition may stoop to kindness, and philosophy to condor and humor. Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper, bloody hands, an anguished spirit, and a vain hatred of the rest of the world.”

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Author:George Santayana
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“Music is a manifestation of the human spirit, similar to language. Its greatest practitioners have conveyed to mankind things not possible to say in any other language. If we do not want these things to remain dead treasures, we must do our utmost to make the greatest possible number of people understand their idiom.”

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Author:Zoltan Kodaly
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“Radical feminism is the most destructive and fanatical movement to come down to us from the Sixties. This is a revolutionary, not a reformist, movement, and it is meeting with considerable success. Totalitarian in spirit, it is deeply antagonistic to traditional Western culture and proposes the complete restructuring of society, morality, and human nature.”

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Author:Robert Bork
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“At the core, there is one simple, overarching reason why so many people remain unsatisfied in their work and why most organisations fail to draw out the greatest talent, ingenuity, and creativity of their people and never become truly great, enduring organisations. It stems from an incomplete paradigm of who we are - our fundamental view of human nature. The fundamental reality is, human beings are not things needing to be motivated and controlled; they are four-dimensional - body, mind, heart, and spirit.”

PeopleMindHumansHeartReasonBodyRealitySpiritHuman BeingsSimpleViewsCreativityFourFailingTalentHuman NatureDrawsFundamentalsEndureCoreReason WhyWho We AreControlledMotivatedStemParadigmIncompleteOrganisationIngenuityUnsatisfiedMind Heart
Author:Stephen Covey
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“Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul; and thus it may be looked on as weakness in the composition of human nature. But if we consider the frequent relieves we receive from it and how often it breaks the gloom which is apt to depress the mind and damp our spirits, with transient, unexpected gleams of joy, one would take care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life.”

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Author:Malcolm De Chazal
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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.”

MenHumansCharacterPoliticalSpiritPurposeHumanityCommunityVirtueConditionsHuman NatureIndividualityConservativeChecksDestroyedAtomsBrotherhoodDogmaLaissez FaireCentralization
Book:The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot
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“'Go to My brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father, and your Father, and to My God, and your God' (Jn. 20:!7). He is our Father by grace through the Spirit of adoption (Rom. 8:15), but His Father by nature on account of His divinity. Similarly, He is our God as the creator of our human nature, but His God by reason of the dispensation whereby He became man. He made these distinctions so that we might understand the difference.”

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Author:Gregory Palamas
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