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Human Nature Quotes

Browse 4693 quotes about Human Nature.

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Human Nature Quotes

“The story of the Fall always fascinates me as a play ground, but I cannot find any profound meaning in it, because of my 'liberal' view of human nature: I cannot believe in a state of original innocence, still less in a profound meaning in it, and I am always minimising the conception and the extent of Sin and the sinfulness of sex.”

BelieveHumansStillsStatesPlayStoriesFallSexSinViewsHuman NatureOriginalsProfoundInnocenceConceptionSinfulness
Author:E. M. Forster
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“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.”

MenWorldHumansSoulCountryStatesEarthChristianAmericaNationsFeltReligiousUnitedCommonUnited StatesGreaterInfluenceHuman NatureAuthorityProofHypocrisyEnlightenedConformitySovereignUtility
Book:Democracy in America: Book One
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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.”

MindFirstsHumansHeartSaidTwoStatesPoliticalHumanityNationsUnderstandingSawsShareHuman NatureDutyMy HeartMetsConcernUniversalUnionsIncludingEightCampaignsPresidentialContinuingSeventiesInvolvementFirst LadyPolitical LifePresidential Campaign
Author:Hillary Clinton
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“Whereas happiness is the highest good, being a realization and perfect practice of virtue, which some can attain, while others have little or none of it, the various qualities of men are clearly the reason why there are various kinds of states and many forms of government; for different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.”

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Book:The Essential Aristotle
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“I would rather die than be in the United States Senate. I would be bored to death. Could you imagine me, banging around that chamber with 99 other people, asking for a motion on the amendment in the subcommittee? Forget it...You'd watch me just walk out and walk right into the Potomac River and drown. That would be it.”

PeopleStatesRealityWould BeDiesPoliticsLeadershipWorkWalksForgetUnitedWatchesUnited StatesComedyImagineHuman NaturePolicyRiversAskingIndividualityIdeologyBoredVotingSenateAmendmentsDiplomacyChamberForget ItCivilityBangingWatch MeBored To Death
Author:Chris Christie
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“In the 2012 election, Obamacare, as it's called, and I'll be more polite - the ACA ...was a major issue in the campaign. I campaigned all over America for two months, everywhere I could. And in every single campaign rally I said, 'We have to repeal and replace Obamacare.' Well, the people spoke. They spoke, much to my dismay, but they spoke. And they reelected the President of the United States.”

PeopleWellsSaidTwoStatesRealityAmericaPoliticalPoliticsPresidentCommunityLeadershipJusticeUnitedPartyHistoryUnited StatesDemocracyIssuesHuman NaturePolicyHealthMonthsMajorsEthicsConstitutionElectionStrategyUnityCampaignsIdeologyVotingSpokesPolitePolitical PartiesCivilityObamacareTwo MonthsDismay2012 ElectionAca
Author:John McCain
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“[Wendy] Davis [pursued] higher education, as her campaign website says, with 'the help of academic scholarships, student loans, and state and federal grants.' Now that she is in a high-profile and hotly partisan race, it has come out that she also benefited from the moral and financial support of her second - now ex - husband. In the process, though, behavior we would expect and hardly notice in a man is being portrayed as freakish and problematic in a woman.”

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Author:Liza Mundy
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“In fact, the libertarian would reason that the fact that human nature is a mixture of both good and evil provides its own particular argument in his favor. For if man is such a mixture, then the best societal framework is surely one in which evil is discouraged and the good encouraged. The libertarian maintains that the existence of the State apparatus provides a ready, swift channel for the exercise of evil, since the rulers of the State are thereby legitimated and can wield compulsion in ways that no one else is permitted to do.”

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Author:Murray Rothbard
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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.”

HumansStatesBodySpiritPurposeFallLinesAcceptingKnowingHuman NatureMajorsRelationTerrorMortalsCyclesOver ItRebellionUnnecessaryFiniteAngstMeaning Life
Author:Edwin S. Shneidman
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“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.”

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Author:David Mitchell
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“Man's ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy-that he live in accordance with his own nature.”

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Author:Seneca the Younger
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“The same state of the passions which fits the multitude, who have not a sufficient stock of reason and knowledge to guide them, for opposition to tyranny and oppression, very naturally leads them to a contempt and disregard of all authority.”

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Book:Citizen Hamilton: The Wit and Wisdom of an American Founder
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“As riches increase and accumulate in few hands, as luxury prevails in society, virtue will be in a greater degree considered as only a graceful appendage of wealth, and the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard. This is the real disposition of human nature; it is what neither the honorable member nor myself can correct. It is a common misfortunate that awaits our State constitution, as well as all others.”

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Book:The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1774-1789: A full vindication; The farmer refuted; Quebec bill; Resolutions in Congress; Letters from Phocion; New-York Legislature, etc
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“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.”

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Book:The Federalist on the New Constitution
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“The Americans, on the contrary, are fond of explaining almost all the actions of their lives by the principle of interest rightly understood; they show with complacency how an enlightened regard for themselves constantly prompts them to assist each other, and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of the state.”

StatesShowsActionInterestPrinciplesSacrificeHuman NatureUnderstoodRegardPropertyContraryWelfareEnlightenedLive ByPortionsPhilanthropyExplainingComplacencyPromptsInclineCharacter Education
Book:Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II
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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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“A too great disproportion among the citizens weakens any state. Every person, if possible, ought to enjoy the fruits of his labour, in a full possession of all the necessities, and many of the conveniences of life. No one can doubt, but such an equality is most suitable to human nature, and diminishes much less from the happiness of the rich than it adds to that of the poor.”

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Book:Philosophical Essays: On Morals, Literature, and Politics
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“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.”

PeopleIfsWayTryingHumansLooksDoeStatesIndividualInterestAtheismEconomicConditionsHuman NatureGainsAspectInstitutionsPositive AtheismManageNovelistsOrganizedNew WaysHere And ThereProhibitionOrganized ReligionVested Interests
Author:E. M. Forster
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“You are about to be told one more time that you are America's most valuable natural resource. Have you seen what they do to valuable natural resources?! Have you seen a strip mine? Have you seen a clear cut in the forest? Have you seen a polluted river? Don't ever let them call you a valuable natural resource! They're going to strip mine your soul. They're going to clear cut your best thoughts for the sake of profit unless you learn to resist, because the profit system follows the path of least resistance and following the path of least resistance is what makes the river crooked!”

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Author:Utah Phillips
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“Legal systems, at both the national and international level, are therefore required to recognize, guarantee and protect religious freedom, which is a right intrinsically inherent in human nature, in man's dignity as a free being, and is also an indicator of a healthy democracy and cone of the main sources of the legitimacy of the State. Religious freedom ... favors the development of relationships of mutual respect between the different Confessions and their healthy collaboration with the State and political society, without confusion of roles and without antagonism.”

MenHumansDifferentStatesPoliticalReligiousLevelsRolesDemocracyHuman NatureSourceDevelopmentHealthyProtectDignityInternationalFavorsConfusionGuaranteesMutualCollaborationConfessionInherentReligious FreedomBeing FreeLegitimacyMutual RespectLegal SystemIndicatorsAntagonismCones
Author:Pope Francis
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“If nonsatiety were the natural state of human nature then aggressive want-stimulating advertising would not be necessary, nor would the barrage of novelty aimed at promoting dissatisfaction with last year's model. The system attempts to remake people to fit its own presuppositions. If people's wants are not naturally insatiable we must make them so, in order to keep the system going.”

PeopleIfsWantYearsHumansStatesLastsOrderNaturalHuman NatureFitModelsAdvertisingAggressiveLast YearPromotingNoveltyDissatisfactionRemakesInsatiable
Author:Herman E. Daly
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“Once a new social stage appears in a culture, it will spread its instructional codes and life-priority messages throughout that culture's surface-level expressions: religion, economic and political arrangements, psychological and anthro-pological theories, and views of human nature, our future destiny, globalization, and even architectural patterns and sports preferences. We all live in flow states; there is always new wine, always old wineskins. We, indeed, find ourselves pursuing a neverending quest.”

HumansStatesPoliticalCultureSocialSportsLevelsViewsDestinySocietyEconomicStageHuman NatureExpressionTheoryMessagesFlowWinePatternsSpreadSurfacePrioritiesPsychologicalCodeOur FutureQuestsArrangementsPreferenceGlobalizationFuture Destiny
Author:Don Edward Beck
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