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Human Nature Quotes

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Human Nature Quotes

“The typical atheist rebels against God as a teenager rebels against his parents. When his own desires or standards are not fulfilled in the way that he sees fit, he, in revolt, storms out of the house in denial of the Word of God and in scrutiny of a great deal of those who stand by the Word of God. The epithet 'Heavenly Father' is a grand reflection, a relation to that of human nature.”

Source: Killosophy

“Running a multi-million dollar business can be frustrating at times, especially when someone does something I am not happy with. It might not even be their fault, but it is human nature to reach in an angry or heated way. However, I have learned an important and effective lesson. Rather than complain to my member of staff about their actions, I search my memory bank for things I find wonderful about them. This changes the energy around the issue instantly. People tend to live up to what you expect of them.”

“Acting is my way of investigating human nature and having fun at the same time”

Way Humans Fun Acting Human Nature My Way Having Fun Investigating

Author:Meryl Streep

“I also came to see that liberalism's superficial optimism concerning human nature caused it to overlook the fact that reason is darkened by sin. The more I thought about human nature the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin causes us to use our minds to rationalize our actions. Liberalism failed to see that reason by itself is little more than an instrument to justify man's defensive ways of thinking. Reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations.”

Source: The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.:

“We doubt not the destiny of our country that she is to accomplish great things for human nature, and be the mother of a nobler race than the world has yet known. But she has been so false to the scheme made out at her nativity, that it is now hard to say which way that destiny points.”

World Way Humans Has Beens Made Country Hard Mother Race Known Destiny Doubt Human Nature Accomplish Great Things Our Country Schemes Nativity

Book:Memoirs, [ed.] by R.W. Emerson, W.H. Channing, and J.F. Clarke

Source: Memoirs, [ed.] by R.W. Emerson, W.H. Channing, and J.F. Clarke

“In some mysterious way, once one has gained an insight into human nature, that insight grows from day to day, and he to whom it has given to experience vicariously even one single form of earthly suffering acquires, by reason of this tragic lesson, an understanding of all its forms, even those most foreign to him, and apparently abnormal.”

Way Humans Reason Form Suffering Given Grows Understanding Human Nature Lessons Insight Mysterious Acquire Tragic Day To Day Abnormal Mysterious Ways

Author:Stefan Zweig

“I'm an actor, and part of my joy and my curiosity about the job that I do, is that actors have the privilege of exploring human nature in different ways.”

Way Humans Different Jobs Joy Actors Human Nature Curiosity Privilege Different Ways Exploring

Author:Tom Hiddleston

“If we have system in which government is in a position to give large favor - it's human nature to try to get this favor - whether those people are large enterprises, or whether they're small businesses like farmers, or whether they're representatives of any other special group. The only way to prevent that is to force them to engage in competition one with the other.”

People Ifs Way Giving Trying Humans Government Force Groups Special Human Nature Position Competition Favors Enterprise Farmers Representatives Small Business

Author:Milton Friedman

“I think it's going to be remembered as the last major war on planet Earth, if we're lucky, if we maintain our foreign policy properly. It will be remembered as the last time major countries had to put people in the field and put them in harm's way. It may be the last of all human nature wars, which is a nice way to remember any kind of a war, as the last one.”

People Ifs Thinking Way Humans Kind May War Country Earth Lasts Remember Nice Human Nature Policy Fields Planets Lucky Majors Harm Remembered Foreign Policy Last Time Planet Earth

Author:Tom Clancy

“There are a lot of wrong reasons to do a remake, but there are some good ones... I think it's human nature, in many ways, to retell our favorite stories. We do it in the theater, all the time. I've seen four different 'Hamlets,' and every one has given me something different.”

Thinking Way Humans Different Reason Stories Given Four Human Nature Theater Remakes Wrong Reasons

Author:Joel Kinnaman

“I think that the desire to be cruel and to hurt (with words because any other way might be dangerous to ourself) is part of human nature. Parties are battles (most parties), a conversation is a duel (often). Everybody's trying to hurt first, to get in the dig that will make him or her feel superior, feel triumph.”

Thinking Way Feels Trying Firsts Humans Might Desire Hurt Party Dangerous Human Nature Battle Conversation Superiors Triumph Unkindness

Book:The letters of Jean Rhys

Source: The letters of Jean Rhys

“Government began in tyranny and force, began in the feudalism of the soldier and bigotry of the priest; and the ideas of justice and humanity have been fighting their way, like a thunderstorm, against the organized selfishness of human nature.”

Way Humans Has Beens Ideas Government Humanity Fighting Force Justice Human Nature Soldier Tyranny Selfishness Organized Priests Bigotry Thunderstorm Feudalism

Book:Speeches, Lectures, and Letters

Source: Speeches, Lectures, and Letters

“My pessimism (which, by the way, is far from absolute) originated with my despair in the lack of perfection to be found in human nature. I was attempting in my successive books to show the inevitable handicap of the human condition.”

Way Humans Book Shows Found Conditions Human Nature Despair Perfection Absolutes Inevitable Pessimism Human Condition Attempting Handicaps

Author:Stanislaw Lem

“Ultimately we're all faced with the same things and that's what brings us together. It's just human nature to be terrified and that doesn't necessarily manifest itself in completely different ways.”

Way Humans Different Together Human Nature Different Ways Manifest Terrified

Author:Cassidy Erin Gifford

“It's human nature to want to keep going, but you have to fight against the "I'm just gonna keep doing it" when you know the possibility of not looking great on the way out.”

Knows Way Want Humans Fighting Human Nature Possibility Keep Going

Author:Nikki Sixx

“It's just human nature - isn't it? - to be more attracted to something that's taboo. If someone tells you not to smoke, you wanna smoke. If they say, 'Don't do drugs,' you wanna do drugs. That's why I've always thought that the best way to stop people taking drugs is to legalise the fucking things. It would take people about five seconds to realise that being an addict is a terribly unattractive and pathetic way to be, whereas at the moment it still has that kind of rebel cool vibe to it, y'know?”

People Ifs Knows Way Humans Kind Stills Moments Five Human Nature Kings Drug Best Way Smoke Realising Seconds Rebel Addict Pathetic Taboo Unattractive

Author:Ozzy Osbourne

“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.”

Source: The Essential Aristotle

“All are agreed that the various moral qualities are in a sense bestowed by nature: we are just, and capable of temperance, and brave, and possessed of the other virtues from the moment of our birth. But nevertheless we expect to find that true goodness is something different, and that the virtues in the true sense come to belong to us in another way. For even children and wild animals possess the natural dispositions, yet without Intelligence these may manifestly be harmful.”

Source: The Nicomachean ethics

“Corruption, embezzlement, fraud, these are all characteristics which exist everywhere. It is regrettably the way human nature functions, whether we like it or not. What successful economies do is keep it to a minimum. No one has ever eliminated any of that stuff.”

Way Humans Stuff Economy Successful Human Nature Function Corruption Characteristics Fraud Minimum Embezzlement

Author:Alan Greenspan

“What is human in me is not what is best in me. What is human in me is that I desire, and to obtain what I desire, I believe I would crush anything that stood in my way.”

Way Believe Humans Desire I Believe Human Nature My Way Crush Aggression

Author:Albert Camus

“What is to be done with people who can't read a Sunday paper without messing it all up?... Show me a Sunday paper which has been left in a condition fit only for kite flying, and I will show you an antisocial and dangerous character who has left it that way.”

People Way Has Beens Done Character Shows Left Conditions Dangerous Human Nature Fit Paper News Flying Sunday Show Me Kites Antisocial

Book:No Poems

Source: No Poems

“You never know what's actually going on in a person's life. You don't know what happened to them before you met them...and that's why they are the way they are. But I do think about it whenever I get in contact with my fans. I know this may be the only time they'll ever meet me. I try to take advantage of that moment and be kind and grateful.”

“You can be walking down the street for a chat, but until you've got the selfie out of the way, people aren't ready to talk.”

People Way Reality Community Technology Generations Streets Human Nature Ready Walking Social Media Ideology Civility

Author:David Cameron

“I'm so sick and tired of all this violence, this gun violence. And how could I speak on it - you know - being one who has advocated violence and gun violence? The only way I could do it was through a song that spoke from the heart.”

“I'll tell you...why Wonder Woman worked. Or Bionic Woman. Or any of those [shows] really. It was because it wasn't about brawn...it was about brains. And yes, she happened to be beautiful, she happened to be kind of extraordinary in some way, but she wasn't a guy. And I think that, [now], they...put out a female hero, and all they are doing is changing the costume from a man to a woman...they're not showcasing any of the tremendous dichotomies than women possess in term of softness and toughness, sweetness and grit, inner and outer strength.”

“Finding God in all things is not an 'empirical eureka.' When we desire to encounter God, we would like to verify him immediately by an empirical method. But you cannot meet God this way...A contemplative attitude is necessary: it is the feeling that you are moving along the good path of understanding and affection toward things and situations. Profound peace, spiritual consolation, love of God, and love of all things in God-this is the sign that you are on this right path.”

“I'm tired of the naked, raped, beaten black woman body. I want to see an image of black femaleness that alters our universe in some way.”

“Putting women's traditional needs at the center of social planning is not reverse sexism. It's the best way to reverse the increasing economic vulnerability of men and women alike.”

“Our view of nature will influence the way we treat nature, and our view of human nature will affect our understanding of human responsibility.”

Way Humans Understanding Views Responsibility Influence Human Nature Treats Environmental Stewardship

Author:Ian Barbour

“Everybody is bisexual, and that is a fact of human nature. Some people practice both, and some practice one thing, and some people practice another thing and that is the way human beings are.”

People Way Humans Facts Human Beings Practice One Thing Human Nature Bisexual

Author:Gore Vidal

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”

“I have always thought that these two ways of talking, one is the fantastic, the fable, the fairy tale, and the other being history, the scholarly study of what happened, I think they're both amazing ways to understand human nature.”

Thinking Way Humans Two Talking Study Happened Human Nature Tales Fantastic Fairy Fairy Tale Two Ways Fables Scholarly Way Of Talking

Author:Salman Rushdie

“I suppose the reason why I like acting is because I'm curious about human nature, and the less I know about a character on the page, instinctively, in a way, the better.”

Knows Way Humans Reason Character Acting Human Nature Pages Curious Reason Why

Author:Rebecca Hall

“As I see it, there are two great forces of human nature: self-interest, and caring for others. Capitalism harnesses self-interest in a helpful and sustainable way, but only on behalf of those who can pay. Government aid and philanthropy channel our caring for those who can't pay. But to provide rapid improvement for the poor we need a system that draws in innovators and businesses in a far better way than we do today.”

“Human beings are always going to find interesting ways of making a mess of their lives. It's human nature.”

Way Humans Human Beings Interesting Human Nature Mess Interesting Ways

Author:Jack Nicholson

“Thus, experience has ever shown, that education, as well as religion, aristocracy, as well as democracy and monarchy, are, singly, totally inadequate to the business of restraining the passions of men, of preserving a steady government, and protecting the lives, liberties, and properties of the people . . . . Religion, superstition, oaths, education, laws, all give way before passions, interest, and power, which can be resisted only by passions, interest, and power.”

People Men Way Giving Wells Government Law Passion Interest Liberty Democracy Human Nature Property Steady Superstitions Monarchy Oath Inadequate Aristocracy Restraining

Author:John Adams

“It is proposed that a form of free dialogue may well be one of the most effective ways of investigating the crisis which faces society, and indeed the whole of human nature and consciousness today. Moreover, it may turn out that such a form of free exchange of ideas and information is of fundamental relevance for transforming culture and freeing it of destructive misinformation, so that creativity can be liberated.”

Source: Science, Order, and Creativity

“I think most generations tend to learn the lesson of war the hard way. There is a deep attraction to the empowerment. Freud is right: societies either become locked in a collective embrace of Eros, as individuals do, or a collective embrace of Thanatos, the death instinct. They swing between the two. The notion that societies are naturally prone toward self-preservation is wrong. Self-annihilation can be deeply addictive, intoxicating, enticing. So I take a darker view of human nature, that war is probably always going to be with us. I think history bears me out.”

“We liked the idea that it was a low-tech future. But everything always repeats the past. If you look today and look at something in the middle east where you got people getting beheaded it's like the crusades with Twitter. It's crazy, human nature does the same thing. In a way, even though you're in the future people wanted order so this sort of system rose up.”

People Ifs Way Humans Looks Doe Ideas Today Wanted Past Order Crazy Middle Human Nature Lows Rose East Repeats Middle East Crusades

Author:Alfred Gough

“When you're famous you kind of run into human nature in a raw kind of way. It stirs up envy, fame does.”

Way Humans Kind Doe Running Human Nature Fame Envy

Author:Marilyn Monroe

“Nonviolence is the only way. Even if you achieve your goal by violent means there are always side effects, and these can be worse than the problem. Violence is against human nature.”

Ifs Way Humans Mean Problem Sides Goal Violence Achieve Effects Human Nature Violent Nonviolence Side Effects Achieving Your Goals

Author:Dalai Lama

“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.”

Ifs Men Way Humans States Reason Facts Evil Existence Human Nature Particular Ready Exercise Argument Libertarian Favors Good And Evil Rulers Mixtures Discouraged Framework Compulsion

Author:Murray Rothbard

“My only fear is doing something contrary to human nature - the wrong thing, the wrong way, or at the wrong time.”

Way Humans Human Nature Contrary Wrong Things Wrong Way Wrong Time

Book:The Modern Library Collection of Greek and Roman Philosophy 3-Book Bundle: Meditations; Selected Dialogues of Plato; The Basic Works of Aristotle

Source: The Modern Library Collection of Greek and Roman Philosophy 3-Book Bundle: Meditations; Selected Dialogues of Plato; The Basic Works of Aristotle

“We consider the Holocaust as being a sort of strange event taking place on another planet; we never understood in a visceral way that this is something that took place in the heart of man. That's something that you can feel, the genocidal tendency is within human nature. It seems that if we forget about this, our future is also compromised.”

Ifs Men Way Feels Humans Heart Seems Forget Events Human Nature Strange Planets Understood Tendencies Our Future Holocaust Visceral

Author:Laszlo Nemes

“I have believed for a long time that human nature is a reciprocity of what is inside the skin and what is outside: that it is definitely not "rolled up inside us" but our way of being one with our fellows and our world. I call this field theory.”

World Way Humans Long Human Nature Fields Theory Long Time Skins Fellows Our World Reciprocity

Author:Gardner Murphy

“The idea wasn't to make a direct political statement since the current economic collapse hadn't begun when we started on the book. The parallels I'm most interested in are the ways that human nature never changes, no matter how far back in time you look.”

Way Humans Looks Book Ideas Matter Political Economic Human Nature Direct Currents Statements Collapse Parallels Never Change Back In Time Economic Collapse

Author:James Vance

“Peter Kropotkin was surely on the left. He was one of the founders of what is now called 'sociobiology' or 'evolutionary psychology' with his book Mutual Aid, arguing that human nature had evolved in ways conducive to the communitarian anarchism that he espoused.”

Way Humans Book Left Psychology Human Nature Aids Arguing Mutual Peter Founders Evolutionary Psychology Anarchism Mutual Aid

Author:Noam Chomsky

“You want to teach all kids the skills that are on the better side of human nature: empathy, appreciating how one's behavior is affecting other people, resolving disagreements in ways that do not involve conflict, taking another's perspective, honesty.”

People Way Want Humans Kids Sides Teach Human Nature Honesty Perspective Skills Conflict Behavior Empathy Appreciate Disagreement

Author:Ross W. Greene

“I think it's every artist's nature to want to escape. It's also human nature in a way, depending on your personality, to want to get away from it all.”

Thinking Way Want Humans Artist Human Nature Personality Get Away

Author:Tavares Strachan

“For one thing, studying language is by itself a part of a study of human intelligence that is, perhaps, the central aspect of human nature. And second, I think, it is a good model for studying other human properties, which ought to be studied by psychologists in the same way.”

Thinking Way Humans Language Study One Thing Human Nature Ought Models Aspect Property Psychologist Human Intelligence

Author:Noam Chomsky