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Human Nature Quotes

Browse 4693 quotes about Human Nature.

Human Nature Quotes

“Everyone wants an iPhone, but it would be impossible to design an iPhone in China because it's not a product; it's an understanding of human nature.”

Want Humans Would Be Understanding Impossible Human Nature Design Products China Iphone

Author:Ai Weiwei

“Vicious habits are so great a stain to human nature, and so odious in themselves, that every person actuated by right reason would avoid them, though he were sure they would be always concealed both from God and man, and had no future punishment entailed upon them.”

Men Humans Persons Reason Would Be Human Nature Habit Punishment Vicious Concealed Stains

Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero

“But human nature cannot be content on a diet of honey and if there is nothing in one's life that requires pity, one must invent it; for to go through life unpitied would be an unthinkable loss.”

Ifs Humans Would Be Loss Human Nature Pity Diets Honey Unthinkable

Book:The Brandons, and others

Source: The Brandons, and others

“We have no participation in Being, because all human nature is ever midway between being born and dying, giving off only a vague image and shadow of itself, and a weak and uncertain opinion. And if you chance to fix your thoughts on trying to grasp its essence, it would be neither more nor less than if your tried to clutch water.”

Ifs Thinking Giving Trying Humans Would Be Water Born Chance Opinion Dying Human Nature Shadow Weak Essence Thoughtful Uncertain Vague Participation Clutch Midway

Book:The Essays

Source: The Essays

“... there is a particular propensity in the world for people, wherever they appear in great numbers, to permit themselves collectively everything that would be forbidden them individually.”

People World Would Be Numbers Human Nature Particular Temptation Permit Forbidden Propensity

Book:Precision and Soul: Essays and Addresses

Source: Precision and Soul: Essays and Addresses

“Persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should be adopted to influence the conduct of men. The opposite course would be a reversal of human nature, which is God's decree and can never be reversed.”

Men Should Humans Kind Would Be Courses Influence Human Nature Opposites Persuasion Adopted Disagreement Decree Reversal Unassuming

Author:Abraham Lincoln

“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.”

“No doubt hard work is a great police agent. If everybody were worked from morning till night, and then carefully locked up, the register of crime might be greatly diminished. But what would become of human nature? Where would be the room for growth in such a system of things? It is through sorrow and mirth, plenty and need, a variety of passions, circumstances, and temptations, even through sin and misery, that men's natures are developed.”

Source: Friends in Council: A Series of Readings and Discourse Thereon

“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

“I guess he was such an open, emotional vessel that I think he tapped into human nature, so it just left people wondering what would have happened. I think James Dean would be 83 today. He could be here, what would he be doing?”

People Thinking Humans Would Be Today Left Nature Wonder Happened Human Nature Emotional Vessel Dean

Author:Dane DeHaan

“Why would so many risk their reputations, families, careers—even presidential legacies—for something that runs against human nature? Were monogamy an ancient, evolved trait characteristic of our species, as the standard narrative insists, these ubiquitous transgressions would be infrequent and such horrible enforcement unnecessary. No creature needs to be threatened with death to act in accord with its own nature.”

“Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.”

Writing Book Would Be Humanity Literature Human Nature Concepts

Author:Hermann Hesse

“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.”

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

“What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

Source: The Hobbit

“If you laid all our laws end to end, there would be no end.”

Ifs Ends Would Be Law Human Nature

Author:Arthur Baer

“We cannot doubt that self-interest is the mainspring of human nature. It must be clearly understood that this word is used here to designate a universal, incontestable fact, resulting from the nature of man, and not an adverse judgment, as would be the word selfishness.”

Men Humans Self Facts Would Be Used Interest Liberty Doubt Economic Human Nature Judgment Understood Economics Universal Selfishness Self Interest Adverse Nature Of Man

Author:Frederic Bastiat

“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

“To look for a continuation in harmony between a number of independent unconnected sovereignties, situated in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.”

Humans Looks Would Be Age Courses Numbers Events Human Nature Harmony Independent Neighborhood Uniforms Sovereignty Defiance Disregard Continuation

Book:The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788

Source: The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788

“To presume a want of motives for such contests . . . would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.”

Men Want Would Be Forget Human Nature Motive Ambitious Contests Vindictive

Book:The federalist papers

Source: The federalist papers

“Would there not be the greatest reason to apprehend, that error in the first sentence would be the parent of error in the second sentence? That the strong bias of one decision would be apt to overrule the influence of any new lights, which might be brought to vary the complexion of another decision? Those, who know any thing of human nature, will not hesitate to answer these questions in the affirmative.”

Source: The Origin of the Nation: Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights and Other Amendments, Federalist Papers & Common Sense: Creating America - Landmark Documents that Shaped a New Nation

“If every man took only what was sufficient for his needs, leaving the rest to those in want, there would be no rich and no poor.”

Ifs Men Want Needs Wisdom Would Be Poor Rich Human Nature Wise Words Words Of Wisdom Charity Leaving Saint Every Man Sufficient Wise Man Once Said

Author:Saint Basil

“If we were logical, the future would be bleak, indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work.”

Ifs Humans Would Be Faith Hope Human Beings Human Nature Future Logical Have Faith Bleak Having Hope Hope For The Future

Author:Jacques Yves Cousteau

“It was the seventh of November, 1918. The war was finally over. Maybe it would be declared a holiday and named War's End Day or something equally hopeful and wrong. Wars would break out again. Violence was part of human nature as much as love and generosity.”

Humans War Ends Would Be Break Violence Human Nature Generosity Hopeful Holiday November Break Out

Book:Heart Specialist

Source: Heart Specialist

“That soul-destroying, meaningless, mechanical, moronic work is an insult to human nature which must necessarily and inevitably produce either escapism or aggression, and that no amount of 'bread and circuses' can compensate for the damage done-these are facts which are neither denied nor acknowledged but are met with an unbreakable conspiracy of silence-because to deny them would be too obviously absurd and to acknowledge them would condemn the central preoccupation of modern society as a crime against humanity.”

Source: SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

“Perfect is very boring, and if you happen to have a different look, that's a celebration of human nature, I think. If we were all symmetrical and perfect, life would be very dull.”

Ifs Thinking Humans Looks Different Happens Would Be Perfect Human Nature Boring Dull Celebration Perfect Life Symmetrical Different Looks

Author:Natalie Dormer