Human Nature Quotes
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For you do by nature want to do what you take to be good for you; reason reveals that what is in fact good for you is acting in a way that is conducive to the fulfillment of the ends or purposes inherent in human nature; and so if you are rational, and thus open to seeing what is in fact good for you, you will take the fulfillment of those ends or purposes to be good for you and act accordingly. This may require a fight against one’s desires and such a fight might in some cases be so extremely difficult and unpleasant that one might not have the stomach for it. But that is a problem of will, not of reason. It doesn’t show that the rational thing is not to struggle against one’s desires, but only that doing the rational thing can sometimes be extremely difficult and unpleasant.
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He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.
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Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.
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Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.
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Human nature is like a drunk peasant. Lift him into the saddle on one side, over he topples on the other side.
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It is a curious quirk of human nature that some people can see opportunities, while others only see problems.
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But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal Impulses and preferences.
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A great and frequent error in our judgment of human nature is to suppose that those sentiments and feelings have no existence, which may be only for a time concealed. The precious metals are not found at the surface of the earth, except in sandy places.
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. .we would have to say that hereditary succession is harmful. You may say the king, having sovereign power, will not in that case hand over to his children. But it is hard to believe that: it is a difficult achievement, which expects too much virtue of human nature.
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When you're famous you kind of run into human nature in a raw kind of way. It stirs up envy, fame does.
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Ideas devour the ages as men are devoured by their passions. When man is cured, human nature will cure itself perhaps.
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War is so complex; human nature is so complex. There's no filmmaker who has ever figured it out perfectly.
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He had forgotten that the most elemental instinct in human nature is not hate but love, the former inextricably linked to the latter.
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It is in human nature to relax, when not compelled by personal advantage or disadvantage.
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Analysis of rebellion leads at least to the suspicion that, contrary to the postulates of contemporary thought, a human nature does exist, as the Greeks believed. Why rebel if there is nothing permanent in oneself worth preserving? ... Rebellion, though apparently negative, since it creates nothing, is profoundly positive in that it reveals the part of man which must always be defended.
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I think it's innate in human nature to want to make a difference, to make your life meaningful.
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Men, in general, are not this or that, they are what they are made to be.
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The evil is not that you cannot change human nature. The evil is that human nature cannot change you.
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Democracy has no place for the kind of justice implied in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Democracy is a system for the resolution of conflict, not for vengeance. Simple black-white notions of right and wrong do not fit into democratic politics. Political controversies result from the fact that the issues are complex, and men may properly have differences of opinion about them. The most terrible of all over-simplifications is the notion that politics is a contest between good people and bad people. Democracy is based on a profound insight into human nature, the realization that all men are sinful, all are imperfect, all are prejudiced, and none knows the whole truth. That is why we need liberty and why we have an obligation to hear all men. Liberty gives us a chance to learn from other people, to become aware of our own limitations, and to correct our bias. Even when we disagree with other people we like to think that they speak from good motives, and while we realize that all men are limited, we do not let ourselves imagine that any man is bad. Democracy is a political system for people who are not sure that they are right.
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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.
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History repeats itself in the large because human nature changes with geological leisureliness.
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Most men unconsciously judge the world from themselves, and it will be very generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant samples.
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Whatever was in the human nature of Christ was moved at the bidding of the divine will; yet it does not follow that in Christ there was no movement of the will proper to human nature, for the good wills of other saints are moved by God's will... For although the will cannot be inwardly moved by any creature, yet it can be moved inwardly by God.
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The words “human nature” can be the greatest obstacle to human growth.
