There is a very remarkable inclination in human nature to bestow on external objects the same emotions which it observes in itself, and to find every where those ideas which are most present to it.
There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify – so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of new heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in rubbish.
I’m naturally an optimist, but my basis for hope is rooted in my understanding of human nature.
The flesh, or human nature, is generally lazy and self-centered.
War does horrible things to human beings, to societies. It brings out the best, but most often the worst, in our human nature.
While most of us have long understood that privacy is a fading commodity, something in human nature still expects that a phone call or email is a closed communication, and we tend to behave as though it is. That behaviour is what the electronic spies count upon, and want to preserve.
I’m insatiably curious about human nature.
One of our great thematic traditions in Bad Religion has been to question human nature.
People often ask how I got interested in the brain; my rhetorical answer is: ‘How can anyone NOT be interested in it?’ Everything you call ‘human nature’ and consciousness arises from it.
No social policy can ever eradicate evil or perfect human nature.
The strongest argument against totalitarianism may be a recognition of a universal human nature; that all humans have innate desires for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of the blank slate… is a totalitarian’s dream.
With success comes complacency if you let it happen. It is human nature; there is that urge to think about how well you have done.
Your natural tendency, human nature, is to always look and see if there’s an opportunity. But that’s something that I don’t spend a ton of time doing because I’m pretty meat and potatoes when it comes to approaching the day.
I always believed in animal spirits. It’s not their existence that is new. It’s the fact that they are not random events, but actually replicate in-bred qualities of human nature which create those animal spirits.
Now there are laws in many parts of the world which reflect the best of human nature. These laws treat people touched by HIV with compassion and acceptance. These laws respect universal human rights and they are grounded in evidence.
Not everybody is going to understand you. You can’t please everybody. That’s just human nature. Everybody has their opinion, and that’s going to be there. You deal with it. You take it in stride. You take the good with the bad, the bad with the good. That’s part of life.
You cannot write about what people are really like without making a political adjudication. All our ideas of what human nature consists of or how people really feel and experience life are, at their base, political ideas.
Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.
England has always been disinclined to accept human nature.
Relying on the face might be human nature – even babies prefer to look at attractive people. But, of course, judging someone based on the geometry of his features is, from a moral and legal standpoint, no better than judging him based on the color of his skin.
My sentiments for the American cause, from the Stamp Act downward, have never changed… I am still of opinion that it is the cause of liberty and of human nature.
Socialised humanity represses nature and degrades human nature; it takes life and waters it down – probably to control it – diluting existence with water that is lukewarm, sweet and murky.
The divine wisdom which requires a division of labor has sown different abilities and tendencies in human nature and has enabled human beings to carry out the duty of establishing sciences and developing technology. The fulfillment of this duty is obligatory upon humanity as a whole, though not on every individual.
The great fact of individual difference and variability (that is, inequality) is evident from the long record of human experience: hence, the general recognition of the antihuman nature of a world of coerced uniformity.
But human nature dictates that there will always be cheaters. That’s inevitable. Where there’s money involved and glory, there are going to be people that cheat, and there will always be ways to cheat.
Human nature is the same now as when Adam hid from the presence of God; the consciousness of wrong makes us unwilling to meet those whom we have offended.
The science of the mind can only have for its proper goal the understanding of human nature by every human being, and through its use, brings peace to every human soul.
The novelist must ground his work in faithful study of human nature.
The movies I like to make are very rich and full of passion. Some people see me as an action director, but action is not the only thing in my movies. I always like to show human nature – something deep inside the heart.
If you can’t sit in a cafe quietly and be ignored, how can you observe human nature and write a story?
You know if you go far in the World Cup you are away for almost two months and I think it’s against human nature, not to have families there.
Although I do wrong, I do not the wrongs that I am charged with doing; the wrong that I do is through the frailty of human nature, like other men. No man lives without fault.
Technology changes all the time; human nature, hardly ever.
One of the things that is so important, critical I think, in reading not just the founders but thousands of years as you put it, that discussion about corruption, is that you can’t talk about the problem of corruption without talking about human nature.
Really I don’t like human nature unless all candied over with art.
I think violence, cynicism, brutality and fashion are the staples of our diet. I think in the grand history of story-telling, going back to people sitting around fires, the dark side of human nature has always been very important. Movies are part of that tradition.
Web 2.0 ideas have a chirpy, cheerful rhetoric to them, but I think they consistently express a profound pessimism about humans, human nature and the human future.
Our job is to represent the truth of human nature, whether you’re playing a tender love story that’s set in a coffee shop or whether you’re in ‘The Avengers,’ which is set in a Manhattan which is exploding.
Human nature is not black and white but black and grey.
Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
There’s something in human nature, the trying-to-get-on-with-it quality of people, the struggle to maintain or keep the show going can be exhausting.
Human nature and deliberate effort must unite, and then the reputation of the sage and the work of unifying all under Heaven are thereupon brought to completion.
With violence, as with so many other concerns, human nature is the problem, but human nature is also the solution.
Communism is in conflict with human nature.
Weaknesses are part of human nature. What matters are the consequences they can have on a squad.
Everybody is vulnerable to being in relationships where they get fooled. I’m no different. It’s just human nature.
It’s human nature to be curious about people, and to be more curious about young people than old people. We want to cheer something on at the same time we want to tear it down. That’s just so normal.
Human nature stays the same, the one thing that stays constant, like death and taxes. And people still want good stories!
The Republican form of government is the highest form of government: but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature, a type nowhere at present existing.
Literature at its fullest takes human nature as its theme. That’s the kind of writing that interests me.
Conservatism vests in and depends on the widespread, informed understanding of human nature, self-governance and the First Principle of Progress: free people interacting in free markets produce the greatest good for the greatest number always, but only, when tethered to virtue and morality.
The trifle now inscribed with your name. was occasioned by a particular fact; but to the disgrace of human nature, the subject is sufficiently general to interest every heart not totally impenetrable.
Theories that go counter to the facts of human nature are foredoomed.
Human nature is not totally fixed, but on any realistic scale, evolutionary processes are much too slow to affect it.
Democracy in some ways is a very illogical political system. When you win an election, you have to preserve the institutions that would make it possible for your political enemies to win next time. If you think about it, that’s almost antithetical to human nature.
There will always be cheaters. It is human nature. It will never be 100 percent clean, in any sport.
The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.
I have been accused of being a Pollyanna, but I think there are plenty of people dealing with the darker side of human nature, and if I am going to write about people who are kind and generous and loving and thoughtful, so what?
