HUMAN NATURE

Quote: There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult. Author: Warren Buffett 1930-, American Investment Entrepreneur

Quote: The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful. Author: Noam Chomsky 1928-, American Linguist, Political Activist

Quote: It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it. Author: Denis Diderot 1713-1784, French Philosopher

Quote: Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. Author: Albert Einstein 1879-1955, German-born American Physicist

Quote: Now I believe I can hear the philosophers protesting that it can only be misery to live in folly, illusion, deception and ignorance, but it isn't --it's human. Author: Desiderius Erasmus c.1466-1536, Dutch Humanist

Quote: It is human nature to think wisely and act foolishly. Author: Anatole France 1844-1924, French Writer

Quote: Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment. Author: R. Buckminster Fuller 1895-1983, American Inventor, Designer, Poet, Philosopher

Quote: Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Author: Emma Goldman 1869-1940, American Anarchist

Quote: The man of power is ruined by power, the man of money by money, the submissive man by subservience, the pleasure seeker by pleasure. Author: Hermann Hesse 1877-1962, German-born Swiss Novelist, Poet

Quote: Give a small boy a hammer and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding. Author: Kalan

Quote: 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. Author: John Keats 1795-1821, British Poet

Quote: We are all murderers and prostitutes --no matter to what culture, society, class, nation one belongs, no matter how normal, moral, or mature, one takes oneself to be. Author: R. D. Laing 1927-1989, British Psychiatrist

Quote: What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others. Author: Georg C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799, German Physicist, Satirist

Quote: Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything -- except his own nature. Author: Henry Miller 1891-1980, American Author

Quote: I have never, in all my various travels, seen but two sorts of people I mean men and women, who always have been, and ever will be, the same. The same vices and the same follies have been the fruit of all ages, though sometimes under different names. Author: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 1689-1762, British Society Figure, Letter Writer

Quote: Human nature is not of itself vicious. Author: Thomas Paine 1737-1809, Anglo-American Political Theorist, Writer

Quote: My nature is subdued to what it works in, like the dyer's hand. Author: William Shakespeare 1564-1616, British Poet, Playwright, Actor

Quote: There is nothing that can be changed more completely than human nature when the job is taken in hand early enough. Author: George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950, Irish-born British Dramatist

Quote: There is a great deal of human nature in people. Author: Mark Twain 1835-1910, American Humorist, Writer

Quote: It is a pleasure to give advice, humiliating to need it, normal to ignore it. Author: Source Unknown

Quote: It is almost impossible to smile on the outside without feeling better on the inside. Author: Source Unknown

Quote: Too many people confine their exercise to jumping to conclusions, running up bills, stretching the truth, bending over backward, lying down on the job, sidestepping responsibility and pushing their luck. Author: Source Unknown

Quote: The nature of peoples is first crude, then severe, then benign, then delicate, finally dissolute. Author: Giambattista Vico 1688-1744, Italian Philosopher, Historian

Quote: The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development. The error of Louis XIV was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The result of his error was the French Revolution. It was an admirable result. Author: Oscar Wilde 1856-1900, British Author, Wit

Quote: Really I don't like human nature unless all candied over with art. Author: Virginia Woolf 1882-1941, British Novelist, Essayist