Quotes About Human nature

Will there be a time when equality will exist? I think given human nature there will always be conflict.

It is just human nature to take time to connect the dots, I know that. But I also know that there can be a day of reckoning when you wish you had connected the dots more quickly.

It's natural for humans to suppress urges, for when our desires are left unchecked they lead to broken relationships, prison time, and forest fires.

One realizes after a long time that, actually, we are contradictory, all of us.

People say history is boring, and that is true because people are boring. We haven't changed since time began. We're still the same.

I can't do it, Uncle Richard, I said. You can. You have it in you to do it. You're a good person. I'm not. I don't want to be a good person. I started to cry. He held me close then. And what he said surprised me. What makes you think any of us want to be good people, Ebie? You know, I never agreed with these Puritan preachers, who tell us we're all inherently bad. I think we're all inherently good. And we fight against it, all our lives.

If you look long into human nature, you will see that the bonds which hold the firmest are not material ones, that an idea will make a man and mold a character, that it lies at the source of all heroisms, and is to be courted or feared, as the case may be.

men were both brutes and blockheads.

We do not always like the people we love- we do not always have that choice.

Little bundle of contradictions

I've been astonished, time and again, at such rudeness and most of all … at such stupidity (Mrs. van Daan).

It's twice as hard for us young people to hold on to our opinions at a time when ideals are being shattered and destroyed, when the worst side of human nature predominates, when everyone has come to doubt truth, justice and God.

Are most people so stingy and selfish? I've gained some insight into human nature since I came here, which is good, but I've had enough for the present.

Can you tell me why people go to such lengths to hide their real selves? Or why I always behave differently when I'm in the company of others? Why do people have such little trust in one another? I know there must be a reason, but sometimes I think it's horrible that you can't confide in anyone, not even those closest to you.

Samstag, 22. Januar 1944 (...) Kannst du mir vielleicht erzählen, wie es kommt, dass alle Menschen ihr Inneres so ängstlich verbergen? (...) Warum vertraut der eine dem anderen so wenig? Ich weiß, es wird einen Grund dafür geben, aber manchmal finde ich es sehr schlimm, dass man nirgends, selbst bei den Menschen, die einem am nächsten stehen, ein wenig Vertraulichkeit findet.

She has so many bad traits, why should I single out just one of them?

I guess he'll have to figure out someday that he is supposed to have this dark side, that it is part of what it means to be human, to have the darkness just as much as the light- that in fact the dark parts make the light visible; without them, the light would disappear. But I guess he has to figure other stuff out first, like how to keep his neck from flopping all over the place and how to sit up.

Besides, those few people who aren't a mess are probably good for about twenty minutes of dinner conversation. This is good news, that almost everyone is petty, narcissistic, secretly insecure, and in it for themselves, because a few of the funny ones may actually long to be friends with you and me. They can be real with us, the greatest relief. As we develop love, appreciation, and forgiveness for others over time, we may accidentally develop those things toward ourselves, too.

good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are.

The old adage is that intimacy means "Into me I see"—deeply, with a flashlight—and believe me, we're not trying to avoid seeing the lovely and selfless aspects of ourselves. It's not even the unlikable qualities—narcissism, fraudulence, envy. It's the really disgusting, uncooked-egg parts of us—wanting people to fail, using people, holding on to resentments, our sense of entitlement.

We can become so cruel and so selfish when we are afraid.

Good and evil, those are concepts man has made. And man is better, really, than the Savage Garden.

El mal es un punto de vista. Dios asesina y nosotros también; indiscriminadamente. Él arrasa a ricos y pobres y nosotros hacemos lo mismo; porque ninguna criatura es igual a nosotros, ninguna tan parecida a Él como nosotros, ángeles oscuros no confiados a los límites hediondos del infierno sino por Su tierra y todos Sus reinos.

The very thing that attracts you to someone can end up putting you off.