Quotes About Human nature

This book, by Steven Pinker, is entitled THE BLANK SLATE: THE MODERN DENIAL OF HUMAN NATURE, and which, as the title unambiguously indicates, is a rather thundering broadside fired into the direction of the blank slate establishment. He is Professor of Psychology at MIT, has received many awards for his teaching, and for his earlier books HOW THE MIND WORKS, and THE LANGUAGE INSTINCT.

Apparently some quirk in human nature allows even the most unspeakable acts of evil to become banal within minutes, provided only that they occur far enough away to pose no personal threat.

I've known for ages that men and women are animals by nature, I've also known that we have a sacred duty to make something different of ourselves, and I still believe that we have the strength and the chance to be more than we are. Through ourselves? Despite ourselves? Doesn't matter, I still believe…

Since I no longer expect anything from mankind except madness, meanness, and mendacity; egotism, cowardice, and self-delusion, I have stopped being a misanthrope.

What is really amazing, and frustrating, is mankind's habit of refusing to see the obvious and inevitable until it is there, and then muttering about unforeseen catastrophes.

To insult someone we call him 'bestial. For deliberate cruelty and nature, 'human' might be the greater insult.

If we proportion our assent in all things to the degrees of evidence, we do the utmost that human nature is capable of, in a rational way, to secure itself from error.

We may not all break the Ten Commandments, but we are certainly all capable of it. Within us lurks the breaker of all laws, ready to spring out at the first real opportunity.

I più celebrati utopisti dei tempi moderni... offrono un quadro pressochè statico degli attributi essenziali dell'uomo e, di conseguenza, una descrizione altrettanto statica della società perfetta ritenuta raggiungibile. Con ciò essi ignorano il carattere degli uomini in quanto esseri che si autotrasformano, che sono capaci di libere scelte - entro i limiti imposti dalla natura e dalla storia - fra scopi contrastanti e reciprocamente incompatibili.

The underlying assumption that human nature is basically the same at all times, everywhere, and obeys eternal laws beyond human control, is a conception that only a handful of bold thinkers have dared to question.

They feared one another because they knew what they were capable of doing, and maybe in some cases, had done. The more weapons they created, the more frightened they would have been of the weapons they imagined their enemies had created, and so they strove to make worse weapons, to discourage any attack. I don't think any of them imagined anyone would dare to use them and yet what other end could there be to it all?' 'They

Where there are humans you'll find flies, and Buddhas.

Una volta sposati non si discute più d'amore e, quando si sente il bisogno di dirne, l'animalità interviene preso a rifare il silenzio. Ora tale animalità può essere divenuta tanto umana da complicarsi e falsificarsi, ed avviene che, chinandosi su una capigliatura femminile, si faccia anche lo sforzo di evocarvi qualcosa che non c'è. Si chiudono gli occhi e la donna diventa un'altra per ridivenire lei quando si abbandona

One shouldn't be afraid of the humans. Well, I am not afraid of the humans, but of what is inhuman in them.

from a Second Vatican Council document: "The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man find true light."4

The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being." —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Trying to understand man without recognizing him as imago Dei is like trying to understand a bas-relief without recognizing it as a carving.

I'd love to do a movie where the monster is human.

As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.

When we deny the EVIL within ourselves, we dehumanize ourselves, and we deprive ourselves not only of our own destiny but of any possibility of dealing with the EVIL of others.

We rise in popwer and make a difference in the world due to what is best about human nature, but we fall from power due to what is worst.

Ultimately, all human activities have as their goal the realization of happiness. Why, then, have we ended up producing the opposite result? Could the underlying cause be our failure to correctly understand the true nature of happiness?

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.