Quotes About Human nature

We may prefer to think of ourselves as fallen angels, but in reality we are rising apes.

We are not rational creatures who feel; we are emotional creatures who rationalize.

peculiar human trait of trying to solve a problem through external means without bringing about any internal transformation.

Do not punish yourself if you waver. Humans judge, nature does not.

People have always wanted to be recognized, and that's human nature. But people used to want to be recognized for their accomplishments, and now they simply want to be visible.

Madoff was not inhumanly monstrous. He was monstrously human. He was greedy for money and praise, arrogantly sure of his own capacity to pull it off, smugly dismissive of skeptics—just like anyone who mortgaged the house to invest in tech stocks, or tapped the off-limits college fund to gamble on a new business, or put all the retirement savings into a hedge fund they didn't understand, or cheated a little on the tax return or the expense account or the spouse.

Fear brings out the basest instincts," writes British political scientist Sue Goss, "and narrows our sense of belonging to self-preservation."16

I think people put on a show that they're good," I said. "Maybe they even start to, like, believe it themselves. But people are really... not evil, exactly, but they just care about themselves. They don't really care about who they step on. They just pretend like they do. You can't trust them. You really can't trust anyone.

Human societies are based on the human tendency to want things, and are geared to satisfying those wants: possessions or facilities to bring ease and personal satisfaction. The results are frequently disappointing, and always terminate in the embarrassing non sequitur of death.

C'est vrai, alors, que l'on devient si vite égoïste lorsque l'on est heureux ?

capitalism satisfied the Christian demand for an institution that channels selfish human desire toward the betterment of society. Some critics accuse capitalism of being a selfish system, but the selfishness is not in capitalism - it is in human nature.

I might have known better, nothing is what everybody wants, the world runs on that law. Personally, if I could, I would instigate Meat-Axe Day, and out of the goodness of my heart I would whack your head off with a couple of others. Every man should be allowed one day and a hatchet just to ease his heart.

I naružila se zemlja od pogašenih ognjišta. Dve zore nikad na istom bivaku. Kad menjaš ognjište, i narav ti se menja. Kad tebi otimaju, i ti otimaš. Veruj mi, u zlu su svi ljudi zli.

Jednom sam, u o?ajanju, morao da pitam mamu: "Zašto ljudi ne vole one koji im nikakvo zlo ne ?ine?" - "Zato sine, što ti dobri ne li?e na njih ostale", odgovorila mi mama, bez premišljanja. "Pa, ipak, mama, ne?e biti da su svi ljudi zli.", rekao sam prili?no ube?eno. Mama je ?utala i ja sam to ?utanje zapamtio. Oca nisam o tome pitao jer sam se plašio njegovog odgovora.

He feels ashamed, wretched, coming to the realization that when push comes to shove, when the terrible reality is at hand, he really would have them do it to someone else rather than himself

Have you ever noticed?--people, no matter how beautiful or desirable, invariably will, if observed closely while going about their daily business of keeping alive, begin to seem like monsters.

It is one of the great troubles of life that we cannot have any unmixed emotions. There is always something in our enemy that we like, and something in our sweetheart that we dislike.

Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?

Simplicity is an acquired taste. Mankind, left free, instinctively complicates life.

Holiness of heart and life. This is not the perfection of the human nature, but the holiness of the divine nature dwelling within.

My life is spent in perpetual alternation between two rhythms, the rhythm of attracting people for fear I may be lonely and the rhythm of trying to get rid of them because I know that I am bored.

Never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner.

We are born crying, live complaining, and die disappointed.

We ride through life on the beast within us. Beat the animal, but you can't make it think.