Human Nature Quotes - Page 27

• There is no such passion in human nature, as the passion for gravy among commercial gentlemen.

  Charles Dickens

  Funny, Humorous, Passion

  Charles Dickens (1850). “The life and adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit: With a frontispiece, from a drawing by Frank Stone”, p.82

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• Wherefore, as I have said to you, I, God, have become man, and man has become God by the union of My Divine Nature with your human nature. This greatness is given in general to all rational creatures, but, among these I have especially chosen My ministers for the sake of your salvation, so that, through them, the Blood of the humble and immaculate Lamb, My only-begotten Son, may be administered to you.

  St. Catherine of Siena

  Humble, Son, Greatness

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• There has also been a change - a slippage - in our intellectual and moral strength. Seven lean years of drouth and famine have withered a field of ideas.

  John F. Kennedy

  Years, Ideas, Intellectual

  Address of Senator John F. Kennedy accepting the Democratic Party Nomination for the Presidency of the United States at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California, www.jfklibrary.org. July 15, 1960.

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• People can only live with their equals, and not even with them; for in the long run they cannot tolerate that someone is their equal.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Running, Equality, Long

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• What is part of you, you cannot get rid of, even if you were to throw it away.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Ifs

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• We have no participation in Being, because all human nature is ever midway between being born and dying, giving off only a vague image and shadow of itself, and a weak and uncertain opinion. And if you chance to fix your thoughts on trying to grasp its essence, it would be neither more nor less than if your tried to clutch water.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Thinking, Thoughtful, Essence

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

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• Is it reasonable that even the arts should take advantage of and profit by our natural stupidity and feebleness of mind?

  Michel de Montaigne

  Art, Stupidity, Mind

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• While our pulse beats and we feel emotion, let us put off the business. Things will truly seem different to us when we have quieted and cooled down. It is passion that is in command at first, it is passion that speaks, it is not we ourselves.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Passion, Different, Firsts

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.540, Stanford University Press

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• Others form man; I tell of him, and portray a particular one, very ill-formed, whom I should really make very different from whathe is if I had to fashion him over again. But now it is done.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Fashion, Men, Self

  Michel de Montaigne (2003). “The Complete Works: Essays, Travel Journal, Letters”, Everyman's Library

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• What a wonderful thing it is that drop of seed, from which we are produced, bears in itself the impressions, not only of the bodily shape, but of the thoughts and inclinations of our fathers!

  Michel de Montaigne

  Children, Father, Inheritance

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

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• Presumption is our natural and original malady. The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most arrogant.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Self, Arrogance

  Michel de Montaigne (1973). “Selections from the Essays”, Harlan Davidson

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• There is a certain amount of purpose, acquiescence, and satisfaction in nursing one's melancholy.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Sadness, Nursing, Self

  Michel de Montaigne (1946). “The essays”

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• Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse, and undulating object. It is hard to found any constant and uniform judgment on him.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Diversity, Uniforms

  Essais bk. 1, ch. 1 (1580)

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• The most beautiful lives, to my mind, are those that conform to the common human pattern, with order, but without miracle and without eccentricity.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Beautiful, Order, Miracle

  Michel de Montaigne (1973). “Selections from the Essays”, Harlan Davidson

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• There is nothing so noble and so right as to play our human life well and fitly, nor anything so difficult to learn as how to livethis life well and according to Nature.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Play, Noble, Behavior

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• Those who make a practice of comparing human actions are never so perplexed as when they try to see them as a whole and in the same light; for they commonly contradict each other so strangely that it seems impossible that they have come from the same shop.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Light, Practice, Diversity

  Michel de Montaigne (1958). “Complete Essays”, p.239, Stanford University Press

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• O human creature,you are the investigator without knowledge, the magistrate without jurisdiction, and all in all, the fool of the farce.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Arrogance, Farce, Fool

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• The gods cannot misunderstand, man cannot explain.

  Henry David Thoreau

  God, Communication, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1644, Delphi Classics

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• What is human in me is not what is best in me. What is human in me is that I desire, and to obtain what I desire, I believe I would crush anything that stood in my way.

  Albert Camus

  Crush, Believe, Desire

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• Women, perhaps even require a little hypocrisy.

  Honore de Balzac

  Women, Hypocrisy, Littles

  Honore de Balzac (2011). “The Magic Skin: Or The Wild Ass's Skin”, p.94, The Floating Press

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• However exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers, the true practical system can be learned only in the world.

  Henry Fielding

  World, May, Practicals

  Henry Fielding (1836). “The history of Tom Jones: a foundling”, p.407

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• In an interview, former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan said he does not have a racist bone in his body. However, he admitted he has three sexist bones and his spine is homophobic.

  Conan O'Brien

  Presidential, Racist, Body

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• Man is known to be a selfish, as well as a social being.

  James Madison

  Selfish, Men, Being Human

  James Madison, Ralph Ketcham “Selected Writings of James Madison”, Hackett Publishing

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• I have come to realize that in every person there is something fine and pure and noble, along with a desire for self-fulfillment.

  Jimmy Carter

  Self, Desire, Noble

  Jimmy Carter (1976). “"I'll Never Lie to You": Jimmy Carter in His Own Words”

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• Man is clearly made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. And the order of thought is to begin with ourselves, and with our Author and our end.

  Blaise Pascal

  Thoughtful, Men, Thinking

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