Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.

Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.

Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another.

Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate.

I never expect to see a perfect work from an imperfect man.

Of course humans like to explore, and we should. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s more than that. It’s essential for your children and your children’s children.

You can’t trust very many people.

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.

But men are men; the best sometimes forget.

What makes us human, I think, is an ability to ask questions, a consequence of our sophisticated spoken language.

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.

We humans are self-absorbed by nature, and spend most of our time focusing inwardly on our emotions, on our wounds, on our fantasies.

This is a wonderful planet, and it is being completely destroyed by people who have too much money and power and no empathy.

Hatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head.

The vast majority of human beings dislike and even actually dread all notions with which they are not familiar… Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have generally been persecuted, and always derided as fools and madmen.

Of the love or hatred God has for the English, I know nothing, but I do know that they will all be thrown out of France, except those who die there.

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

Human nature is not totally fixed, but on any realistic scale, evolutionary processes are much too slow to affect it.

Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous and loathed because they impose slavery.

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

As a single withered tree, if set aflame, causes a whole forest to burn, so does a rascal son destroy a whole family.

The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.

To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just.

Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions.

Hence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.

I feel that sin and evil are the negative part of you, and I think it’s like a battery: you’ve got to have the negative and the positive in order to be a complete person.

Man is not born to atheism. He is born to believe.

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery.

Dalton’s records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

All human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed to failure.

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 that are blooming outside our windows today.

Man is a tool-using animal. Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.

Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies.

It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts.

It’s human nature to gripe, but I’m going ahead and doing the best I can.

Hell is other people.

Our desires always disappoint us; for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction, yet it never thoroughly answers our expectation.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.

Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body.

The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave.

We’re all sinners. Everybody you meet all over the world is a sinner.

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right; and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.

Repeal the Missouri Compromise – repeal all compromises – repeal the Declaration of Independence – repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It will be the abundance of man’s heart that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.

I don’t see the point of doing an interview unless you’re going to share the things you learn in life and the mistakes you make. So to admit that I’m extremely human and have done some dark things I don’t think makes me unusual or unusually dark. I think it actually is the right thing to do, and I’d like to think it’s the nice thing to do.

All human evil comes from a single cause, man’s inability to sit still in a room.

Public behavior is merely private character writ large.

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.