Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.
Jean-Jacques RousseauAny man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another.
PlatoHatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheI never expect to see a perfect work from an imperfect man.
Alexander HamiltonOf 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.
Jeff BezosYou can’t trust very many people.
George BestThere 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.
Edgar Allan PoeSuspicion 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.
Joseph AddisonBut men are men; the best sometimes forget.
William ShakespeareWhat makes us human, I think, is an ability to ask questions, a consequence of our sophisticated spoken language.
Jane GoodallMan is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
Jean-Paul SartreWe humans are self-absorbed by nature, and spend most of our time focusing inwardly on our emotions, on our wounds, on our fantasies.
Robert GreeneThis is a wonderful planet, and it is being completely destroyed by people who have too much money and power and no empathy.
Alice WalkerHatred is an affair of the heart; contempt that of the head.
Arthur SchopenhauerThe 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.
Aldous HuxleyOf 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.
Joan of ArcTo insult someone we call him ‚bestial. For deliberate cruelty and nature, ‚human‘ might be the greater insult.
Isaac AsimovHuman nature is not totally fixed, but on any realistic scale, evolutionary processes are much too slow to affect it.
Noam ChomskyMachines 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.
Bertrand RussellMan is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
Bertrand RussellAs a single withered tree, if set aflame, causes a whole forest to burn, so does a rascal son destroy a whole family.
ChanakyaThe 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.
Karl MarxTo God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just.
HeraclitusMan 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.
Benjamin DisraeliHence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.
Niccolo MachiavelliIt is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
Oscar WildeDepend 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.
Samuel JohnsonI 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.
Dolly PartonMan is not born to atheism. He is born to believe.
Billy GrahamWhy is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
Mark TwainNo man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.
John SteinbeckWe 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.
Charlie ChaplinDalton’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.
Isaac AsimovAt 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.
Abraham LincolnAll human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed to failure.
Jean-Paul SartreOne 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.
Dale CarnegieMan is a tool-using animal. Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.
Thomas CarlyleMan is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
Oscar WildeIt is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.
Arthur SchopenhauerMen are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies.
Arthur SchopenhauerIt is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts.
Carl JungIt’s human nature to gripe, but I’m going ahead and doing the best I can.
Elvis PresleyHell is other people.
Jean-Paul SartreOur desires always disappoint us; for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction, yet it never thoroughly answers our expectation.
Elbert HubbardPerhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.
Friedrich NietzscheThe 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.
J. R. R. TolkienA 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.
George OrwellWhat 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.
William ShakespeareTemptation is an irresistible force at work on a movable body.
H. L. MenckenThe same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave.
Alexander PopeWe’re all sinners. Everybody you meet all over the world is a sinner.
Billy GrahamAll the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
George OrwellThere 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.
Ralph Waldo EmersonMan seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.
Gilbert K. ChestertonI hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.
H. L. MenckenRepeal 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.
Abraham LincolnI 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.
Angelina JolieAll human evil comes from a single cause, man’s inability to sit still in a room.
Blaise PascalPublic behavior is merely private character writ large.
Stephen CoveyIf men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.
Baruch Spinoza