There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.

New discoveries in science will continue to create a thousand new frontiers for those who still would adventure.

I’m someone who likes plowing new ground, then walking away from it. I get bored easily. For me, the big thrill comes with the discovering.

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.

Really I don’t like human nature unless all candied over with art.

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.

The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

I’ve always been a bit of a gypsy.

A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.

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.

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.

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 think we’re going to the moon because it’s in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It’s by the nature of his deep inner soul… we’re required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.

Every man is a creative cause of what happens, a primum mobile with an original movement.

In all my wild mountaineering, I have enjoyed only one avalanche ride; and the start was so sudden, and the end came so soon, I thought but little of the danger that goes with this sort of travel, though one thinks fast at such times.

There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth.

I am not solicitous to examine particularly everything here, which indeed could not be done in fifty years, because my desire is to make all possible discoveries, and return to your Highnesses, if it please our Lord, in April.

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.

Our pleasures were simple – they included survival.

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

Public behavior is merely private character writ large.

My desire was not to pass any island without taking possession, so that, one having been taken, the same may be said of all.

For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.

I used to watch MotoGP quite a bit, I liked MotoGP. I had a motorbike before I had a go-kart and before I had a motorbike I had a quad bike but I was too dangerous, and before I did quad biking I did horse riding, so it’s been a long journey.

Exploration by real people inspires us.

Rebellion is what you make of it. When you’ve been on a tour bus for two months straight, and then you get in your car and drive wherever you want, that can feel rebellious.

We have food all around us all the time, and if we haven’t eaten for three hours, we think we’re starving. You’re not starving – human beings can go for 30 days without food.

I’m not a parenting expert. In fact, I’m not sure that I even believe in the idea of ‚parenting experts.‘ I’m an engaged, imperfect parent and a passionate researcher. I’m an experienced mapmaker and a stumbling traveler. Like many of you, parenting is by far my boldest and most daring adventure.

The human wish to credit good things as miraculous and to charge bad things to another account is apparently universal.

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.

Someone asked me, if I were stranded on a desert island what book would I bring… ‚How to Build a Boat.‘

You can’t trust very many people.

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.

It’s human nature to blame someone else for your shortcomings or upsets.

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

Man is an intelligence in servitude to his organs.

To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.

We humans for millions of years were nomadic. We associated freedom and well-being with the ability to move into open spaces, to find places more suited to hunting.

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.

It seems strange that bears, so fond of all sorts of flesh, running the risks of guns and fires and poison, should never attack men except in defense of their young. How easily and safely a bear could pick us up as we lie asleep! Only wolves and tigers seem to have learned to hunt man for food, and perhaps sharks and crocodiles.

Every generation always thinks it was better before, and I think people have been saying this for probably thousands of years.

It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.

I certainly know that I would not be able to survive if it were not for the fact that I am being upheld by the prayers of so many people.

Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they’re better than other human beings.

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

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

Juvenile crime is not naturally born in the boy, but is largely due either to the spirit of adventure that is in him, to his own stupidity, or to his lack of discipline, according to the nature of the individual.

The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.

There is always something infinitely mean about other people’s tragedies.

It’s the journey of self, I guess. You start with this kind of loner, outside guy, which a lot of people can relate to, and he goes out into the world.

I’ve been through natural disasters. I lived down in Miami and was down there for Hurricane Andrew which was a Category 5. There were members of my family that thought they were going to die. Everyone was in the bathtub.

The wild Indian power of escaping observation, even where there is little or no cover to hide in, was probably slowly acquired in hard hunting and fighting lessons while trying to approach game, take enemies by surprise, or get safely away when compelled to retreat.

The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.

The world has not yet reached the point which, in my view, is an essential condition for the survival of our human species: access by all the peoples to the material resources of this planet.

From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.