Human Nature Quotes - Page 19

t tMonsters remain human beings. In fact, to reduce them to a subhuman level is to exonerate them of their acts of terrorism and mass murder — just as animals are not deemed morally responsible for killing. Insisting on the humanity of terrorists is, in fact, critical to maintaining their profound responsibility for the evil they commit.And, if they are human, then they must necessarily not be treated in an inhuman fashion. You cannot lower the moral baseline of a terrorist to the subhuman without betraying a fundamental value.

Chava," he said, "it's a cruel irony that you have the most difficulty precisely when those around you are on their best behavior. I suspect you would find it much easier if we all cast politeness aside, and took whatever we pleased." She considered. "It would be easier, at first. But then you might hurt each other to gain your wishes, and grow afraid of each other, and still go on wanting.

I live in an ocean of smell…

If we deny ourselves the unique human faculty of learning from others’ mistakes, we deny oneself the chance to be a human.

There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the man who eats Grape-Nuts on principle.

stay curious and stay the brave, strong, unrelenting soldier of love that you are.

Maybe there wasn't, after all, a clear motivation for any of the things that people did. Maybe they just did them for no reason at all or because of stupidity or selfishness or cowardice or anger or for reasons that made no rational sense - because the clouds happened to be a particularly gloomy shade of gray that day, because the barking of an old dog chained to a sycamore tree just happened to sound exactly like the crunch of soldiers' boots on gravel or the hum of bees like an engine in the head driving you mad.

Happiness is the primary goal of human existence.

I can imagine no greater catastrophe than if I were mistaken, and the theory were correct that what I consider secondary instincts or drives are actually primary instincts! Because in that case the emotional plague would rest upon the support of a natural law while its archenemies, truth and sociality, would be relying upon unfounded ethics. Until now both lies and truth have taken recourse to ethics. But only lies have profited because they were able to appear under the guise of truth. Under these circumstances, egoism, theft, petty selfishness, slander, etc., would be the natural rule. (26.july.1943)

Nothing changes; we humans repeat the same sins over and over, eternally.

Superstition is the need to view the world in terms of simple cause and effect. As I have already said, religious fundamentalism was on the rise, but that is not the type of superstition I am referring to. The superstition that held sway at the time was a belief in simple causes. Even the plainest of events is tied down by a thick tangle of permutation and possibility, but the human mind struggles with such complexity. In times of trouble, when the belief in simple gods breaks down, a cult of conspiracy arises. So it was back then. Unable to attribute misfortune to chance, unable to accept their ultimate insignificance within the greater scheme, the people looked for monsters in their midst. The more the media peddled fear, the more the people lost the ability to believe in one another. For every new ill that befell them, the media created an explanation, and the explanation always had a face and a name. The people came to fear even their closest neighbors. At the level of the individual, the community, and the nation, people sought signs of others’ ill intentions; and everywhere they looked, they found them, for this is what looking does. This was the true challenge the people of this time faced. The challenge of trusting one another. And they fell short

i sometimes think i'm too in love with alone.who could i love more than this peace?

You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are.

I'm no goddam animal. I may be a stupid, fouled-up twentieth-century son of a bitch, but I'm no animal. Don't gimme that. I'm no animal.

We are all part of the same rainbow. We are all reflections of each other. As unique and diverse as we are in character and skills, the source of all creation is as multidimensional as we are.

Depend upon it you see but half. You see the evil, but you do not see the consolation. There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better; we find comfort somewhere- and those evil-minded observers, dearest Mary, who make much of a little, are more taken in and deceived than the parties themselves.

The human spirit is so utterly one with the body that the term "form" can be used of the body and retain its proper meaning. Conversely, the form of the body is spirit, and this is what makes the human being a person.

They all call me "Excuse me," even though my nametag clearly says "Jordan." It's like people don't actually exist while they're working. Workers are just tools who aren't supposed to have feelings or personalities. You don't become human until your shift is over. Until then, we're all just zombies. We're dead to the world: infected people who need to be avoided, unless, of course, someone needs to know where the paintbrushes are located.

The best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with those who matter to you most.

How wrong and petty any life is.

Besides, we feel always a sort of mental superiority over those whose lives we know better than they suppose.

There are instances, indeed, wherein men shew a vanity in resembling a great man in his countenance, shape, air, or other minute circumstances, that contribute not in any degree to his reputation; but it must be confess’d, that this extends not very far, nor is of any considerable moment in these affections. For this I assign the following reason. We can never have a vanity of resembling in trifles any person, unless he be possess’d of very shining qualities, which give us a respect and veneration for him. These qualities, then, are, properly speaking, the causes of our vanity, by means of their relation to ourselves. Now after what manner are they related to ourselves? They are parts of the person we value, and consequently connected with these trifles; which are also suppos’d to be parts of him. These trifles are connected with the resembling qualities in us; and these qualities in us, being parts, are connected with the whole; and by that means form a chain of several links betwixt ourselves and the shining qualities of the person we resemble. But besides that this multitude of relations must weaken the connexion; ’tis evident the mind, in passing from the shining qualities to the trivial ones, must by that contrast the better perceive the minuteness of the latter, and be in some measure asham’d of the comparison and resemblance.

People don't want the truth,' he says, waving a hand at the streets around us. 'They want better-quality lies. High definition lies on fifty-inch screens.

you need to be careful with me.i fall in loveand i fall in love forever.

Squabbling over too little is just human nature. But it says a great deal about a person, what they do with abundance.

The propensity of Earthlings to get into trouble, and to learn thereby, was the reason my owners agreed to this mad venture – although no one expected such a chain of unusual calamities as befell this ship. Your talents were underrated.

I am, after all, an adult, a grown man, a useful human being, even though I lost the career that made me all these things. I won't make that mistake again.

He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it, namely, that, in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.

Most people don't believe something can happen until it already has. That's not stupidity or weakness, that's just human nature.

The mind of man is capable of anything-because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage-who can tell?-but truth-truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder-the man know, and can look on without a wink. But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. He must meet the truth with his own true stuff-with his own inborn strength.

The Kingdom of God is an earthly experience which manifests in an unearthly manner.

The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

A snake must be treated as a snake, forgiving it every time it showed you its fangs, will not transform into a garland of flowers.

Now, are those engaged in the business of governing any different by nature from those they govern?""Yes. They're prideful and tend to sexual misconduct. Also, the situation of being in government tends to drive you mad.""But are they more virtuous or more intelligent? Or more compassionate?""Ha!""Let's call that one a 'no.

What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards pain and misery?

People exercise the freedom to present themselves from a vast array of precepts. The modern human mind can engage in reflective thought and selectively determine how to organize the elements of perception. We can consciously elect to depart from stereotypical behavior and transcend the heretofore-established biological behavioral preferences. People can elect to hold prejudices or not, can make rational or irrational decisions to engage in war or not, and can take deliberate steps to arrest destruction of the ecosystem or not. Holding ourselves in check by placing a brake upon the human propensity to strike out in instinctual behavior is a distinct human quality. Restraint from instant gratification of strong impulses represents a unique human behavior trait. By intentionally refraining from committing an instinctual action, humankind asserts its sovereignty from its biological constitution. Unbound from the limitations of its biological nature, a person can employ the mind to devise alternative behavioral choices and the results of numerous behavioral choices culminate to provide a person with a sophisticated definition of the self.

If people would take me seriously, I’d never find out anything significant about them.

...One thing you learn when you've lived as long as I have-people aren't all good, and people aren't all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now, I'm pleased to be in the light.

we are human beings, we are born full of guilt; we feel terrified when happiness becomes a real possibility.

Being different and thinking different makes a person unforgettable. History does not remember the forgettable.

Terror and pleasure are linked in us. We are a baldly miswired species, Martie. Terror delights us, both the experience of terror and the dealing out of it to others. We are healthier if we admit to this miswiring and do not struggle to be better than our natures allow.

She found it curious and frightening that she could deeply dislike someone she didn’t even know. It wasn’t her. At least, it wasn’t how she used to be.

A friend is like a rope, you trust it until it snaps.

Understanding the world is a door to believing what we are, where we are living in and what we expect to come out of our actions.

Right conscience and at the higher level conscientious deeds (spirituality) is the order of civilised and society-responsible men

Striving to be good is the ultimate struggle of every man. Being bad is easy, but being good requires sincere commitment, discipline and strength. We have to work hard every day just to remain good.

As in a tree, there is more sap in an Arm of the tree, than in a little sprig; but the sprig hath the same sap for kind that the Arm of the tree hath, and it all comes from the same root. So though there be more venom in some gross, crying sins, than in some others; yet there is no sin but hath the same sap, and the same venom, for the kind, that every sin hath, that the worst sin hath.

Here were we wretched creatures of men making for each other's throats, and outraging the good earth which God had made so fair a habitation.

We are only human, and the Gods have fashioned us for love. This is our greatest glory and our greatest tragedy.

You put too much stock in human intelligence, it doesn't annihilate human nature.

Haven't you got it through your head that human thought is a thing of the past & that philosophy is worse than Bertillon's guide to harassed cops? You make me laugh with your metaphysical anguish, it's just that you're scared silly, frightened of life, of men of action, of action itself, of lack of order. But everything is disorder, dear boy. Vegetable, mineral & animal, all disorder, & so is the multitude of human races, the life of man, thought, history, wars, inventions, business & the arts, & all theories, passions & systems. It's always been that way. Why are you trying to make something out of it? And what will you make? What are you looking for? There's no truth. There's only action, action subjected to every possible & imaginable contingency & contradiction. Life. Life is a crime, theft, jealousy, hunger, lies, disgust, stupidity, sickness, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, piles of corpses. What can you do about it, my poor friend?

i sometimes think i'm too in love with alone. who could i love more than this peace?

No God, Religion, Race or Nation is higher than the humans.

The agony of being unable to answer the question of why are we the way we are, divisively instead of cooperatively behaved, has been the particular burden of life. It has been our species' particular affliction or condition — our human condition.

If we define "beauty" as having blue eyes (and only blue eyes), then we will, indeed, find a "gene for beauty." If we define "intelligence" as the performance on only one kind of test, then we will, indeed, find a "gene for intelligence." The genome is only a mirror for the breadth or narrowness of human imagination.

Only to the degree that people have what they need, that they are healthy and unafraid, that their lives are varied, interesting, meaningful, productive, joyous, can we begin to judge, or even guess, their nature. Few people, adults or children, now live such lives.

I am sure when Cinderella went to that ball, she took a great deal more pleasure in outsmarting her stepmother than in the carriage and the ball dress and the glass slippers.

So from then on, he looked at all his choices and said, What would a good person do, and then did it. But he has now learned something very important about human nature. If you spend your whole life pretending to be good, then you are indistinguishable from a good person. Relentless hypocrisy eventually becomes the truth.

No doubt, humans will do a lot of damage before we ultimately destroy ourselves. But life will continue without humans. New forms of intelligence will emerge long after this human experiment is over.

They did not think politics was a great constructive process, they thought it was a kind of dog-fight. They wanted fun, they wanted spice, they wanted hits, they wanted also a chance to say "'Ear, 'ear!" in an intelligent and honourable manner and clap their hands and drum with their feet. The great constructive process in history gives so little scope for clapping and drumming and saying "'Ear, 'ear!" One might as well think of hounding on the solar system.