What is the nature of human nature? Are humans bad, good, helpful, selfish, loving, dangerous, creative, self-destructive, evolving, devolving, satiable, insatiable, visionary, myopic, cruel, or cursed? Are we full of potential or destined for self-destruction? One thing is for sure – we have been thinking about, writing about, fighting against, and enjoying the fruits of human nature for ages. I just watched a movie that made me wonder, and yet Euripides was scratching his thoughts onto parchment 2,400 years ago. Here are some quotes on human nature to help you formulate some potential answers to this thorny question. As always, I welcome you to take advantage of the free, expansive quote database I call The Wisdom Archive. Get lost in it awhile, it’s edifying.
Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flathead parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presume to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weakness of human nature.
After more than 2,000 years we are still puzzling about the meaning of beauty, courage, friendship, and other such ideas. Have we made any progress?
Basically, human beings want satisfaction and fulfillment, and we especially want to feel a sense of accomplishment in what we are doing. Being of service and achieving something of value to others while feeling balanced and healthy are the essential reasons for working.
Human life will never be understood unless its highest aspirations are taken into account. Growth, self-actualization, the striving toward health, the quest for identity and autonomy, the yearning for excellence (and other ways of striving “upward”) must now be accepted beyond question as a widespread and perhaps universal tendency.
What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! ~ William Shakespeare
What we committed in the Indies stands out among the most unpardonable offenses ever committed against God and mankind, and this trade in Indian slaves is one of the most unjust, evil, and cruel among them.
It seems to me that we have made a pretty good mess of things. Maybe young people, if imbued early on with a social conscience, can show us the way out of it.
Man is a clever animal who behaves like an animal.
The rank and file are not philosophers, they are not educated to think for themselves, but simply to accept, unquestioned, whatever comes.
Being born, we are all asked a question and we have to give an answer- not one with our mind and our brain, but, every moment, one with our whole person. There are only really two answers. One answer is to regress and one answer is to develop our humanity.
One’s power to think things out about human nature is liable to be blocked by our fear of the full implication of what we find.
Our betters, religious and secular, like to instruct us on the virtues of universal brotherhood. But it is hard enough to overcome selfishness; harder still to overcome the ties of family and tribe and nation. How are we to feel for all humanity?
The Eskimos don’t believe in competition. They don’t believe in envy. They believe in sharing.
War remains the decisive human failure.
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.
The human race has improved everything except the human race.
One is never so much a man as when one regrets being so.
Of all humanity’s creations, the virtues are by far the most sublime.
Happiness is the natural state of humanity, declares the Muse, but man pursues it in some other guise, fame, or wealth, and ultimately cannot acquire it.
…altruism does not correspond to the accepted wisdom in Western ethics, in which moral actions are believed to arise from the dominance of reason over the baser passions. For both the heroes [those who risked their safety to save another in trouble] and the rescuers [those who saved Jews from Nazi concentration camps] I interviewed, the decision to risk their lives to help another person appeared spontaneous and simple.
When you’re safe at home, you wish you were having an adventure. When you’re having an adventure, you wish you were safe at home.
Good or bad, loving or hateful, angels or devils, constructive or destructive, sensitive or insensitive, what are we? Throughout our history, we’ve struggled to find meaning in the awesome contradiction of the human condition.
If we ask whose ideas were the seeds of the dominant ethic and shared hopes of contemporary humanity, whose resulted in the most material advancement in history, whose were the first of their kind and today enjoy the most emulation, then in that sense the Enlightenment, despite the erosion of its original vision and despite the shakiness of some of its premises, has been the principal inspiration not just of Western high culture but, increasingly, of the entire world.
Man is self-destructing, believing it’s good for him. You can’t fight that. Take for example the terrorist suicide bombers who are fully convinced that after they blow themselves up they will be rewarded by their god to the tune of great wealth, and for the men – 700 virgins. How can you fight that? What can they be offered to compete with that?
To truly serve, purpose must be connected to our unique authenticity. That is why money cannot serve as our purpose. It can be a goal, but not a purpose.
Primates, elephants, dogs, rats, and even mice display empathy, indicating that the building blocks of altruism predate humanity. Chimpanzees will choose a token that gives both themselves and another champ a food treat over a token that gratifies only themselves (Horner et al., 2011).
I’ve seen a broken, homeless person dreading the impending night; the plush suede interior of a private jet; I’ve heard a woman moan my name; I’ve known a person right there across from me want to die; what an incredible range of emotions this world has for us.
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