Mankind are tolerant of the praises of others as long as each hearer thinks that he can do as well or nearly as well himself, but, when the speaker rises above him, jealousy is aroused...

Nature has gone to great lengths to hide our subconscious from ourselves. Why?

There’s a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.

They had done nothing but wait, and had become poetical. How easy to the smallest building; how impossible to most men.

We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love.

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...

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,...

I long to embrace, to include in my own short life, all that is accessible to man. I long to speak, to read, to wield a hammer in a great factory, to keep watch at...

…the enduring human need to be remembered.

He wondered at the atrocities human kind was capable of committing. The majority of those housed below were ill, mentally or physically, not witches. Most were poor victims–the outcasts of society; or the opposite, people...

Life is like butter – when things cool down it can be reshaped

It is fundamental to both Taoist and Confucian thought that the natural man is to be trusted, and from their standpoint it appears that the Western mistrust of human nature-whether theological or technological-is a kind...

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...

Of course he despised the world as a whole; every thoughtful man should; it is almost a test of refinement.

I think the easiest people to fool are ourselves. Fooling ourselves may even be a necessary precondition for fooling others.

The irony of the human heart is that it’s tormented both by the presence and absence of it’s own soul’s counterpart.

If man is to be liberated to enjoy more leisure, he must also be prepared to enjoy this leisure fully and creatively.

They dared not peer down into their own natures, down into the feverish confusion that filled their minds with a kind of dense, acrid mist.

They loved him, or loved the thought of him, what they thought he was: a man who could easily have had a good life who chose instead their life: spite and bitterness and age-fogged glasses...

Where would the end be? Will the idea—the definition—of perfection stay the same? No. Perfection is too fickle. It’s in our nature to never be satisfied. We always think we can do more.

Maybe the devil in human beings isn’t the reflection of the devil, perhaps the devil is only a reflection of the savagery and brutality of our kind. Maybe what we’ve done is create the devil...

Very little of what he learned of people’s actions began or ended with either the noble ideals or the fiendish wickedness he had been taught lay behind all great struggles. There was something comforting in...

Lobbying is in the DNA of the political process … and you’re never going to get around human nature. So you can’t legislate perfection here, but it’s very clear that we’ve gotten lax, and there’s...

And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.

Sunt convins ca hazardul, cu capriciile lui, e promotorul adevarat al tuturor faptelor mari din istoria omului, as zice al intregii civilizatii omenesti, ba chiar stapanul real al intregului univers.

So, that was Nature’s way. The mosquito felt pain and panic but the dragonfly knew nothing of cruelty. Humans would call it evil, the big dragonfly destroying the mosquito and ignoring the little insects suffering....

And perhaps it was also the case that, for all a lifetime’s internal struggling, you were finally no more than what others saw you as. That was your nature, whether you liked it or not.

Human nature being what it was, the only time you could really be sure you weren’t being lied to was when you were talking to yourself.

Even within perfection, there are flaws. These flaws carry an unattainable beauty, which is indifferent to the human nature.

Yes, and because we grow old we become more and more the stuff our forbears put into us. I can feel his savagery strengthen in me. We think we are so individual and so misunderstood...

But although the cliche says that power always corrupts, what is seldom said … is that power always reveals. When a man is climbing, trying to persuade others to give him power, concealment is necessary....

There’s only one thing worse than a droopy, round, lace-trimmed, too small, too short, mosquito net with holes… the exact same thing in pink.

Human being is the only creature I found ho does everything he is not suppose to do.

No, I mean, this is a problem that most people have. A problem of the human condition. We get ahold of some kind of shorthand in understanding people, and we think it works, and we...

It’s not often you encounter the real person behind a good-natured mask, the darkest parts of someone. It’s not comfortable when you do.

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

Whatever their bodies do affects their souls. It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out…

at first sight everyone seems like human.

It’s difficult to find a person who can accept the truth consistently and more when it is related to him only and that’s what keeps the difference between the real talk and the negative talk...

Errare è umano, perdonare divino.

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

If one believed in angels one would feel that they must love us best when we are asleep and cannot hurt each other; and what a mercy it is that once in every twenty-four hours...

From recovery to rags and rags to recovery symbolizes art – a perfect compilation of human imperfections.

I have an unshakable belief that mankind’s higher nature is on the whole still dormant. The greatest souls reveal excellencies of mind and heart which their lesser fellows possess-hidden, it is true, but there all...

In irgendeinem abgelegenen Winkel des in zahllosen Sonnensystemen flimmernd ausgegossenen Weltalls, gab es einmal ein Gestirn, auf dem kluge Tiere das Erkennen erfanden. Es war die hochmütigste und verlogenste Minute der ‘Weltgeschichte’: aber doch nur...

Men are men … Dragons are dragons.

Ce anume disprețuiești? Așa poți fi cunoscut cu adevărat.

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,...

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.

They don’t deal with any basic difference in human nature between black and white…, they only study the effects of environment on human nature. You place the white man in the ghetto, deprive him of...