Quotes on Human Nature

It isn't what people think that is important, but the reason they think what they think.

Wait by the river long enough and the body of your enemy will float by you.

Everybody comes from the same source. If you hate another human being, you're hating part of yourself.

Few men think, yet all will have opinions.

The tendency of mans nature to good is like the tendency of water to flow downward.

True goodness springs from a man's own heart. All men are born good.

My Son, these maxims make a rule An lump them ay thegither: The Rigid Righteous is a fool, The Rigid Wise anither.

In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly. But with human beings it is the other way round: a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar.

Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose.

It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.

Art is the contemplation of the world in a state of grace.

Brevity - the sister of talent.

Don't wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

Man is made to create, from the poet to the potter.

Never trust a man who has not a single redeeming vice.

A sense of humor is the one thing no one will admit to not having.

Sincerity and truth are the basis of every virtue.

People are all alike in their promises. It is only in their deeds that they differ.

Every promise of the soul has innumerable fulfillments; each of its joys ripens into a new want.

Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc., and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons.

Put a rogue in the limelight and he will act like an honest man.