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a2cca46 You can talk with someone for years, everyday, and still, it won't mean as much as what you can have when you sit in front of someone, not saying a word, yet you feel that person with your heart, you feel like you have known the person for forever.... connections are made with the heart, not the tongue. human-connections relationships humanism humanity inspirational-life inspirational-quotes inspirational affection inspirational-love heartwarming communication human-nature C. JoyBell C.
61290d9 Be the reason someone smiles. Be the reason someone feels loved and believes in the goodness in people. being-human humanism kindness human humanity goodness inspiration inspirational-attitude inspirational-life inspirational-quotes inspire life-and-living life-quotes living optimistic positive-affirmation positive-life inspiring positive positive-thinking life-lessons optimism life love inspirational inspirational-quote smiles life-philosophy smile human-nature Roy T. Bennett
0c26cca Men go to far greater lengths to avoid what they fear than to obtain what they desire. fear human-nature Dan Brown
fca6fe3 there is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars stars john-green the-fault-in-our-stars human-nature John Green
e5f1ff1 There is some kind of a sweet innocence in being human- in not having to be just happy or just sad- in the nature of being able to be both broken and whole, at the same time. being-human humanism human humanity inspirational-quotes life-and-living living sadness inspiring happiness life inspirational human-nature C. JoyBell C.
8fa29fc I'm not in search of sanctity, sacredness, purity; these things are found after this life, not in this life; but in this life I search to be completely human: to feel, to give, to take, to laugh, to get lost, to be found, to dance, to love and to lust, to be so human. passion humanism human humanity inspiration inspirational-life inspirational-quotes life-and-living living life inspirational sacredness living-life sanctity feeling dancing purity human-nature C. JoyBell C.
8637417 I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. individuality strength liberty uniqueness human-nature Henry David Thoreau
38ef6e2 The only reason why we ask other people how their weekend was is so we can tell them about our own weekend. weekend human-nature Chuck Palahniuk
4db0f83 In the end, you have to choose whether or not to trust someone. literature trust motivational inspirational human-nature Sophie Kinsella
6a63f0d On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time. humour philosophy human-nature George Orwell
129f96b Most of us must learn to love people and use things rather than loving things and using people. being-human humanism human humanity learning inspiration inspirational-attitude inspirational-life inspirational-quotes inspire life-and-living life-quotes living optimistic positive-affirmation positive-life inspiring positive positive-thinking life-lessons optimism happiness life love inspirational inspirational-quote life-philosophy human-nature Roy T. Bennett
d112a72 People are all over the world telling their one dramatic story and how their life has turned into getting over this one event. Now their lives are more about the past than their future. past human-nature Chuck Palahniuk
3560a4a Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. opening-lines human-nature J.K. Rowling
dff7aac Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance. flawed human-character destruction human-nature Kurt Vonnegut
79a4a2b I don't know why people are afraid of lust. Then I can imagine that they are very afraid of me, for I have a great lust for everything. A lust for life, a lust for how the summer-heated street feels beneath my feet, a lust for the touch of another's skin on my skin...a lust for everything. I even lust after cake. Yes, I am very lusty and very scary. humor-fear loving-life lusty passion-for-living passion-for-life passion humanism inspiration inspirational-life inspirational-quotes life-and-living living inspiring humor life inspirational passionate-living lustful lust-for-life passions lust human-nature C. JoyBell C.
30767da It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. life jane-eyre human-nature Charlotte Brontë
0fec081 I find it odd- the greed of mankind. People only like you for as long as they perceive they can get what they want from you. Or for as long as they perceive you are who they want you to be. But I like people for all of their changing surprises, the thoughts in their heads, the warmth that changes to cold and the cold that changes to warmth... for being human. The rawness of being human delights me. mankind rawness humanism greed humanity inspirational-attitude inspirational-life inspirational-quotes inspirational raw human-nature C. JoyBell C.
c0123ce Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. social-commentary human-nature psychology Margaret Atwood
796bf1f 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. individuality human-nature Ursula K. Le Guin
38a1f7b There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs. war savagery human-nature George R.R. Martin
11e99c8 They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life the seeds are covered with better soil and with a higher grade of manure. human-nature Ernest Hemingway
3ed3d75 And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it. human-nature George Eliot
18159dc The spirit of a man is constructed out of his choices. life human-nature Irvin D. Yalom
147f0fb Beware the dark pool at the bottom of our hearts. In its icy, black depths dwell strange and twisted creatures it is best not to disturb. warnings human-nature monsters Sue Grafton
f67db1c The moment you have a self at all, there is a possibility of putting yourself first - wanting to be the centre - wanting to be God, in fact. That was the sin of Satan: and that was the sin he taught the human race. Some people think the fall of man had something to do with sex, but that is a mistake...what Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they 'could be like Gods' - could set up on their own as if they had created themselves - be their own masters - invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come...the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy. human-nature C.S. Lewis
f681730 When you are inquisitive, Jane, you always make me smile. You open your eyes like an eager bird, and make every now and then a restless movement, as if answers in speech did not flow fast enough for you, and you wanted to read the tablet of one's heart. learning heart love inquisitive human-nature Charlotte Brontë
ae52b0b The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or joy. tragedy human-nature Alan Lightman
146b2c8 Why was I holding on to something that would never be mine? But isn't that what people do? holding-on human-nature Bret Easton Ellis
86d50bd Humans had built a world inside the world, which reflected it in pretty much the same way as a drop of water reflected the landscape. And yet ... and yet ... Inside this little world they had taken pains to put all the things you might think they would want to escape from -- hatred, fear, tyranny, and so forth. Death was intrigued. They thought they wanted to be taken out of themselves, and every art humans dreamt up took them further . He was fascinated. theatre escape escapism human-nature Terry Pratchett
2cf244a Such is the influence which the condition of our own thoughts, exercises, even over the appearance of external objects. Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colours are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision. thoughts darkness optimism subconscious perspective perception pessimism human-nature Charles Dickens
302769e The most effective attitude to adopt is one of supreme acceptance. The world is full of people with different characters and temperaments. We all have a dark side, a tendency to manipulate, and aggressive desires. The most dangerous types are those who repress their desires or deny the existence of them, often acting them out in the most underhanded ways. Some people have dark qualities that are especially pronounced. You cannot change such people at their core, but must merely avoid becoming their victim. You are an observer of the human comedy, and by being as tolerant as possible, you gain a much greater ability to understand people and to influence their behavior when necessary personality human-nature Robert Greene
1c627fb She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy; but her manners were excellent. mannersers hypocrisy human-nature Robert Louis Stevenson
5ed5bfd National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars. earth science astronomy folly nationalism space conceit pride human-nature Carl Sagan
e4f2d06 He lives down in a ribcage in the dry leaves of a heart. murder heart psychopath the-silence-of-the-lambs heartlessness heartless serial-killer psychopaths monster human-nature horror soul Thomas Harris
aa4d12d It strikes me profoundly that the world is more often than not a bad and cruel place. murder theory humanity quote living life american-psycho psycho conclusion psychopath murderers gore serial-killer epiphany serial-killers the-world demons murderer society human-beings crime humans cruel human-nature horror evil Bret Easton Ellis
eba8ba2 Almost all people have this potential for evil, which would be unleashed only under certain dangerous social circumstances. society human-nature Iris Chang
bd811f1 Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice. He has no automatic knowledge of what is good for him or evil, what values his life depends on, what course of action it requires. Are you prattling about an instinct of self-preservation? An instinct of self-preservation is precisely what man does not possess. An 'instinct' in as unerring and automatic form of knowledge. A desire is not an instinct. A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man's desire to live is not automatic: your secret evil today is that that is the desire you do not hold. Your fear of death is not a love of life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it. Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer--and that is the way he has acted through most of history. man life human-nature instincts thought Ayn Rand
7c45132 The more I read, the more I felt connected across time to other lives and deeper sympathies. I felt less isolated. I wasn't floating on my little raft in the present; there were bridges that led over to solid ground. Yes, the past is another country, but one that we can visit, and once there we can bring back the things we need. Literature is common ground. It is ground not managed wholly by commercial interests, nor can it be strip-mined like popular culture--exploit the new thing then move on. There's a lot of talk about the tame world versus the wild world. It is not only a wild nature that we need as human beings; it is the untamed open space of our imaginations. Reading is where the wild things are. literature reading freedom imagination wildness connection human-nature Jeanette Winterson
d19537d That is human nature, that people come after you, willingly enough, provided only that you no longer love or want them. 1990 sabine-de-kercoz murphy-s-law bitterness human-nature A.S. Byatt
f184510 we are human beings, we are born full of guilt; we feel terrified when happiness becomes a real possibility. human-nature Paulo Coelho
b72b33c "For Mercy has a human heart; Pity, a human face; And Love, the human form divine: And Peace the human dress. Songs of Innocence Cruelty has a human heart And jealousy a human face, Terror the human form divine, And secrecy the human dress. The human dress is forged iron, The human form a fiery forge, The human face a furnace seal'd, innocence human-nature William Blake
5f857fc It is difficult to be generous-minded to those we have greatly harmed. grudge human-nature P.D. James
449b4c8 The argument has long been made that we humans are by nature compassionate and empathic despite the occasional streak of meanness, but torrents of bad news throughout history have contradicted that claim, and little sound science has backed it. But try this thought experiment. Imagine the number of opportunities people around the world today might have to commit an antisocial act, from rape or murder to simple rudeness and dishonesty. Make that number the bottom of a fraction. Now for the top value you put the number of such antisocial acts that will actually occur today. That ratio of potential to enacted meanness holds at close to zero any day of the year. And if for the top value you put the number of benevolent acts performed in a given day, the ratio of kindness to cruelty will always be positive. (The news, however, comes to us as though that ratio was reversed.) Harvard's Jerome Kagan proposes this mental exercise to make a simple point about human nature: the sum total of goodness vastly outweighs that of meanness. 'Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness and envy, and to be rude, aggressive or violent,' Kagan notes, 'they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture - especially toward those in need.' This inbuilt ethical sense, he adds, 'is a biological feature of our species. social-intelligence human-nature Daniel Goleman
d14dec9 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. the-truth good-people pretending hypocrisy human-nature roles Orson Scott Card
6ec8433 For all the books in his possession, he still failed to read the stories written plain as day in the faces of the people around him. human-nature stories Emma Donoghue
ccc8261 Exactly what the powers of hell feed on: the best instincts in man. instinct human-nature hell Philip K. Dick
f97d0d3 And in that fraction of a second before anything actually happened, Santino Corleone knew he was a dead man. human-nature Mario Puzo
f61c92d The Buggers have finally, finally learned that we humans value each and every individual human life... But they've learned this lesson just in time for it to be hopelessly wrong--for we humans do, when the cause is sufficient, spend our own lives. We throw ourselves onto the grenade to save our buddies in the foxhole. We rise out of the trenches and charge the entrenched enemy and die like maggots under a blowtorch. We strap bombs on our bodies and blow ourselves up in the midst of our enemies. We are, when the cause is sufficient, insane. sacrifice buggers value-of-life human-nature Orson Scott Card
d78da70 This is how we are: we fall in love with each other's strengths, but love deepens towards permanence when we fall in love with each other's weaknesses. lovers romance strength love love-that-lasts philosophy-of-love finding-strength-in-love weakness human-nature Salman Rushdie
870d9f1 He knelt among the shadows and felt his isolation bitterly. They were savages it was true; but they were human. ralph savages survival human-nature monsters William Golding
d8dd179 Humanity is not without answers or solutions regarding how to liberate itself from scenarios that invariably end with mass exterminations. Tools such as compassion, trust, empathy, love, and ethical discernment are already in our possession. The next sensible step would be to use them. trust love doomsday-scenarios ending-violent-jihad mass-exterminations humanity-and-society liberation compassion-heals-lives national-history-day nonviolent-conflict-resolution police-reform police-shootings extinction human-nature Aberjhani
a230b3b Bean could see the hunger in their eyes. Not the regular hunger, for food, but the real hunger, the deep hunger, for family, for love, for belonging. family love belonging hunger human-nature Orson Scott Card
935fc55 "You want to know what I really learned? I learned that people don't consider time alone as part of their life. Being alone is just a stretch of isolation they want to escape from. I saw a lot of wine-drinking, a lot of compulsive drug use, a lot of sleeping with the television on. It was less festive than I anticipated. My view had always been that I was my most alive when I was totally alone, because that was the only time I could live without fear of how my actions were being scrutinized and interpreted. What I came to realize is that people need their actions to be scrutinized and interpreted in order to feel like what they're doing matters. Singular, solitary moments are like television pilots that never get aired. They don't count. This, I think, explains the fundamental urge to get married and have kids[...]. We're self-conditioned to require an audience, even if we're not doing anything valuable or interesting. I'm sure this started in the 1970s. I know it did. I think Americans started raising offspring with this implicit notion that they had to tell their children, "You're amazing, you can do anything you want, you're a special person." [...] But--when you really think about it--that emotional support only applies to the experience of living in public. We don't have ways to quantify ideas like "amazing" or "successful" or "lovable" without the feedback of an audience. Nobody sits by himself in an empty room and thinks, "I'm amazing." It's impossible to imagine how that would work. But being "amazing" is supposed to be what life is about. As a result, the windows of time people spend by themselves become these meaningless experiences that don't really count. It's filler." loneliness aloneness social sociology human-nature Chuck Klosterman
0a91243 If the idea of loving those whom you have been taught to recognize as your enemies is too overwhelming, consider more deeply the observation that we are all much more alike than we are unalike. hate love anti-racism belief-in-nonviolence children-victims-of-war civility compassion-love compassion-wisdom coping-with-change courage-to-love discourse-on-a-better-world ending-terrorism ending-war faith-in-love finding-strength-in-love global-peace-movement global-village good-versus-evil hate-versus-love higher-consciousness hope-for-humanity interfaith-dialogue international-community jihadism-and-love jihadists-and-love living-without-fear love-and-jihad multiculturalismo police-culture quotes-for-the-new-year radical-grace sustainbale-humanity trusting-love faith-in-humanity peacism postered-poetics-by-aberjhani antiracism spiritual-philosophy enemy-quotes coexistence quote-of-the-day unconditional-love fear-of-love making-a-difference compassion-heals-lives human-rights-day national-history-day nonviolent-conflict-resolution police-reform mindfulness terrorism multiculturalism xenophobia diversity wisdom-quotes race-relations philosophy-of-life ideas human-nature Aberjhani
6b0220a You know, when I was in Paris, seeing Linter for the first time, I was standing at the top of some steps in the courtyard where Linter's place was, and I looked across it and there was a little notice on the wall saying it was forbidden to take photographs of the courtyard without the man's permission. [..] They want to own the light! observation science-fiction human-nature Iain M. Banks
4f25aa1 To this day, she's still sad. Because there's not some finite amount of pain inside us. Our bodies and minds just keep manufacturing more of it. I'm just saying that I took the pain that was inside of her at that moment and made it my own. And it didn't hurt me at all. mourning human-nature Tom Perrotta
049a7b7 "All these angels start coming out of the boxes and everywhere, guys carrying crucifixes and stuff all over the place, and the whole bunch of them - thousands of them - singing "Come All Ye Faithful" like mad. Big deal. It's supposed to be religious as hell, I know, and very pretty and all, but I can't see anything religious or pretty, for God's sake, about a bunch of actors carrying crucifixes all over the stage. When they all finished and started going out the boxes again, you could tell they could hardly wait to get a cigarette of something. I saw it with old Sally Hayes the year before, and she kept saying how beautiful it was, the costumes and all. I said old jesus probably would've puked if he could see it." people humanity truth human-nature J.D. Salinger
286cf30 "Is It Frightening To Be Free?" "You said it." "You Say To People 'Throw Off Your Chains' And They Make New Chains For Themselves?" "Seems to be a major human activity, yes." human-nature Terry Pratchett
88cbfc7 Hell didn't make me a monster. It just confirmed all my worst fears about myself. human-nature insight Richard Kadrey
505f3a5 [...] it would be false to say that because we're on the side of justice, we can go ahead and destroy our opponents and the world will be at peace. [...] Now, I know that there are such things as good and evil in the world, and that people do good things. But people who do good things are not necessarily good people, they just happen to be people who have done good things. The next instant they might wind up doing something bad, and if we don't take that into account in our view of humans, we'll constantly make mistakes when making political decisions or decisions about ourselves. human-nature Hayao Miyazaki
103bb4b a lot of human behavior was really acting out our responses to dangers long past. danger human-nature Orson Scott Card
ce23008 People started down the road with good intentions, but the moment the road became rough or difficult, they'd abandon it. human-nature Sherrilyn Kenyon
68fd3af May it not be that he loves chaos and destruction (there can be no disputing that he does sometimes love it) because he is instinctively afraid of attaining his object and completing the edifice he is constructing? Who knows, perhaps he only loves that edifice from a distance, and is by no means in love with it at close quarters; perhaps he only loves building it and does not want to live in it, but will leave it, when completed... success attainment reaching-your-goals chaos goals destruction human-nature Fyodor Dostoyevsky
b16b0b7 An envious heart makes a treacherous ear. They done 'heard' bout you just what they hope done happened. human-nature Zora Neale Hurston
57f9240 "It is a mistake," he said, "to suppose that the public wants the environment protected or their lives saved and that they will be grateful to any idealist who will fight for such ends. What the public wants is their own individual comfort." truth wisdom lost-values needs-and-wants self-injurious-behaviors social-satire-predictability the-way-the-world-works prophetic hedonism human-nature Isaac Asimov
49b23d1 There were two types of strong men: those like Uncle Monty and Abe Steinheim, remorseless about their making money, and those like my father, ruthlessly obedient to their idea of fair play. father human-nature Philip Roth
3610317 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. loss life-lessons life getting-fired job-losses losing-hope losing-self employment careers learning-from-mistakes mistake self-worth mistakes failure human-nature Gillian Flynn
fdb17db Nothing changes; we humans repeat the same sins over and over, eternally. sins human-nature Isabel Allende
8bbd8b0 "He was perfectly astonished with the historical account gave him of our affairs during the last century; protesting "it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition, could produce." His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to recapitulate the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with the answers I had given; then taking me into his hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: "My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which, in its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It does not appear, from all you have said, how any one perfection is required toward the procurement of any one station among you; much less, that men are ennobled on account of their virtue; that priests are advanced for their piety or learning; soldiers, for their conduct or valour; judges, for their integrity; senators, for the love of their country; or counsellors for their wisdom. As for yourself," continued the king, "who have spent the greatest part of your life in travelling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many vices of your country. But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth." human-nature Jonathan Swift
4a57b9a It is wrong to say that schoolmasters lack heart and are dried-up, soulless pedants! No, by no means. When a child's talent which he has sought to kindle suddenly bursts forth, when the boy puts aside his wooden sword, slingshot, bow-and-arrow and other childish games, when he begins to forge ahead, when the seriousness of the work begins to transform the rough-neck into a delicate, serious and an almost ascetic creature, when his face takes on an intelligent, deeper and more purposeful expression - then a teacher's heart laughs with happiness and pride. It is his duty and responsibility to control the raw energies and desires of his charges and replace them with calmer, more moderate ideals. What would many happy citizens and trustworthy officials have become but unruly, stormy innovators and dreamers of useless dreams, if not for the effort of their schools? In young beings there is something wild, ungovernable, uncultured which first has to be tamed. It is like a dangerous flame that has to be controlled or it will destroy. Natural man is unpredictable, opaque, dangerous, like a torrent cascading out of uncharted mountains. At the start, his soul is a jungle without paths or order. And, like a jungle, it must first be cleared and its growth thwarted. Thus it is the school's task to subdue and control man with force and make him a useful member of society, to kindle those qualities in him whose development will bring him to triumphant completion. hermann-hesse tame society church human-nature school Hermann Hesse
fd65459 One always has hope for human nature human-nature Agatha Christie
3fe6574 Yet gold all is not, that doth gold seem, Nor all good knights, that shake well spear and shield: The worth of all men by their end esteem, And then praise, or due reproach them yield. poetry human-nature Edmund Spenser
fd43f47 Favourable Chance, I fancy, is the god of all men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe in. Let even a polished man of these days get into a position he is ashamed to avow, and his mind will be bent on all the possible issues that may deliver him from the calculable results of that position. Let him live outside his income, or shirk the resolute honest work that brings wages, and he will presently find himself dreaming of a possible benefactor, a possible simpleton who may be cajoled into using his interest, a possible state of mind in some possible person not yet forthcoming. Let him neglect the responsibilities of his office, and he will inevitably anchor himself on the chance that the thing left undone may turn out not to be of the supposed importance. Let him betray his friend's confidence, and he will adore that same cunning complexity called Chance, which gives him the hope that his friend will never know. Let him forsake a decent craft that he may pursue the gentilities of a profession to which nature never called him, and his religion will infallibly be the worship of blessed Chance, which he will believe in as the mighty creator of success. The evil principle deprecated in that religion is the orderly sequence by which the seed brings forth a crop after its kind. human-nature George Eliot
5d64a0e "Over recent years, [there's been] a strong tendency to require assessment of children and teachers so that [teachers] have to teach to tests and the test determines what happens to the child, and what happens to the teacher...that's guaranteed to destroy any meaningful educational process: it means the teacher cannot be creative, imaginative, pay attention to individual students' needs, that a student can't pursue things [...] and the teacher's future depends on it as well as the students'...the people who are sitting in the offices, the bureaucrats designing this - they're not evil people, but they're working within a system of ideology and doctrines, which turns what they're doing into something extremely harmful [...] the assessment itself is completely artificial; it's not ranking teachers in accordance with their ability to help develop children who reach their potential, explore their creative interests and so on [...] you're getting some kind of a 'rank,' but it's a 'rank' that's mostly meaningless, and the very ranking itself is harmful. It's turning us into individuals who devote our lives to achieving a rank, not into doing things that are valuable and important. It's highly destructive...in, say, elementary education, you're training kids this way [...] I can see it with my own children: when my own kids were in elementary school (at what's called a good school, a good-quality suburban school), by the time they were in third grade, they were dividing up their friends into 'dumb' and 'smart.' You had 'dumb' if you were lower-tracked, and 'smart' if you were upper-tracked [...] it's just extremely harmful and has nothing to do with education. Education is developing your own potential and creativity. Maybe you're not going to do well in school, and you'll do great in art; that's fine. It's another way to live a fulfilling and wonderful life, and one that's significant . The whole idea is wrong in itself; it's creating something that's called 'economic man': the 'economic man' is somebody who rationally calculates how to improve his/her own status, and status means (basically) wealth. So you rationally calculate what kind of choices you should make to increase your wealth - don't pay attention to anything else - or maybe maximize the amount of goods you have. greed imagination education-reform eye-opening standardized-testing school-reform capitalism human-nature creativity Noam Chomsky
5de0b9f Uncouth, clannish, lumbering about the confines of Space and Time with a puzzled expression on his face and a handful of things scavenged on the way from gutters, interglacial littorals, sacked settlements and broken relationships, the Earth-human has no use for thinking except in the service of acquisition. He stands at every gate with one hand held out and the other behind his back, inventing reasons why he should be let in. From the first bunch of bananas, his every sluggish fit or dull fleabite of mental activity has prompted ; and his time has been spent for thousands of years in the construction and sophistication of systems of ideas that will enable him to excuse, rationalize, and moralize the grasping hand. His dreams, those priceless comic visions he has of himself as a being with concerns beyond the material, are no more than furtive cannibals stumbling round in an uncomfortable murk of emotion, trying to eat each other. Politics, religion, ideology -- desperate, edgy attempts to shift the onus of responsibility for his own actions: abdications. His hands have the largest neural representation in the somesthetic cortex, his head the smallest; but he's always trying to hide the one behind the other. greed human-nature thought M. John Harrison
8d52355 When people don't know what's going on, it's human nature for them to imagine a version that's ten times worse than the truth! leadership truth imagine human-nature Kenneth H. Blanchard
5606251 But in the military you don't get trusted positions just because of your ability. You also have to attract the notice of superior officers. You have to be liked. You have to fit in with the system. You have to look like what the officers above you think that officers should look like. You have to think in ways that they are comfortable with. The result was that you ended up with a command structure that was top-heavy with guys who looked good in uniform and talked right and did well enough not to embarrass themselves, while the really good ones quietly did all the serious work and bailed out their superiors and got blamed for errors they had advised against until they eventually got out. That was the military. success careerism company-culture ladder-of-success business-leaders corporate-culture unfairness-of-life military promotion human-nature Orson Scott Card
e35ca3c Man has one name, and many more than two natures. But the essential two are these: that he shall strive to impose order on chaos, and that he shall strive to take advantage of chaos... A third element of man's nature is this: that he shall not understand what he is doing. understanding pattern order human-nature John Brunner
59a83bb Because human nature never changes. failure human-nature Orson Scott Card
6406f7c "Human nature is always interesting... And it's curious to see how certain types always tend to act in exactly the same way." - Miss Marple, The Herb of Death, Pg. 167" human-nature Agatha Christie
f2f363f "It's astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself into, if one works at it. And astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself out of, if one simply assumes that everything will, somehow or other, work out for the best." -Destruction" confidence happiness philosophy wisdom inspirational essential knowledge-of-self human-nature values Neil Gaiman
21a2c3e in these shitty plastic days ... loss change a-new-era a-new-world electronic-revolution the-good-days-are-gone new-age stuck-in-a-rut life-sucks plastic the-past the-world fake changes destruction human-nature technology Gillian Flynn
357d422 "People do not belong to others, either. How can the huincas buy and sell people if they do not own them. Sometimes the boy went two or three days without speaking a word, surly, and not eating, and when asked what was the matter, the answer was always the same: "There are content days and there are sad days. Each person is a master of his silence." sadness happiness self-realization human-nature Isabel Allende
82734e1 ...everything defiled and degraded. What cannot man live through! Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him. humainty human-nature Fyodor Dostoyevsky
aaa3290 Most of these stories are on the tragic side. But the reader must not suppose that the incidents I have narrated were of common occurrence. The vast majority of these people, government servants, planters, and traders, who spent their working lives in Malaya were ordinary people ordinarily satisfied with their station in life. They did the jobs they were paid to do more or less competently,. They were as happy with their wives as are most married couples. They led humdrum lives and did very much the same things every day. Sometimes by way of a change they got a little shooting; but at a rule, after they had done their day's work, they played tennis if there were people to play with, went to the club at sundown if there was a club in the vicinity, drank in moderation, and played bridge. They had their little tiffs, their little jealousies, their little flirtations, their little celebrations. They were good, decent, normal people. I respect, and even admire, such people, but they are not the sort of people I can write stories about. I write stories about people who have some singularity of character which suggests to me that they may be capable of behaving in such a way as to give me an idea that I can make use of, or about people who by some accident or another, accident of temperament, accident of environment, have been involved in unusual contingencies. But, I repeat, they are the exception. characterization human-nature W. Somerset Maugham
e081e39 I reflected that it seemed to be in the nature of human beings to spend the first part of their lives mocking the cliches and conventions of their elders and the final part mocking the cliches and conventions of the young. youth human-nature Michael Chabon
fba57b0 Maybe man is nothing in particular,' Cross said gropingly. 'Maybe that's the terror of it. Man may be just anything at all. And maybe man deep down suspects this, really knows this, kind of dreams that it is true; but at the same time he does not want really to know it? May not human life on this earth be a kind of frozen fear of man at what he could possibly be? And every move he makes might not these moves be just to hide this awful fact? To twist it into something which he feels would make him rest and breathe a little easier? What man is is perhaps too much to be borne by man... man philosophy human-nature Richard Wright
e9e6dfc The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature. human-nature David Mitchell
0c97c50 So you've given away the old good and evil? asked Rose, amazed at all this rare talk from Quick. No. No. I'll stay a cop. But it's not us and them anymore. It's us and us and us. It's always us. That's what they never tell you. Geez, Rose, I just want to do right. But there's no monsters, only people like us. Funny, but it hurts. human-nature Tim Winton
e039538 ...you'll see, he said, they'll go back to dividing everything up among the priests, the gringos and the rich, and nothing for the poor, naturally, because they've always been so fucked up that the day that shit is worth money, poor people will be born without an asshole... humor corruption human-nature Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez
feca16f What is a saint supposed to do, if not convert wolves? irony man st-francis saints wolf human-nature Umberto Eco
0593f48 "Are you considering becoming a creative person? Too late, you already are one. To even call somebody "a creative person" is almost laughably redundant; creativity is the hallmark of our species. We have the sense for it; we have the curiosity for it; we have the opposable thumbs for it; we have the rhythm for it; we have the language and the excitement and the innate connection to divinity for it. If you're alive, you're a creative person. You and I and everyone you know are descended from tens of thousands of years of makers. Decorators, tinkerers, storytellers, dancers, explorers, fiddlers, drummers, builders, growers, problem-solvers, and embellishers--these are our common ancestors." creativity-and-motivational humanity-and-society human-nature Elizabeth Gilbert
31c3aa5 The prison inspector and the warders, though they had never understood or gone into the meaning of these dogmas and of all that went on in church, believed that they must believe, because the higher authorities and the Tsar himself believed in it. Besides, though faintly (and themselves unable to explain why), they felt that this faith defended their cruel occupations. If this faith did not exist it would have been more difficult, perhaps impossible, for them to use all their powers to torment people, as they were now doing, with a quiet conscience. The inspector was such a kind-hearted man that he could not have lived as he was now living unsupported by his faith. faith incarceration human-nature Leo Tolstoy
24de549 I am more human than rational. humanity rational-thought human-nature Karen Essex
c77cbee I wouldn't live in a colony like that, myself, for a thousand dollars an hour. I wouldn't want it next door. I'm not too happy it's within ten miles. Why? Because their soft-headedness irritates me. Because their beautiful thinking ignores both history and human nature. Because they'd spoil my thing with their thing. Because I don't think any of them is wise enough to play God and create a human society. Look. I like privacy, I don't like crowds, I don't like noise, I don't like anarchy, I don't even like discussion all that much. I prefer study, which is very different from meditation-not better, different. I don't like children who are part of the wild life. So are polecats and rats and other sorts of hostile and untrained vermin. I want to make a distinction between civilization and the wild life. I want a society that will protect the wild life without confusing itself with it. history idealism commune colonization crowds civilization wild study society privacy noise human-nature Wallace Stegner
38b9f6e It's natural for a man to defend what's dear to him: his own life, his home, his family. But in order to make him fight on behalf of his rulers, the rich and powerful who are too cunning to fight their own battles-in short to defend not himself but people whom he's never met and moreover would not care to be in the same room with him-you have to condition him into loving violence not for the benefits it bestows on him but for its own sake. Result: the society has to defend itself from its defenders, because what's admirable in wartime is termed psychopathic in peace. It's easier to wreck a man than to repair him. Ask any psychotherapist. And take a look at the crime figures among veterans. war human-nature John Brunner
9258267 It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. morality inspiration life philosophy societal-expectations society human-nature psychology Leo Tolstoy
60bf912 "Judith Rey watches the young woman. Once upon a time, I had a baby daughter. I dressed her in frilly frocks, enrolled her for ballet classes, and sent her to horse-riding camp five summers in a row. But look at her. She turned into Lester anyway. She kisses Luisa's forehead. Luisa frowns, suspiciously, like a teenager. "What?" identity daughter growing-up parents mother father human-nature roles David Mitchell
c0a3e75 I know human nature. We might sacrifice a few, because we are stupid and hardwired for group survival. But we would never die in the thousands because a god wished it. Those kinds of numbers require material gains, like power, wealth, territory. sacrifice raphael human-nature ilona Andrews
d7f7445 Three days a week she helped at the Manor Nursing Home, where people proved their keenness by reciting received analyses of current events. All the Manor residents watched television day and night, informed to the eyeballs like everyone else and rushed for time, toward what end no one asked. Their cupidity and self-love were no worse than anyone else's, but their many experiences' having taught them so little irked Lou. One hated tourists, another southerners; another despised immigrants. Even dying, they still held themselves in highest regard. Lou would have to watch herself. For this way of thinking began to look like human nature--as if each person of two or three billion would spend his last vital drop to sustain his self-importance. human-nature Annie Dillard
0e88053 The New Your energy goes beyond anything you'll find anywhere else. It's too much for some people and it grinds them down, but it lifts up and animates the rest of us. individuality inspiration sadness life philosophy knowledge-of-self living-in-a-city security human-nature Lawrence Block
a959726 Therefore it seemed a dreadful injustice that these wise races should perish at the hands of creatures who were still little more than animals. It was as if vultures feasted on and squabbled over the paralyzed body of the youthful poet who could only stare at them with puzzled eyes as they slowly robbed him of an exquisite existence they would never appreciate, never know they were taking. injustice fantasy exquiste human-nature Michael Moorcock
66113e8 Holden was starting to feel like they were all monkeys playing with a microwave. Push a button, a light comes on inside, so it's a light. Push a different button and stick your hand inside, it burns you, so it's a weapon. Learn to open and close the door, it's a place to hide things. Never grasping what it actually did, and maybe not even having the framework necessary to figure it out. No monkey ever reheated a frozen burrito. So here the monkeys were, poking the shiny box and making guesses about what it did. humanity shiny microwave human-nature monkeys James S.A. Corey
5240c1f Here I, for instance, quite naturally want to live, in order to satisfy all my capacities for life, and not simply my capacity for reasoning, that is, not simply one twentieth of my capacity for life. What does reason know? Reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning (some things, perhaps, it will never learn; this is a poor comfort, but why not say so frankly?) and human nature acts as a whole, with everything that is in it, consciously or unconsciously, and, even it if goes wrong, it lives. reason wholeness human-nature Fyodor Dostoyevsky
8d82f0f He tried to decide if he was really ashamed of being afraid, and decided that he was not. Fear was there for a purpose. It was wired into any creature that had not completely turned its back on its evolutionary inheritance and so remade itself in whatever image it coveted. The more sophisticated you became, the less you relied on fear and pain to keep you alive; you could afford to ignore them because you had other means of coping with the consequences if things went badly. fight-or-flight instinct human-nature Iain M. Banks
3bd9b13 "Oh, people get used to so many things," said Vadesh, "if only they give them selves a chance." philosophical thrill robots human-nature Orson Scott Card
5b1a2fe He has the mistaken notion that a concern with grace is a concern with exalted human behavior, that it is a pretentious concern. It is, however, simply a concern with the human reaction to that which, instant by instant, gives life to the soul. It is a concern with a realization that breeds charity and with the charity that breeds action. Often the nature of grace can be made plain only by describing its absence. writing grace redemption human-nature Flannery O'Connor
43ac554 "Then the true name for religion,' Fat said, 'is death.' 'The secret name,' I agreed. 'You got it. Jesus died; Asklepios died - they killed Mani worse than they killef jesus, but nobody even cares; nobody even remembers. They killed the Catharist in southern France by the tens of thousands. In the Thirty Years War, hundreds of people died. Protestants and Catholics - manual slaughter. Death is the real name for it; not God, not the Savior, not love - death. Kevin is rights about his cat. It's all there in his dead cat. The Great Judge can't answer Kevin: "Why did my cat die?" Answer: "Damned i I knoe." There is no answer; there is only a dead animal that just wanted to cross the street. We're all animals that want to cross the street only something mows us down half-way across that we never saw. Go ask Kevin. "Your cat was stupid." "Who made the cat? Why did he make the cat stupid? Did the cat learn by being killed, and if so, what did he learn? Did Sherri learn anything from dying of cancer? did gloria learn anything-' 'Okay, enough,' Fat said. 'Kevin is right,' I said. 'Go out and get laid.' world humanity spirituality religion god life science-fiction irrationality human-nature Philip K. Dick
20ea1a1 It was an old hunter in camp and the hunter shared tobacco with him and told him of the buffalo and the stands he'd made against them, laid up in a sag on some rise with the dead animals scattered over the grounds and the herd beginning to mill and the riflebarrel so hot the wiping patches sizzled in the bore and the animals by the thousands and the tens of thousands and the hides pegged out over actual square miles of ground the teams of skinners spelling one another around the clock and the shooting and shooting weeks and months till the bore shot slick and the stock shot loose at the tang and their shoulders were yellow and blue to the elbow and the tandem wagons groaned away over the prairie twenty and twenty-two ox teams and the flint hides by the hundred ton and the meat rotting on the ground and the air whining with flies and the buzzards and ravens and the night a horror of snarling and feeding with the wolves half-crazed and wallowing in the carrion. I seen Studebaker wagons with six and eight ox teams headed out for the grounds not hauling a thing but lead. Just pure galena. Tons of it. On this ground alone between the Arkansas River and the Concho there were eight million carcasses for that's how many hides reached the railhead. Two years ago we pulled out from Griffin for a last hunt. We ransacked the country. Six weeks. Finally found a herd of eight animals and we killed them and come in. They're gone. Ever one of them that God ever made is gone as if they'd never been at all. The ragged sparks blew down the wind. The prairie about them lay silent. Beyond the fire it was cold and the night was clear and the stars were falling. The old hunter pulled his blanket about him. I wonder if there's other worlds like this, he said. Or if this is the only one. humanity death holocaust civilization hunt human-nature Cormac McCarthy
a6f82ea Although there are certain needs, such as hunger, thirst, sex, which are common to man, those drives which make for the differences in men's characters, like love and hatred, the lust for power and the yearning for submission, the enjoyment of sensuous pleasure and the fear of it, are all products of the social process. The most beautiful as well as the most ugly inclinations of man are not part of a fixed and biologically given human nature, but result from the social process which creates man. In other words, society has not only a suppressing function - although it has that too - but it has also a creative function. social-psychology society human-nature Erich Fromm
b55f5f5 "It is the task of the "science of man" to arrive eventually at a correct description of what deserves to be called human nature. What has often been called "human nature" is but one of its many manifestations - and often a pathological one - and the function of such mistaken definition usually has been to defend a particular type of society as being the necessary one." society human-sciences human-nature Erich Fromm
d460757 Nor did he care about his childhood, for certainly I never heard him speak of it. I once questioned him about his early days and he would not answer. 'What is the egg to the eagle?' he asked me... quote living the-winter-king perspective quotes-on-life quotes human-nature Bernard Cornwell
9e4f708 Social mores, he argued, rules of protocol, concepts of rectitude and honor had no objective basis. They were only reflections of public and private fears. reflection human-nature Wade Davis
dca8b78 At some indeterminate point in their life cycles, they cause themselves to be placed in artificial stone or wooden cocoons, or chrysalises. They have an idea that they will someday emerge from these in an altered state, which they symbolize with carvings of themselves with wings. However, we did not observe that any had actually done so. death humourous human-nature Margaret Atwood
7c29a9b They thought man was a creature of rapacious self-interest, and yet they wanted him to be free- free, in essence, to contend, to engage in an umpired strife, to use property to get property. man free freedom monster human-nature Richard Hofstadter
722c4a5 Particularly nauseous were the blank expressionless faces of people in trains and omnibuses; they seemed no more my fellow-creatures than dead bodies would be, so that I did not dare to travel unless I was assured of being alone. human-nature H.G. Wells
815765f And so the Steppenwolf had two natures, a human and a wolfish one. This was his fate, and it may well be that it was not a very exceptional one. There must have been many men who have had a good deal of the dog or the fox, of the fish or the serpent in them without experiencing any extraordinary difficulties on that account. In such cases, the man and the fish lived on together and neither did the other any harm. The one even helped the other. Many a man indeed has carried this condition to such enviable lengths that he has owed his happiness more to the fox or the ape in him than the man. human-nature Hermann Hesse
b1714b1 "[For] decades, researchers have told us that the link between cataclysm and social disintegration is a myth perpetuated by movies, fiction, and misguided journalism. In fact, in case after case, the opposite occurs: In the earthquake and fire of 1906, Jack London observed: "never, in all San Francisco's history, were her people so kind and courteous as on this night of terror." "We did not panic. We coped," a British psychiatrist recalled after the July 7, 2005, London subway bombings. We often assume that such humanity among survivors, what author Rebecca Solnit has called "a paradise built in hell," is an exception after catastrophes, specific to a particular culture or place. In fact, it is the rule." humanity human-nature Jonathan M. Katz
4b85b83 "I recalled my father-in-law's aphorism "To fool a judge, feign fascination, but to bamboozle the whole court, feign boredom..." & I pretended to extract a speck from my eye." human-nature David Mitchell
2c24070 The self, the place where we live, is a place of illusion. Goodness is connected with the attempt to see the unself, to see and to respond to the real world in the light of a virtuous consciousness. This is the non-metaphysical meaning of the idea of transcendence to which philosophers have so constantly resorted in their explanations of goodness. 'Good is a transcendent reality' means that virtue is the attempt to pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is. It is an empirical fact about human nature that this attempt cannot be entirely successful. illusion good real transcendence human-nature Iris Murdoch
6752800 That seemed to be the human pattern--reach out to the unknown and then make it into the sort of thing you left in the first place. In Holden's experience, humanity's drive out into the universe was maybe one part hunger for adventure and exploration to two parts just wanting to get the hell away from each other. solitude-and-companionship human-nature James S.A. Corey
cc5d0e3 The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant and different beings in the various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at the same moment! Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant? miracle stars empathy life walden-pond walden human-nature Henry David Thoreau
97aec45 How do you explain a world that gifts evil men with privilege and wealth and looks the other way while they torment and abuse the weakest members of society? injustice wealth philosophy privilege human-nature C.S. Harris
df5b5e3 It is not easy to be stranded between two worlds, the sad truth is that we can never feel completely comfortable in either world human-nature Sharon Kay Penman
df4e792 The reason why many people remain on the bottom is because they play to 'not lose', as opposed to playing to win at all costs. motivation science success love wisdom ascension atlanta belize mindfulness locs natural-hair new-thought women-of-color brandi-bates vegan luxury quotes knowledge human-nature Brandi L. Bates
6b6a496 ,,Czlowiek podejrzliwy z natury wystawiony jest na nieszczescie. Podejrzliwosc jest jak kwas, trawi naczynie, w ktorym sie znajduje, pozera tego, kto ja zywi: dniem i noca strzec sie calego rodzaju ludzkiego, nieustannie glowic sie nad tym, jak uniknac intryg i udaremnic spiski, jakiego uzyc fortelu, zeby z daleka dostrzec zastawiona na niego siec - to wszystko sa korzenie wszelkiej szkody. To one nie daja czlowiekowi zyc. life distrust podejrzliwość życie human-nature Amos Oz
fa10d28 io, mio caro, non credo nell'amore universale. L'amore esiste in dosi modiche. Si possono amare forse cinque fra uomini e donne, dieci magari, talvolta financo quindici. E anche questo solo assai di rado. Ma se uno arriva e mi dice che ama tutto il Terzo mondo, o ama l'America Latina, o ama il sesso femminile, quello non e amore ma retorica. Pura demagogia. Slogan. Non siamo nati per amare piu di una manciata di persone. love-quotes philosophical humanity philosophy society love-hurts jews jewish human-nature Amos Oz
e45c1a6 Forgiving himself came easy to him. His, he'd come to realize, was a forgiving nature. fiction humanity new-york-city human-nature short-stories Lawrence Block
8814fc0 Hicimos de los ojos una especia de espejos hacia adentro, con el resultado, muchas veces, de que acababan mostrando sin reserva lo que estabamos tratando de negar con la boca. human-nature José Saramago
9fa1bd9 If we are to know ourselves, philosophy needs to maintain an ongoing dialogue with the sciences of mind. self-knowledge philosophy science-of-mind human-nature George Lakoff
29adf0f Of course, the happy shutterbug couldn't have known that his picture of a dildo keel would soon inspire a plot leading to murder and ensnare human beings like dolphins in a gill net. For he was just a San Diego cop who drove a boat, not a true man of the sea. Not one who understands in his soul that the actions of people are like the tides that chase the moon but invariably come crashing back, with all manner of thrashing things roiling in their foamy wake. murder sea human-nature Joseph Wambaugh
181dc21 Bunlardan nasil bir ahlak dersi cikarmali? Baris, Rabbimiz tarafindan ne kadar sevilse de, ancak komsulariniz da sizin gibi vicdanliysa esas erdemlerden biri sayilir. cloud-atlas david-mitchell quotes human-nature David Mitchell
a3a479c Her zaman baska bir savas cikar, Robert. Kokleri hicbir zaman tamamen kazinmaz. Savaslari ne alevlendirir? Guc arzusu, insan dogasinin belkemigi. Siddet tehdidi, siddet korkusu ya da siddetin kendisi bu dehset verici arzunun aracidir. Guc arzusunu yatak odalarinda, mutfaklarda, fabrikalarda, sendikalarda ve devletlerin sinirlarinda gorebilirsin. Bunu iyi dinle ve aklina yaz. Ulus-devlet insan dogasinin sisirilip devasa boyutlara getirilmis halidir, o kadar. Iste bu yuzden, uluslar kanunlari siddetle yazilmis birimlerdir. Her zaman da oyleydiler, her zaman da oyle olacaklar. Savas, Robert, insanligin iki ebedi dostundan biridir. cloud-atlas qoutes david-mitchell wars human-nature David Mitchell
cbf6e9f sometimes the human race likes to crank things up a little. They increase the production of bodies and their escaping souls. human-nature Markus Zusak
ac4498d Primatologists Richard Wrandham and Dale Peterson summarize... writing, 'Chimpanzee-like violence preceded and paved the way for human war, making modern humans the dazed survivors of a continuous 5-million-year habit of lethal aggression. human-nature Cacilda Jethá
92e1a55 It is apt to be so, and it is hard to bear; for, though we do not want trumpets blown, we do like to have out little virtues appreciated, and cannot help feeling disappointed if they are not. eight-cousins louisa-may-alcott virtues disappointment human-nature Louisa May Alcott
8433a07 "You must convince your chiefs that what you're telling 'em is important, which ain't difficult, since they want to believe you, having chiefs of their own to satisfy; make as much mystery of your methods as you can; hint what a thoroughgoing ruffian you can be in a good cause, but never forget that innocence shines brighter than any virtue, "Flashman? Extraordinary fellow - kicks 'em in the crotch with the heart of a child"; remember that silence frequently passes for shrewdness, and that while suppressio veri is a damned good servant, suggestio falsi is a perilous master." philosophy wisdom the-way-the-world-works knowledge-of-self experience hedonism human-nature George MacDonald Fraser
a7c81b2 [...] she understood that nothing is less obvious in a man than that which seems unquestionable. human-nature Louis de Bernières
2acdf0b There are just people going about what they always do. Talking. Parking crooked. people funny humor location-3548 parking human-nature Markus Zusak
9101910 He has written about equality, the perfectibility of human nature, and the essential goodness of mankind for many years -- he judges others by himself, poor soul. goodness judgment human-nature Patrick O'Brian
1a99468 I once had every hope,' he says. 'The world corrupts me, I think. Or perhaps it's just the weather. It pulls me down and makes me think like you, that one should shrink inside, down and down to a little point of light, preserving one's solitary soul like a flame under a glass. The spectacles of pain and disgrace I see around me, the ignorance, the unthinking vice, the poverty and the lack of hope, and oh, the rain - the rain that falls on England and rots the grain, puts out the light in a man's eye and the light of learning too, for who can reason if Oxford is a giant puddle and Cambridge is washing away downstream, and who will enforce the laws if the judges are swimming for their lives? Last week the people were rioting in York. Why would they not, with wheat so scarce, and twice the price of last year? I must stir up the justices to make examples, I suppose, otherwise the whole of the north will be out with billhooks and pikes, and who will they slaughter but each other? I truly believe I should be a better man if the weather were better. I should be a better man if I lived in a commonwealth where the sun shone and the citizens were rich and free. If only that were true, Master More, you wouldn't have to pray for me nearly as hard as you do. human-nature Hilary Mantel
73fe1e6 <> disse , guardandoci. <> tragedy philosophy donna-tartt the-secret-history philosophy-quotes philosophy-of-life greek human-nature Donna Tartt
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