Human Nature Quotes

"Secretly, we’re all a little more absurd than we make ourselves out to be" "A lot of the time people don’t even know what they want until they see something new" "A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong." "People are strange: they are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice." "Man is an intelligence, not served by, but in servitude to his organs." "Civilization is, among other things, the process by which animals are turned into men." "This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections" "It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels" "Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing " "I believe in the flesh and the appetites" "Nothing endures but personal qualities" "Sin is a spiritual and moral malignancy" "If we were not all so excessively interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it" "Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no further purpose" "Wicked thoughts and worthless efforts gradually set their mark on the face, especially the eyes" "When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees and some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever, and you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it, you just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are." "Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another" "To understand is to forgive" "The more I see of men, the better I like my dog" "The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason"