Quotes about human nature

A snake might not remember the year before, the month before. That desire to know, to check, to measure against, was human. (p233)

They all had stories. They had mothers or fathers, sisters or lovers. They weren't alone in the world, mattering to no one but themselves. It seemed utterly wrong to treat them like pennies in a purse. I felt the soldiers understood perfectly well that we were making sums out of them-- this many safe to spend, this number too high, as if each one wasn't a whole man.

You are no more nor less than any man—a hungry heart and a wavering will.

Coming whence you do, you doubtless assume that the mores and customs of your own land arise from the workings of simple human nature. But human nature is far from simple, and what appears natural in your own milieu may seem chillingly alien when transported into some foreign sphere.

I am not so naïve as to be oblivious of evil and ugliness, but I thought that the bulk of the human race wanted, deep down, to be good if only they could, somehow. A childish belief, perhaps. But I shrink from relinquishing it. I am not astonished at brutality, nor at the weak yielding to it. I know that man belongs to the animal kingdom. But I know, too, that he is superior to other animals through the possession of that intangible something called the spirit. Just as I believe that God is Good and that Good is God, so I believe that Good (and therefore God) lives within each of us. Each one of us is not only an animal, but a spirit. And for that reason alone (though there are a thousand others) I marvel that every decent human being does not reject the spiritual murder which accompanies the scourge of Fascism, Nazism and Communism. Of the three, the Nazi plan will perish first, not because of the Nazi brutality, but because of the Nazi vulgarity and insolence. As in 1914 (and always) the German nation now reckons mathematically without considering the human equation. A mistake.

I learned some years back that human nature is volatile stuff in a world full of lighted matches.

Human beings have never been very adult about cleaning up after themselves.

There had been many definitions of Man; he would make another: “The noise-producing animal.”

In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top—the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation—and the plants at the bottom. But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as "the younger brothers of Creation." We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn—we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They've been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out.

I’ve heard it said that technology makes a good person better, and it makes a bad person worse. That’s okay with me. I say we keep building new versions of ourselves, keep exploring the unknown, and keep growing.

We’re gonna be fine. Different, but fine.

Because most people are good. Right?

There is nothing more defenseless than a defenseless human.

No teeth, no talons, no thunderbolts, no fire.

"There are some dragons that are monsters," admitted Valhallarama.

"But then there are also some humans who are monsters." (And at this point she paused and looked significantly at Alvin the Treacherous and the witch.)