Quotes on Human Nature

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

Napoleon Bonaparte

You are only what you are when no one is looking.

Robert C. Edwards

The meek may inherit the earth, but they'll cease being meek as soon as they come into their inheritance.

Unknown

People will ignore their misfortunes and their interests when they are in competition with their pleasures.

French Proverb

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you. If you really make them think, they'll hate you.

Don Marquis

Young men think old men are fools, but old men know young men are fools.

George Chapman

I exist as pure energy, but you depend on food and water to survive. Frankly, I find it disgusting. Look at you. Look at you! Grinding up bits of plants and animals with your teeth. Secreting saliva to force it down your esophagus into a pit of digestive acids. You can't even stand to think about it yourself. What a repulsive creature you are! Constantly shedding your skin and hair, leaving your oily sweat on everything you touch! You think that you are the height of intellect in the universe but you are no better than any filthy animal and I am ashamed to be made in your image!

'Dejaren' from Star Trek: Voyager (Revulsion)

The average teenage girl says, "I absolutely hate haters and hypocrites!" Most of them cannot see the humor in that. They are what they hate.

Duane Alan Hahn

A stranger loses half his charm the day his is no longer a stranger.

Genevieve Antoine Dariaux

There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.

Warren Buffett

People can be divided into three classes, the few who make things happen, the many who watch things happen, and the overwhelming majority who have no idea what has happened.

Unknown

There are two types of people. Those we who come into a room and say, "Well, here I am!'' and those who come in and say, ''Ah, there you are.''

Frederick L. Collins

The ordinary man is an anarchist. He wants to do as he likes. He may want his neighbour to be governed, but he himself doesn't want to be governed. He is mortally afraid of government officials and policemen.

George Bernard Shaw

A coward is a man in whom the instinct of self-preservation acts normally.

Unknown

As for my reflections, what I think I'll most remember about the blackout: I guess it's the surprise, the surprise and wonderment of our leaders and the media that somehow there was no violence, that in 9 hours of darkness we didn't kill each other. What amazes me is have we really set the bar that low? Do we really as a nation and as a city deserve a gold star for not allowing a momentary power outage to instantly propel us towards cannibalism? What a night of people pulling together: "Hey, that guy helped direct traffic through an intersection instead of crushing my skull with a brick! He's a saint!"

Jon Stewart (from The Daily Show about the August 2003 blackout)

It is the nature of people to love, then destroy, then love again that which they value most.

God from Conversations with God (Book 1) through Neale Donald Walsch

We have a lot of anxieties, and one cancels out another very often.

Winston Churchill

People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.

Samuel Butler

Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is, with thoughts of what may be.

John Dryden

All people have three characters, that which they exhibit, that which they have, and that which they think they have.

Alphonse Karr (adapted)

Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.

Aristotle

The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.

Charles F. Kettering

Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.

Voltaire

Most people when they come to you for advice, come to have their own opinions strengthened, not corrected.

Josh Billings

People say they love truth, but in reality they want to believe that which they love is true.

Robert J. Ringer

People would rather be wrong than be different.

Henry Jacobsen

How is it possible to expect mankind to take advice when they will not so much as take warning?

Swift