Human Nature Quotes

“There are three wants which never can be satisfied: that of the rich, who wants something more; that of the sick, who wants something different; and that of the traveler, who says anywhere but here.”

“Manners have been somewhat cynically defined to be a contrivance of wise men to keep fools at a distance. Fashion is shrewd to detect those who do not belong to her train, and seldom wastes her attentions. Society is very swift in its instincts, and if you do not belong to it, resists and sneers at you, or quietly drops you.”

“Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact makes much impression on him, and another none.”

“If we tire of the saints, Shakspeare is our city of refuge.”

“You are not wood, you are not stones, but men;And being men, hearing the will of Caesar,It will inflame you, it will make you mad.”

“Tis not a year or two shows us a man:They are all but stomachs, and we all but food;They eat us hungerly, and when they are fullThey belch us.”

“Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.”

“Sanity is very rare; every man almost and every woman has a dash of madness.”

“All stealing is comparative. If you come to absolutes, pray who does not steal.”

“We do what we can, and then make a theory to prove our performance the best.”

“We must trust infinitely to the beneficent necessity which shines through all laws. Human nature expresses itself in them as characteristically as in statues, or songs, or railroads, and an abstract of the codes of nations would be an abstract of the common conscience.”

“Men are so charmed with valor that they have pleased themselves with being called lions, leopards, eagles and dragons, from the animals contemporary with us in the geologic formations.”

“The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters,—a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.”

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

“Men that make Envy and crooked malice nourishment, Dare bite the best.”

“I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch.”

“Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay.”

“The worthless and offensive members of society, whose existence is a social pest, invariably think themselves the most ill-used people alive, and never get over their astonishment at the ingratitude and selfishness of their contemporaries.”

“The only sin that we never forgive in each other is a difference in opinion.”

“We seek our friend not sacredly, but with an adulterate passion which would appropriate him to ourselves.”

“Men such as they are, very naturally seek money or power; and power because it is as good as money.”

“Some will always be above others. Destroy the inequality today, and it will appear again tomorrow.”

“We are all wise for other people, none for himself.”

“Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.”

“Men are like Geneva watches with crystal faces, which expose the whole movement.”