"Human nature" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "It's human nature to slip up occasionally," said Mr. Maynard, "but I think on the whole my kiddies do pretty well. Now, as you know, we start to-morrow for Grandma Sherwood's, and while I'm not going to give you a lecture on the subject, I am going to ask you to behave pretty ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... commonly to a diploma from the police court. But they only illustrate the working of the same tendency in mankind at large which has been occasionally noticed in the sons of ministers and other eminently worthy people, by many ascribed to that intense congenital hatred for goodness which distinguishes human nature from that of the brute, but perhaps as readily accounted for by considering it as the yawning and stretching of a young soul cramped too long in one ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... can afford to despise a woman with twenty millions. It isn't in human nature. Particularly when you save Mr. James Eustis himself from coming a breakneck cropper, to ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... gratifying his family by exposing them in Paris! Jeopard, do we say? He has done more: he has thrown it away. He has a magnet in his binnacle. He has, for the time, sacrificed what it cost him thirty years of labor and audacity to gain. Strange weakness of human nature! ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... have influenced my life, who fought in me then for mastery; one from out the unchangeable past, the others in the tangible and delible present. Most of us have to pass through such ordeals before character and conviction receive their final bias; before human nature has its wild trouble, and then settles into "cold rock and quiet world;" which any lesser after-shocks may ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... or powers; I simply maintain that, aided by the erudition of the great scientists of the past and present, this system has finally been brought to a point which should rightly have been always the chief aim of Medical Science, namely, an exact knowledge of human nature and the human organism, as ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... will, girlie. You don't know it now, but I know it and Druce knows it. And when you come back you'll do as Druce wants you to do, because you'll know that if you don't you'll have to starve again. It's against human nature to starve. You'll go back to him. And when you do and Druce is tired of you he'll sell you for what you ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... of boyhood had given him a deep insight into human nature, into the humor and pathos of other people's lives, and it was that rare insight that enabled him to become in time one of the greatest of all English writers, Charles Dickens, the beloved novelist ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... all that I learned from him of seamanship, of the history of sailors' lives, of practical wisdom, and of human nature under new circumstances,—a great history from which many are shut out,—I would not part with the hours I spent in the watch with that man for any given hours of my life passed in ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... regarded this belief as a heresy, and (theoretically) charitable deeds 'as filthy rags.' Differently constituted, these excellent men accepted religion in different ways. Christian bows beneath a burden of sin; Piscator beneath a basket of trout. Let us be grateful for the diversities of human nature, and the dissimilar paths which lead Piscator and Christian alike to the City not built with hands. Both were seekers for a City which to have sought through life, in patience, honesty, loyalty, and love, is to have found it. Of Walton's book ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang
... you mustn't make me laugh like that! You know I used to think I understood human nature, but I never started with that woman. I did live at her expense,—I had to,—and she stood for it until I got to hanging round the saloons too much. She used to pay my dues in the club, damned if she didn't, until I got fired for too much poker in the chamber over the gate. I must ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... His doctrine to mankind always was, "Enlarge your tastes, that you may enlarge your hearts." He believed in reversing original propensities by education,—as Spallanzani brought up eagles on bread and milk, and fed doves on raw meat. "Don't let us demand too much of human nature," was a line in his creed; and he believed in Hood's advice, that gentleness in a case of wrong direction ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... physician who is only a physician; the lawyer who injects the legal point of view into every circumstance of life; the lover or the miser who is just love or greed; the people who, as in Dickens, meet every situation with the same phrase or attitude, This, too, looks like a plain falsification of human nature, because, however strong be the professional bias or however overmastering the ruling passion, real people are always more complex and many-sided, having other modifying and counteracting elements ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... shut up among the decaying bodies of her starved hopes. A sense of having been decoyed by some world-old conspiracy into this bondage of body and soul filled her with despair. If marriage was the slow life-long acquittal of a debt contracted in ignorance, then marriage was a crime against human nature. She, for one, would have no share in maintaining the pretence of which she had been a victim: the pretence that a man and a woman, forced into the narrowest of personal relations, must remain there till the end, though they may have outgrown the span of each other's natures ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... point; yet a little while, and he was still a man, and had eyes and apprehension; yet a little longer, and with a last sordid piece of pageantry, he would cease to be. And here, in the meantime, with a trait of human nature that caught at the beholder's breath, he ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shoulders. His principles of oratory were Demosthenean; his motto was "Action, action, action." His. friends on circuit called him the Balais of action. He had had some experience of the depravity of human nature, said the shrug, but this beat every thing, and would be really amusing but for its atrocious infamy. ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... one and the same time, in the two buildings which contain the pictures of greatest value in the city (as pieces of color, of greatest value in the world), curiously illustrative of this peculiarity in human nature. Buckets were set on the floor of the Scuola di San Rocco, in every shower, to catch the rain which came through the pictures of Tintoret on the ceiling; while in the Ducal Palace, those of Paul Veronese were themselves laid ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... have even turned away and shut their eyes, as has been related by many historians before our own time. And I have heard of many miraculous occurrences even at the present day, resting on evidence which cannot be lightly impugned. However, the weakness of human nature makes it equally dangerous to put too much faith in such matters or to entirely disbelieve them, as the one leads to superstition and folly, and the other to neglect and contempt of the gods. Our best course is caution, and ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... folded and directed to "Mr. Osmund Derwent, Esquire." And then, for one minute, human nature had its way, and Phoebe's head was bowed over the folded note. There was no one to see her, and she let her heart relieve itself in tears. Ay, there was One, who took note of the self-abnegation which had been learned from Him. Phoebe knew that Osmund ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... Why, your Missionaries are already frequently charged with being too liberal towards their English Presbyterian brethren in giving to them members and churches which, it is said, properly belong to us. Is Chinese human nature ...
— History and Ecclesiastical Relations of the Churches of the Presbyterial Order at Amoy, China • J. V. N. Talmage
... and mighty men, so we must not judge of the life in the Church by those who are called Rabbi. The very notion of the kingdom of heaven implies a secret growth, secret from no affectation of mystery, but because its goings-on are in the depths of the human nature where it holds communion with the Divine. In the Church, as in society, we often find that that which shows itself uppermost is but the froth, a sign, it may be, of life beneath, but in itself ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... got into the habit of calling with him for his letters, except when the doing so interfered with the programme for the day. And many an amusing, and sometimes touching, insight did they get there into human nature. Graeme said it was worth while the trouble of going, just to sit in the hedge opposite and watch people's faces, especially the faces of those who tore open their letters and ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... howling all day over his tumbled joss Shrapnel. Once away in the heart of the downs, and Cecilia beside him, it was a matter of calculation that two or three hours of the sharpening air would screw his human nature to the pitch. In fact, unless each of them was reluctant, they could hardly return unbetrothed. Cecilia's consent was foreshadowed by her submission in going: Mr. Romfrey had noticed her fright at the suggestive formalities he cast round the expedition, and felt sure of her. Taking ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... her colonies. Grenville here made clear that the Americans were to have no voice in making or amending their laws. Parliament and the king were to have absolute power over the colonies. No wonder Franklin was alarmed by this new doctrine. With his keen insight into human nature and his consequent knowledge of American character, he foresaw the inevitable result of such an attitude on the part of England. This conversation with Grenville makes these last pages of the Autobiography one ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... State set foot in America, and lo! all the inhabitants are tumbling over one another in their desire for a glimpse of him—a desire which is the natural and pathetic outcome of their unsatisfied inner craving for a dynasty of their own. Human nature being what it is, a monarchy is the best expedient, all the world over. But, given a republic, let the thing be done thoroughly, let the appearance be well kept up, as in Switzerland. Let the President be, as there, a furtive creature and insignificant, not merely ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... "Depicts youthful human nature as one who knows and loves it. Her 'Phoebe and Ernest' studies are deservedly popular, and now, in 'Janey,' this clever writer has accomplished an equally ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... had fifty stripes from the tip of his nose to his tail, nary stripe alike; a laughing hyena of the desert, who could cry like a child when he was hungry, and who devoured the people who came to his assistance, thereby showing the total depravity of human nature; an elephant that could dance; and monkeys who climbed the highest trees and swung in the gentle zephyrs by the tail." The crowning point was that he had money enough saved ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... that they both acquire manners before morals, and a knowledge of life before they have from reflection, any acquaintance with the grand ideal outline of human nature. The consequence is natural; satisfied with common nature, they become a prey to prejudices, and taking all their opinions on credit, they blindly submit to authority. So that if they have any sense, it is a kind of instinctive glance, that ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... said, my dear, but we men learn to be less trustful than you ladies, who stay at home and take rose-colored views of life. Unfortunately, we see too much of the dark side of human nature." ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... this, coupled with the well-known fact of Alessandro's liability to attacks of insanity, might be made to tell against him, if he should be brought to trial for the murder. He was as cowardly as he was cruel: never yet were the two traits separate in human nature; and after a few days of this torturing suspense and apprehension, he suddenly resolved to leave the country, if not forever, at least for a few years, till this brother-in-law should be out of the way. He lost no time in carrying out his resolution; and it was well he did not, for it was only ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... faiths, the instinctive longing to pry into the Future has produced a host of pseudo-sciences, Geomancy, Astrology, Prophecy and others which serve only to prove that such knowledge, in the present condition of human nature, is absolutely unattainable. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... can attain none of their objects; they can neither please nor persuade if they dwell on moral sentiments not in unison with those of their readers. No system of moral philosophy can surely disregard the general feelings of human nature and the according judgment of all ages and nations. But where are these feelings and that judgment recorded and preserved? In those very writings which Grotius is gravely blamed for having quoted. The usages and laws of nations, the events of history, ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... proprietor in Messrs. Gimcrack's shop. Pen's keen eyes and satiric turn showed him at once upon what errand Mr. Foker had been employed; and he thought of the heir in Horace pouring forth the gathered wine of his father's vats; and that human nature is pretty much the same in Regent-street as ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Victorine, all astonishment, "that anybody can be so ignorant of human nature, as to set three sisters to strive against each other, to rouse up envy and jealousy in their minds, to make them grieve to hear that their own sister is looked upon favourably by their neighbours and friends, because by ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... whiskey and cigars, to persuade the jailer, and to neutralize most of the existing prejudices current among those around him against his tribe. He had travelled much, and was no random observer. He had seen a great deal, as well of human nature as of places; could tell a good story, in good spirit; and was endowed with a dry, sneaking humor, that came out unawares upon his hearers, and made them laugh ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... could scarcely have believed that human nature could become so depraved, as an instance I witnessed with my own eyes convinced me it might be. I saw two Irishmen, who had their wives and families on board, slip over the ship's side, and drop down towards the boat, with ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... the other side, Thornton Rush, since about it was no smell of gunpowder, trained a goodly crew, with which he met the Captain's line. Victory was not always upon one side. Politics is a very uncertain res gestoe. And human nature, more uncertain still, would vacillate from wing to wing, now being a Sharp's retainer, and anon a hanger-on of Rush. Such changelings would not count, but that their vote ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... the Smyrna station till we pretty well knew it under every changing phase of season. Through the rigour of winter we had been brought now to the very flagrance of the dog-star, to the time when human nature can pretend no opposition to the mood of the lordly sun. Even late in the autumn, these clear skies afford so little interruption to the tide of sunbeams, that one is not quite exempt from risk of coup de soleil. Indeed this is perhaps the very time when the untutored stranger is particularly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... circumstance, that each of the contending powers is only conceived broadly and generally; the essential humanity in Prometheus and Agamemnon is but slightly tinged by poetic individualizing. Sophocles seizes human nature under its general conditions, the king, the old man, the sister; but not one of his figures displays the microcosm of man in all his aspects—the features of individual character. A high stage was here reached, but not the highest; ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the subject. She could not say that the interference of any domestic between such a one as John Gordon and his love,—between him and her if she were happy enough to be his love,—would be an absurdity too foolish to be considered. They, that happy two, would be following the bent of human nature, and would speak no more than a soft word to the old woman, if a soft word might avail anything. Their love, their happy love, would be a thing too sacred to admit of any question from any servant, almost from any parent. But ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... Overton's guilt, now swarmed around him to assure him that they had never for an instant believed it possible that he could be otherwise than a most honest and wonderful soldier. Not they! Oh, no! Now that they knew who the real culprit was, these victims of human nature were ready to cross their hearts that they had known all along that Overton was absolutely guiltless; and they had even suspected, all along, who would turn out by and by ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... It would imply the recognition of a certain faculty of the mind, known as imagination; and of a certain fact in history, called art. Art and imagination are correlatives,—one implies the other. Together, they may be said to constitute the characteristic badge and vindication of human nature; imagination is the badge, and art is the vindication. Reason, which gets so much vulgar glorification, is, after all, a secondary quality. It is posterior to imagination,—it is one of the means by which imagination seeks to realize its ends. Some animals reason, or seem to do so: but the ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... have been observed seated on the stern bitts smoking, the picture of contentment. Pirates under the law they might be, but of this they knew nothing and cared less. With them, self-preservation was, indeed, the first law of human nature. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... unalterably certain—until it is over—that her experience is an isolated and wholly remarkable one. Naturally she must talk to someone; she is teeming with her discoveries, her excursions into the heretofore unexplored depths of human nature; the necessity for a confidant is not one to be withstood, and who so natural or understanding a confidant as her lover? If the lover be a clever man and an analyst, he is profoundly interested at first, particularly if she have some trick of mind which gives her, or seems to give her, the smack ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... for being chicken-hearted, for playing hunches too strongly—but I have an idea that Mrs. Lawrence did not kill Warren. Don't ask me how or why? I don't know—I admit that frankly. But I've always banked on my knowledge of human nature, Leverage—and my instinct has never yet betrayed me. Just now it is forcing me to give this woman every chance in the world to clear herself. I am hoping that circumstances will allow me to bring this case to a conclusion without making ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... The stoic principles of life, to which he had hitherto delighted to bend his will, morality, duty, now seemed to him to have no truth, nor reason. Their jealous despotism was smashed against Nature. Human nature, healthy, strong, free, that alone was virtue: to hell with all the rest! It provoked pitying laughter to see the little peddling rules of prudence and policy which the world adorns with the name of morality, while it pretends ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... possessed the magic gift of identifying themselves with their writings. We read his character in every page, and grow into familiar intimacy with him as we read. The artless benevolence that beams throughout his works; the whimsical, yet amiable views of human life and human nature; the unforced humor, blending so happily with good feeling and good sense, and singularly dashed at times with a pleasing melancholy; even the very nature of his mellow, and flowing, and softly-tinted style, all seem ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... very often reminded by the actions of his bees of some of the worst traits in poor human nature. When a man begins to sink under misfortunes, how many are ready not simply to abandon him, but to pounce upon him like greedy harpies, dragging, if they can, the very bed from under his wife and helpless children, and appropriating all which by any kind of maneuvering, they can possibly ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... brave; they were soldiers, and had often looked death in the face on the battle-field. They were ready, if need be, to die for their country; but to die on the scaffold—to die as murderers die—seemed almost too hard for human nature ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... musty-smelling bundles of tattered paper money where he clerked in the bank. There had been great unison in the Porter household over the placing of Alan. In addition to horse lore, John Porter was a fair judge of human nature, and, beyond doubt, there was a streak of velvet in Alan which would have twisted easily in the compressive ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... cast in his way a nameless orphan, at whom even the meanest could point the finger of scorn, he retorted on him with interest. This affords charming food for contemplation. It shows us what a beautiful thing human nature may be made to be; and how impartially the same amiable qualities are developed in the finest lord and the ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... was in him such a love of light, sunshine, and living human poetry, such an organic aversion for all that is ugly, or coarse and discordant, that he made himself almost exclusively the poet of the gentler side of human nature. On the fringe of his pictures or in their background, just for the sake of contrast, he will show us the vices, the cruelties, even the mire of life. But he cannot stay in these gloomy regions, and he hastens back ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... than for a boy. She must begin at the most rudimentary work, as cash or errand girl, and her progress will necessarily be slow. She will require an ability to handle with some skill elementary forms of arithmetic, an alert and observing mind, an interest in and some knowledge of human nature, and good health to endure the confinement of the long day. She will be fortunate if she finds a place in one of the stores in which a continuation school is conducted. At such a school in Altman's department store ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... am now come to treat only of those distempers to which they are more subject when in a breeding condition, and those that keep them from being so; together with such proper and safe remedies as may be sufficient to repel them. And since amongst all the diseases to which human nature is subject, there is none that more diametrically opposes the very end of our creation, and the design of nature in the formation of different sexes, and the power thereby given us for the work of generation, than that of sterility or barrenness which, where it prevails, ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... and though they had the feelings of human nature on being beaten, they had also the feelings of human nature when they heard that a father was robbed of his son—Signore," continued Antonio, with great earnestness and a singular simplicity, "there will be great discontent on the canals, ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Such men were valuable to the Cause, because they gave ungrudgingly, and never counted cost. The Russian was a man of affairs, cautious, cynical and given to analysis, and he was also a student of human nature. He was moreover interested ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... might make many errors in detail and might be led to assert, as probably true, things at which a contemporary would smile. But by analogy with other contemporary countries, by the use of his common sense and his knowledge of human nature, of local climate, of other physical conditions, and of the motives common to all men, he would arrive at a dozen or so general conclusions which would be just. What came after the gap would correct the deductions he had made from his knowledge of what came before it. What came before the ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... on human nature the shrewdness of which he promptly appreciated. Jacqueline came to represent to him that invaluable portion of a writer's public, the average female mind. Under her proud guidance, Channing knew that he was writing the best and by far the ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... thinks generous under the circumstances, but he isn't interested in Miss Harden, and he is interested in the Harden library. It's a chance that a dealer like him only gets once in a lifetime and I'm afraid it isn't in human nature to let ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... anxieties of money-making, pelting each other with snowballs on their own sacred territory, and defying the magistracy, when they would interfere with their privilege of becoming boys. So I suppose we must attribute it to something or other in human nature. Meanwhile, there stands the new-comer, surrounded by a circle of his new associates, who forthwith proceed to frighten, and to banter, and to make a fool of him, to the extent of their wit. Some address him with mock politeness, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... (for I hate your ifs) has a thorough knowledge of human nature, I need not say more to satisfy him, that my Hero could not go on at this rate without some slight experience of these incidental mementos. To speak the truth, he had wantonly involved himself in a multitude of small book-debts of this stamp, which, ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... finds something more substantial to rest upon. This is a truth of which every spectator of the distresses of the army can not help being convinced. Those at a distance may speculate differently; but on the spot an opinion to the contrary, judging human nature on the usual ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... invents for our author the appellation of "Un Romancier Pessimiste." Superficially speaking, perhaps, the title is a happy one; but only superficially. Pessimism consists in having morbid and bitter views and theories about human nature; not in indulging in shadowy fancies and conceits. There is nothing whatever to show that Hawthorne had any such doctrines or convictions; certainly, the note of depression, of despair, of the disposition to undervalue the human race, is never sounded in his Diaries. These volumes ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... social influence and political power as cordially as the fiercest Protestant living. But let us not forget that the Church of Rome has great merits to set against great faults. Its system is administered with an admirable knowledge of the higher needs of human nature. Take as one example what you have just seen. The solemn tranquillity of that church, the poor people praying near me, the few words of prayer by which I silently united myself to my fellow-creatures, have calmed me and done me good. In our country I should have found the church ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... in some measure exemplifies this law of human nature, and is lord of the brutes; and what he is and man is generally, compared with the inferior animals, such is man civilized compared with the barbarian. Civilization is that state to which man's nature points and tends; it ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... principle of mobility, established certain rules for the perpetual direction of that motion; so, when he created man, and endued him with freewill to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that freewill is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... Colonel David Barclay, then lying there in the garrison. This was the father of Robert Barclay, author of the celebrated Apology for the Quakers. It may be observed among the inconsistencies of human nature, that Kirkton, Wodrow, and other Presbyterian authors, who have detailed the sufferings of their own sect for nonconformity with the established church, censure the government of the time for not exerting the civil power against the peaceful enthusiasts we have treated of, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Human nature, when fresh from the hand of God, was full of poetry. Its sociality could not be pent within the bounds of the actual. To the lower inhabitants of air, earth, and water,—and even to those elements themselves, in all their parts ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... but because a surplus of energy was engaged in making discoveries. However, the greatest of all discoveries was that experience is a dear teacher, and random experiences sometimes cost many tears. Human nature in the "Berry Patch" is revealed in so many ways that it makes profitable and interesting reading for those who are troubled with ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... lap, while another runs all over your back and shoulders. Now and again two aim at the same time for the same nut, and then, look out. They are selfish little beggars and there is an immense amount of human nature in such tiny creatures. The bigger one wants the morsel and chases the smaller one away, and he is so mad about it and gets so in earnest that sometimes he chases the other fellow so far that he forgets what it was all about. He loses the nut himself, but, anyhow, he has ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... Balfour famous, you say. So was Donald made famous, his circle not quite so wide as that of his colleague—that is all. Donald is as much "uplifted" as the Prime Minister; probably more so. Thus is human nature ever the same down to the roots. Many distinctions, few differences in life. We are all kin, members of the one family, playing with ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... about the matter, he is," returned the doctor. "A man who has been three years biting his nails on a desert island, Jim, can't expect to appear as sane as you or me. It doesn't lie in human nature. Was it cheese you said he ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the by-standers. The preference has on this account been given to Homer, who, it is said, has left very vivid and infinitely diversified pictures of all the passions and affections, public and private, incident to human nature—the relations of son, of brother, parent, friend, citizen, and many others. Longinus preferred the Iliad to the Odyssey, on account of the greater number of battles it contains; but I can neither agree to his criticism, nor assent to the present objection. It is true, ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... countrywoman has not studied human nature so superficially as to fail to comprehend the snares and pitfalls which men's egregious vanity sometimes spring prematurely; and rumour quotes me aright, in proclaiming me a recluse when the curtain falls and the lights are extinguished. To-day I deviated from my usual custom ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... delightful thought—especially for the mother. For as Kingsley says of St. Francis, "perfectly sure that he himself was a spiritual being, he thought it at least possible that birds might be spiritual beings likewise, incarnate like himself in mortal flesh; and saw no degradation to the dignity of human nature in claiming kindred lovingly, with creatures so beautiful, so wonderful, who praised God in the forest, even as ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... with the stern resolve of an ancient Spartan. But they will be less likely to yield to temptation, and the price of their virtue will at least mount higher and higher, which is as much as we can expect of human nature. The grand benefit, however, they will derive from the inquisition, is the lesson of tolerance it will teach. They will refrain, for shame's sake, from casting stones and calling names. They will ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... most intimate friends of his own age at the time 'shuddered at the violence of his most irritable and ungovernable mind.' There is no reason to doubt the fidelity of this description. And those who know something of human nature will be disposed to assign the disappearance of the irritableness and ungovernableness precisely to this incident, and to the working of a strong mind, confronted by fate with the question whether it was to be the victim or the master ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... after fair trial of his capacities, and with all opportunity for their full development before him, is convinced that he has faculties which private life cannot wholly absorb, must not repine that Human Nature is not perfect, when he refuses even to exercise ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... brass and impudence, such an unflinching face, and withal was such a hideous looking mortal, that Satan himself would have run from him. And besides all this, it was quite plain, that he was by nature a marvelously clever, cunning man, though without education; and understood human nature to a kink, and well knew whom he had to deal with; and then, one glance of his squinting eye, was as good as a knock-down, for it was the most deep, subtle, infernal looking eye, that I ever saw lodged in a human head. I believe, that by good rights it must ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... fortune in respect of human nature, and so insufficient to give content to a covetous mind, that an empire of that mighty extent and sway could not satisfy the ambition of two men; and though they knew ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... force them to tell the truth, when admonitions and exhortations failed, recourse was had to torture. And even such a measure did not always succeed. Many of these wicked females (mulierculae) endured the cruellest suffering with a constancy passing the ordinary strength of human nature. The doctors would not believe such constancy to be natural; they attributed it to the machinations of the Evil One. The devil was capable of protecting his servants even when they had fallen into the hands of judges of the Church; he granted them strength to bear ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... it was with the greatest difficulty that he could sustain his own corporosity, he was tenderly trying to direct the zigzag footsteps of his companion, a little withered-up, weird-looking Chileno. Alas for the wickedness of human nature! The latter, whose drunkenness had taken a Byronic and misanthropical turn, rejected with the basest ingratitude these delicate attentions. Do not think that my incarnated brandy-cask was the only one of the party who did unto others as he would they should do unto him, for the entire band ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... the desert wastes of New South Wales, might be found as much feminine innocence, softness, and modesty (allowing for inevitable difference of education), as the most finished system could bestow, or the most polished circle produce. So little fitted are we to judge of human nature at once! And yet on such grounds have countries been described, and nations characterized. Hence have arisen those speculative and laborious compositions on the advantages and superiority of a state of nature. ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... contemplation of the relations of mind and body. Self-culture implies not only a knowledge of the powers of the mind, but also how to direct and use them for its own improvement, and he who has the key to self-knowledge, can unlock the mysteries of human nature and be eminently serviceable to the worlds For centuries the mind has been spreading out its treasury of revelations, to be turned to practical account, in ascertaining the constitution, and determining better methods of treating disease. Since comparative anatomists ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... of experience, and as too "romantic" in their expectations. The very opposite is, to my thinking, their criminal reproach. He that is romantic errs usually by too much elevation. He violates the standard of reasonable expectation, by drawing too violently upon the nobilities of human nature. But, on the contrary, the Peace Societies would, if their power kept pace with their guilty purposes, work degradation for man by drawing upon his most effeminate and luxurious cravings for ease. Most heartily, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... house-matches and could be accounted for at any moment. But he had heard McTurk openly deride cricket—even house-matches; Beetle's views on the honor of the house he knew were incendiary; and he could never tell when the soft and smiling Stalky was laughing at him. Consequently—since human nature is what it is—those boys had been doing wrong somewhere. He hoped it was nothing very ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... believe I was as fairly and squarely wretched as it is possible for an intelligent being to be. I had convinced myself, experimentally, that human existence, human nature, was a bottomless pit and an uncommonly filthy one at that. Reaction was inevitable. Then I understood why men have invented gods, subscribed to irrational systems of theology, hailed and accredited transparently ridiculous miracles. Such lies are necessary to certain stages of development simply ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... man does not exist, because it is not human nature to be so. That is one of the qualities which distinguishes man from the rest of ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... this method of conveying themselves on to the railway premises, and that during the absence of the employes they had let themselves out of the box which they at once filled with any articles they could lay their hands on, refastened the lid, and then decamped. But for the unfortunate inability of human nature to endure an inverted position for an indefinite period, the ingenious authors of the scheme might have flourished a long ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... who will treat the natives with courtesy and consideration may be sure of a hearty welcome and all the assistance he deserves. Withal, no man who has once enjoyed a few days in the Argan Forest can sincerely regret Europe's neglect of it: human nature is ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... support his church; they listen to his sermon—to set an example: discipline, colonel. You discipline the tradesman, who's afraid of losing your custom, and the labourer, who might be deprived of his bread. But the people? It's put down to the wickedness of human nature that the parson has not got hold of the people. The parsons have lost them by senseless Conservatism, because they look to the Tories for the support of their Church, and let the religion run down the gutters. And how many thousands have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... morning Tom left me alone with the promise of being back for luncheon. I picked up a London morning paper and glanced at the personal column. I have read it every day since when I could get hold of the London Times. All of human nature and the ups and downs of man are there, from secondhand lace to the mortgaged jewels of broken-down nobility, from sporting games and tickets for sale to relatives wanted, and those mysterious, suggestive, unsigned messages from home or ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... good deal of worry and annoyance in this world-forgotten little town close to the French frontier; but now, when the hour of parting came, it cut him, nevertheless, to the quick to have to leave it all behind. Such is the weakness and inconsistency of frail human nature. ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... they pass undiscovered: I have often said, and do think, that a Frenchman, who, with a fund of virtue, learning and good sense, has the manners and good-breeding of his country, is the perfection of human nature. This perfection you may, if you please, and I hope you will, arrive at. You know what virtue is: you may have it if you will; it is in every man's power; and miserable is the man who has it not. Good sense God has given you. Learning you already possess enough of, to have, in a reasonable ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Edward O'Connor, whose look of disgust at the wretched den caught the bailiff's attention, "don't entertain an antifassy from first imprissions, which is often desaivin'. I do pledge you my honour, sir, there is no place in the 'varsal world where human nature is visible in more attractive colours than in this ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... Music is certainly a very agreeable entertainment: but if it would take the entire possession of our ears; if it would make us incapable of hearing sense; if it would exclude arts that have a much greater tendency to the refinement of human nature; I must confess I would allow it no better quarter than Plato has done, who banishes it ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... had come back, after all, and falsified her prediction. Such is human nature, that for ...
— Bound to Rise • Horatio Alger
... acclamations and benedictions. The mere report of it overcame me with emotion; thus to see space annihilated, and the furthest corners of the earth drawn together, fills one with admiration for this amazing human nature, more potent than the whole material creation by which it is surrounded, even than the three thousand miles of that Atlantic abyss. These manifestations of the power of man's intellect seem to me to cry aloud ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... of his brother in England, and had just learnt to value the possession of power when the return of the minister put an end to his short-lived greatness, and he would have sunk at once into comparative insignificance, had not Jung, who knew enough of human nature to guess the sentiments of a man in such a position, judiciously gilded the pill by making him ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... Surface applications that would kill the grubs would also kill the plants. Where they are few and scattering, they can be dug out and killed. Sometimes boys are paid so much a pint. When seeing a wilting plant, it would scarcely be human nature not to dig out the pest and grind it under our heel. Prevention of the evil is usually our best hope. Mr. Downing writes to me: "I believe that if you would use refuse salt three or four years in succession, at the rate ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... put his hand into another pocket and began to draw forth golden sovereigns, and pour them into his mother's lap, the captain became supremely amazed, the old woman laughed, and,—so strangely contradictory and unaccountable is human nature,—Minnie ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... student of human nature would have seen that a mere return to the habit of pleasant intercourse could not suffice to forge afresh such a bond as had been broken, where two such persons were concerned. Something more was necessary. It was indispensable that some new force should come into ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... and the victim of yesterday's mob, raised to the state of an Intercessor in Heaven, is besought with prayer and tears, and placatory penances, to mediate with God for the pardon of human sin. This is a mean and vile trait of human nature, the proof of ignorance, selfishness, brutal cowardice, and a superstitious materialism. It shows the base instinct to put down and destroy whatever or whoever makes men feel their own imperfections; with the alternative of ignoring and denying these ...
— The Life of Buddha and Its Lessons • H.S. Olcott
... left in the streets and open spaces of Rome require protection. I refer to that most abundant population of statues, to that mighty herd of horses [in stone and metal] which adorn our City. It is true that if there were any reverence in human nature, it, and not the watchman, ought to be the sufficient guardian of the beauty of Rome[475]. But what shall we say of the marbles, precious both by material and workmanship, which many a hand longs, if it has opportunity, ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... the garden's profile, countenance and character are established in the best way possible; without, that is, any impulse toward embellishment insulated from utility. Compelled by the common frailties of all human nature (even in a democracy) to maintain fortifications, the householder has veiled the militant aspect of his defences in the flowered robes and garlandries of nature's diplomacy and hospitality. Thus reassured, his own inner hospitality can ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... something that you've never been able to understand—keeping us apart. But it is about at an end. Human nature endures a great deal, sometimes, but it's endurance does not last forever. To-night, my dear, puts an end to my endurance. I am going to show what I should have shown long ago—that ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... proceeded in swift succession from her fertile pen. "The President's Daughter," "Nina," "The Neighbours," "The Home," and "Strife and Peace;" all these books are marked by the same general characteristics: entire purity of tone, warmth of feeling, clearness of judgment, insight into human nature, genial humour, a sharp perception of social aspects, a strong, clear style, and unusually vivid descriptive powers. Her plots are simple, and her incidents natural. In fact she seeks them in the ordinary ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... request of the old colonel strikes me as pathetic. He was cursed by his atrocious temper; he had been cursed by a half-mad wife, who drank and went on the streets. His daughter was totally mad—and yet he believed in the goodness of human nature. He believed that Leonora would take the trouble to go all the way to Ceylon in order to soothe his daughter. Leonora wouldn't. Leonora didn't ever want to see Nancy again. I daresay that that, in the circumstances, was natural enough. At the same time she agreed, as ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... my perceptions in this matter that I should complain because impious wretches contrive their villainies against the virtuous, but at their achievement of their hopes I do exceedingly marvel. For evil purposes are, perchance, due to the imperfection of human nature; that it should be possible for scoundrels to carry out their worst schemes against the innocent, while God beholdeth, is verily monstrous. For this cause, not without reason, one of thy disciples asked, "If God exists, whence comes evil? Yet whence comes good, ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... What if it does? I would not deny it! Assuredly, a feast means more than enough, and more than enough means excess. It is only because a feast means excess that it assists in the bringing about of expansion and joy. Such is human nature, and it is the case of human nature that we are discussing. Of course, excess usually exacts its toll, within twenty-four hours, especially from the weak. But the benefit is worth its price. The body pays no more than the debt which ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... meet people and kept out of the way of strangers as much as possible; even of her former acquaintances who came to the For'ard Lookout she saw but few. If she had not been too busy she might have found it amusing, the contrasting studies in human nature afforded by these former acquaintances ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... intelligence as a gleam of light and hope, but he soon relapsed into doubt and gloom. "What chance was there," he hopelessly argued, "that, holding the legal power, she would not exercise it?" It was not, he said, in human nature to do otherwise; and he commissioned us to make liberal offers for a compromise. Half—he would be content to lose half his purchase-money; even a greater sacrifice than that he would agree to—anything, indeed, that would not be utter ruin—that did not involve utter ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... know you do not wish to tell me the real reason, and will drop it, but I shall not be deceived. I haven't studied my kind for this long without knowing at least the a-b-c of human nature. You use your cap and bells and an air of frivolity to conceal your true character from the world, as other men cloak themselves in an ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... aspect of pressing by instigation, of which it is at once a specimen and a phase. The incentive here was suspicion; but in the fertile field of instigation motives flourished in forms as varied as the weaknesses of human nature. ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... Human nature is so susceptible to externals, while good digestion is so dependent upon interior conditions, that all the accessories of pleasant surroundings—neatness, cheeriness, and good breeding—should be brought into requisition for the ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... instructive; it gave the boy a chance to see the people and to get a new view of human nature. If there is one place in the world where all phases of human nature are to be found, that place is the front door ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... obedience to parents on the part of these immigrant girls, working in hotels and restaurants, often miscarries pathetically. Their unspoiled human nature, not yet immune to the poisons of city life, when thrust into the midst of that unrelieved drudgery which lies at the foundation of all complex luxury, often results in the most fatal reactions. A young German woman, the proprietor of what is considered ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... He knew human nature pretty well, and woman nature; his common sense told him that this girl was not to be trusted, and yet he was drawn to her. Perhaps she was not lying, and these tears ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... "If I could only know just what the feelings of a murderer really were for five minutes, I could out-Shakespeare Shakespeare in that play. But I shall have to trust to the fall of man, and the general depravity of human nature, I suppose. After all, there's the potentiality of every kind of man in every man. If you've known what it is to hate, you've known what ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... been produced; but in reality the copy was very unlike the model. The Russian Dvoryanin easily learned the language and assumed the manners of the French gentilhomme, and succeeded in changing his physical and intellectual exterior; but all those deeper and more delicate parts of human nature which are formed by the accumulated experience of past generations could not be so easily and rapidly changed. The French gentilhomme of the eighteenth century was the direct descendant of the feudal baron, with the fundamental conceptions of his ancestors deeply embedded in his nature. He had ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... of men who have risen a few degrees above their contemporaries is a feature of human nature as common as it is base; and when to envy there are added fear and hatred, malicious anecdotes spring like mushrooms in a forcing-pit. But gossip is not evidence, nor does it become evidence because it is ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... said Mr. May, pouting up his mouth and smiling at her as if she were a whimsical child. "What a low opinion you have of human nature!" ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... the Israelites twenty years. And indeed this man deserves to be admired for his courage and strength, and magnanimity at his death, and that his wrath against his enemies went so far as to die himself with them. But as for his being ensnared by a woman, that is to be ascribed to human nature, which is too weak to resist the temptations to that sin; but we ought to bear him witness, that in all other respects he was one of extraordinary virtue. But his kindred took away his body, and buried it in Sarasat his own country, with the ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... social disturbance, and to which both men and women must adjust themselves, often without knowing the why or wherefore of that which is so different from what has been. It is one of the paradoxes in human nature that women, while being made responsible for human conditions, have been condemned to individual isolation. It has been largely the result of general physical differentiation and the dependence that grew out of it, and, secondarily, the long ages required to produce ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... as the effect of these measures, but it is too much to claim that they will repress all vice and crime, reclaim all criminals, and give to the race generally a keen devotion to duty. A belief in a State where even this will be realized is deeply implanted in human nature, and Socialism itself might easily get a major premise from it. The syllogism would run thus: (1) A better State is bound to come. (2) It cannot come under the system of private capital. (3) Therefore that system must be abolished. So would we all say if the minor premise were true—"The good ...
— Social Justice Without Socialism • John Bates Clark
... only parallel I can recall, as regards the kind and method of portraiture, though there is no resemblance between the characters. In the development of the character of Rafael Kaas, there is the same beautiful respect for human nature, the same unshrinking statement of "shocking" facts, and the same undeviating adherence to the logic of reality. The hair by which Rafael, as his prototype, the son of David, is arrested and suspended in the midst of his triumphant ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... that of Mirbeau; nevertheless, aside from these two figures, Beaumarchais, Marivaux, Becque, Brieux at his best, and Maurice Donnay occasionally, there has not been a single writer in the history of the French theatre so inevitably au courant with human nature. His form is frankly farcical and his plays are so funny, so enjoyable merely as good shows that it seems a pity to raise an obelisk in the playwright's honour, and yet the fact remains that he understands the political, social, ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... an age, the other miracles would spring up spontaneously, and be accepted the moment that they arose; there is nothing in this which is foreign to the known tendencies of the human mind, but there would be something utterly foreign to all we know of human nature, in the fact of men not anticipating that Christ would rise, if they had already seen him raise others from the dead and work the miracles ascribed to him, and if they had also heard him prophesy that ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... to human nature, or is it a thing contradictory (as I would fain believe)? But anyhow, there was, upon Exmoor, no more discontented man, no man more sure that he had not his worth, neither half so sore about it, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... that, since religion is a permanent need of human nature, and since the church is indispensable to the maintenance of religion, it becomes the duty of good men and women to ally themselves with the church and help to make it efficient. But there are churches and churches. We cannot help noting, as we look over the community, ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... as human nature is imperfect, and frailty so common, we must expect in every family some occasion to arise that will tax the patience and the love of the parent to the uttermost. No rule can be given that will meet every crisis; common sense, justice, forbearance, faith and love may be used in vain; and reproof, ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... individual thing, and consequently the power of man, whereby he exists and operates, can only be determined by an individual thing (I. xxviii.), whose nature (II. vi.) must be understood through the same nature as that, through which human nature is conceived. Therefore our power of activity, however it be conceived, can be determined and consequently helped or hindered by the power of any other individual thing, which has something in common with us, but not by the power of anything, ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... form, Religion controls Man's life, both as a whole and in all its essential details, through the central aim or spiritual ideal which it sets before him and the consequent standard of values with which it equips him. But legalism is debarred by its distrust of human nature from trying to control the details of life through any central aim or ideal; and its assumption that all the commandments of the Law are of divine origin, and therefore equally binding upon Man, is obviously ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... scenes depicting the anguish of separation, the bliss of reunion, and the fortunes of prosperity and of adversity are all, in every detail, true to human nature, and I have not taken upon myself to make the slightest addition, or alteration, which might lead to the perversion of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... nom de plume that is known and loved by almost every boy of intelligence in the land. We have seen a highly intellectual and world-weary man, a cynic whose heart was somewhat embittered by its large experience of human nature, take up one of OLIVER OPTIC'S books, and read it at a sitting, neglecting his work in yielding to the fascination of the pages. When a mature and exceedingly well-informed mind, long despoiled of all its freshness, can thus find pleasure in a book for boys, no additional ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... of rhythm, a strange choiceness and curiosity of phrase. But of really dramatic power he had nothing. He could neither conceive a coherent plot, nor develop a credible situation. He had no grasp on human nature, he had no conception of what character might be in men and women, he had no faculty of expressing emotion convincingly. Constantly you find the most beautiful poetry where it is absolutely inappropriate, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... for superiority labors under the psychological handicap of removing the basis of much of the interest in work and study and must find some substitute for the lacking incentives before it can seriously ask for the adherence of those with a realistic view of human nature. One might, it is true, establish traditions of work, bring about a livelier social conscience as to service, but these are not sufficient to arouse real interest in the vast majority of the race. Here and there one finds a man in whom interest is aroused by the unsolved problem, ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... moderately surprising; but it is most surprising to note the depth and earnestness of his faith that this condition could really be reached, and that it could be reached by the road which he had marked out. This confidence indicated an opinion of human nature much higher than human nature has yet appeared entitled to. It also anticipated on the part of the Southerners an appreciation of the facts of the case which few among them were sufficiently clear-minded ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... destroyed by systematizing how much more so is poetry, which can exist only so long as it is free. The instinct to make an end of everything, and wilfully and arbitrarily to pen up what is not confined to time and space, is the ugliest trait in human nature. Life, in whatever phase it may be, always has a form, though sometimes one not to be seized with hands; it is always in fermentation, never in putrefaction; but its form is lost when we try to bring it into harmony with the tyrannical generalities which are bequeathed ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... she was swept by pride in revolt. She hadn't known that any such emotion could get hold of her. As a matter of fact she hadn't known that so strong a support to the inner man lay within the depths of human nature. Accustomed to being cowed, she had hardly understood that there was any other way to feel. Only within a day or two had something which you or I would have called spirit, but for which she had no name, disturbed her with unexpected flashes, like ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... As she received them she observed, "It's as muckle as I could ha' hoped for; but yet those who had benefited by his ministrations might have shown their gratitude by geeing a trifle above the value for the chattels." Human nature is much the same in an Highland glen as it is in ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston
... beset the country, that have no connection with this question of Slavery. However repugnant it may be to the pride of human nature, or the favorite doctrines of the day, there can be little question that the greatest sources of apprehension of future evil to the people of this country, are to be looked for in the abuses which have their origin in the infirmities ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper
... side of it, but the professional reformers know less about human nature, and care less, than about any other phase of life. Still, the fact remains that with any habit, and especially with the liquor habit—probably because that is the most prevalent habit there is—nine-tenths ...
— Cutting It out - How to get on the waterwagon and stay there • Samuel G. Blythe
... possess their souls in peace, life on ship-board in pleasant weather is restful, and may be thoroughly enjoyed. A little world is here compactly put together, and human nature may be studied at close range. From the elegant apartments of the saloon to the ill-smelling quarters of the steerage, there is variety enough. Representatives are here from nearly "every nation under heaven:" every creed, every ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... famous inventors. They are to wit: the guy that discovered the only absolute cure for rheumatism, the one that invented the dope book on the female race and the bird that holds a patent on the complete understandin' of human nature. I guess the reason I never seen their names is because the thing ain't really been decided yet—there seems to be some difference of opinion. But if you wanna find out how many guys there are that swear they invented all them things, look up the population ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... serpent-ridden centaur, whom Virgil designates as Cacus. Further on, the travellers behold three culprits who are alternately men and writhing snakes, always, however, revealing more of the reptile than of the human nature and form. ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... Miss Austen's own indignant outburst. 'Only a novel! only "Cecilia," or "Camilla," or "Belinda;" or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.' If the great historian, who loved novels himself, had ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... consider the futility of trying to hold subject cities by keeping them divided. In the first place, it is impossible for the ruling power, whether prince or republic, to be friends with both factions. For wherever there is division, it is human nature to take a side, and to favour one party more than another. But if one party in a subject city be unfriendly to you, the consequence will be that you will lose that city so soon as you are involved in war, since it is impossible for you to hold a city where you have enemies ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... impossible to lay too much stress on the necessity for the speaker's having a broad and deep tenderness for human nature. One of Victor Hugo's biographers attributes his power as an orator and writer to his wide sympathies and profound religious feelings. Recently we heard the editor of Collier's Weekly speak on short-story writing, and he so often emphasized the necessity for this broad ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... dretfully hate to have anything come up between you and Gideon, Cap'n," she faltered, a frightened look in her brown eyes. "It wouldn't settle anything to have trouble. But you've been about so much and seen human nature so much that it seems as though you could handle him ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... moreover that persons of all ranks, and every kind of mental calibre, have declared that they find something in the Bible which they do not find in any other book; something, in fact, which, when duly received, comes home to their hearts as men, and seems admirably adapted to the deepest wants of human nature. We see too that those who appear to have accepted the Bible most fully, and to hold it most firmly, have been so much impressed with a sense of its importance to the world at large, as to have endeavoured, ...
— Thoughts on a Revelation • Samuel John Jerram |
