"Human nature" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... compatible with the freedom of others—are apt to make one mistake. Conscious of their own honest intentions, they cannot bear to be misjudged or slighted. They expect society to submit to their often very painful operations as a patient submits to the knife of the surgeon. This is not in human nature. The enemy of abuses is always abused by his enemies. Society will never yield one inch without resistance, and few reformers live long enough to receive the thanks of those whom they have reformed. Mill's unsolicited election to Parliament was a triumph not often shared ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... over some of the things that are coming more and more to be refused acceptance. You will understand that the items are illustrations only. We are denying: The divine right of kings; the littleness and unholiness of fundamental human nature; a God who is a kind of huge carpenter; a Deity who needs to be appeased; a Providence which punishes; the idea that some people are created for toil and service and others for ease and to be served; the notion that we ...
— Mastery of Self • Frank Channing Haddock
... couple of tubs near the curbstone, with a brass plate and number suspended round his neck by a massive chain, and his ankles curiously enveloped in haybands, he is supposed to have made those observations on human nature which exercised so material an influence over all ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Doctor Parcival did not know and when George Willard came to his office he found the man shaking with terror. "What I have done will arouse the people of this town," he declared excitedly. "Do I not know human nature? Do I not know what will happen? Word of my refusal will be whispered about. Presently men will get together in groups and talk of it. They will come here. We will quarrel and there will be talk of hanging. Then they will come again bearing a ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... secure the highest grade men. So far as these men are public employees, such as members of the federal or state geological surveys, this might be arranged. For others, it might be suggested that they should be willing to sacrifice their energy and time in the interests of justice; but as long as human nature and conditions are what they are, it is perhaps futile ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... former owner came to look for him, he would get more than he bargained for. At length he stopped, and a shade of melancholy came over his countenance. Hamed, who, in spite of his ugliness, possessed some of the better feelings of human nature, asked him ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... that given a good country and a good fox, and a burning scent, the man on a good horse with a good start, for twenty or thirty minutes absorbs as much happiness into his mental and physical organisation as human nature is capable of containing at one time. This is very true. But how seldom the five necessary conditions are forthcoming simultaneously the keen hunting man has learnt from bitter experience. You will be lucky if the real good thing comes off once for every ten days you hunt. In cricket ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... number. The officers of the bank are elected or appointed by the directors and are subject to them. Thus far the protection the Act provides is based upon what, so far as financial matters are concerned, is one of the great controlling influences of human nature, viz: self-interest. The stockholders, in order to protect themselves, are expected to elect Directors who will look out for the interests ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... He has a great deal of learning, an agreeable wit, and as much modesty as serves to adorn without concealing his other good qualities. In that retired way of living, he seems to have formed a notion of human nature, as he has found it described in the writings of the greatest men, not as he is like to meet with it in the common course of life. Hence it is, that he gives no offence, that he converses with great deference, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... perfect himself by overcoming the evil in him. As the good persons should be the elite and rule the others, theoretically everybody who was a member of human society, could move up and become a leader. It was commonly assumed that human nature is good or indifferent, and that human feelings are evil and have to be tamed and educated. When in Han time with the establishment of the gentry society and its social classes, the idea that any person could move up to become a leader if he only ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... to south. The population of India could readily expand without material change of climate. In Cochin China navigation down the valleys of the great rivers involves changes of temperature and habit such as human nature is not generally ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... head, not so much with a negative air as with a shrinking one. Just in that first agony, to be content with it seemed beyond human nature. ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... even as you and I. A man who could retain through his golfing career the almost scornful confidence of the non-player would be unbeatable. Fortunately such an attitude of mind is beyond the scope of human nature. ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... interesting—but old-fashioned. But Shakespeare can never be old-fashioned, because, although he is the outcome of his own times, and gives us all the flavor of his own times, he gives us much more. He understood human nature, he saw beneath the outward dress, and painted for us real men and women. And although fashion in dress and modes of living may change, human nature does not change. "He was not of an age but for all time," it was said of him about seven years after his death, and now that nearly three hundred ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... two principles of human nature, one the spirited and the other the philosophical, some God, as I should say, has given mankind two arts answering to them (and only indirectly to the soul and body), in order that these two principles (like the strings of an instrument) ...
— The Republic • Plato
... his scholastic theory of human nature as he looked upon her face. He thought he saw in her the dawning of that grace which some are born with; which some, like Myrtle, only reach through many trials and dangers; which some seem to show for a while and then lose; which ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... in their faces as though they had spoken; and yet they did not in the least comprehend their own actions. This is only an illustration; it was so in a hundred little nothings during the day. Not a window was raised or closed for their benefit, not a turn of a blind made, that a close student of human nature could not have seen the distinct and ruling differences in their temperaments, no matter from what point of the compass they started. In the course of time they reached ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... mind of man can conceive. For what is there more wicked than to wish to bring about the separation and subsequent misery of two young people who, as they guessed well enough, loved each other body and soul, and thereby to spoil their lives? Yet, so strange is human nature, that neither of them thought that they were committing any sin. Mr. Knight, now and afterwards, justified himself with the reflection that he was parting his son from a "pernicious" young woman of strong character, who ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... impossible he should then have been happy; and after so many years, after the possession of so many other beauties, should return to her again, and find all the passions and pains of a beginning flame. But there is nothing to be wondered at in the contradictions and humours of human nature. But however inconstant and wavering he had been, Hermione retained her first passion for him; and that I less wonder at, since you know the Prince has the most charming person in the world, and is the most perfectly beautiful of all his sex: to this his youth ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... August, 1859, for the discovery of Lake Nyassa. Our party numbered forty-two in all—four whites, thirty-six Makololo, and two guides. We did not actually need so many, either for carriage or defence; but took them because we believed that, human nature being everywhere the same, blacks are as ready as whites to take advantage of the weak, and are as civil and respectful to the powerful. We armed our men with muskets, which gave us influence, although it did not add much to ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... resented if to resent is to cut down one's income. The time was, as the dignified and nicely honorable Sanders observed, when these and many similar low standards did not prevail in the legal profession. But such is the frailty of human nature—or so savage the pressure of the need of the material necessities of civilized life, let a profession become profitable or develop possibilities of profit—even the profession of statesman, even that of lawyer—or ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... enter into no compact against human nature with five miserable cut-throats. ALONE will I make the Republic tremble, and before eight days are flown, these murderous knaves shall swing upon a gibbet. Venice shall no longer harbour FIVE banditti; ONE and ONE only shall ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... object in his Gospel and his Epistles,—to prove the divinity, and also the actual human nature and bodily suffering, of Jesus Christ,—that he was God and Man. The notion that the effusion of blood and water from the Saviour's side was intended to prove the real death of the sufferer originated, I believe, with some modern Germans, and seems to me ridiculous: there is, indeed, a very ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... his army—into a panic. Some of the greatest tactitians in history have given way in those circumstances; so, Martin Hastings' utter loss of self-control and of control of the situation only proves that he had his share of human nature. He had provided against the unexpected; he had ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... we are all blind by nature to our own faults. Our blindness to our own shortcomings is oftentimes little short of ludicrous. We have a strange power of exaggerating our imaginary virtues and losing sight utterly of our defects. The longer and more thoroughly one studies human nature, the more clearly will he see how hopeless is the task of convincing other men of sin. We cannot do it, nor has God left it for us to do. He has put this work into the hands of One who is abundantly able to do it, the Holy Spirit. One of the worst mistakes ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... in his presence, 'he had no notion of people being in earnest in their good professions, whose practice was not suitable to them,' was thus reprimanded by him:—'Sir, are you so grossly ignorant of human nature as not to know that a man may be very sincere in good principles, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping up against the piano, smothering himself amongst the curtains, wherever she went, there went he! He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... It is inevitable for human nature that a should wish and seek for happiness, that is, satisfaction with his condition, with certainty of the continuance of this satisfaction. But for this very reason it is not an end that is also a duty. Some writers still make a distinction between moral and physical happiness (the former consisting ...
— The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics • Immanuel Kant
... clothe his consecration with decency, though not to clog it with superstition." Church History, b. ix., p. 60. But the virtues of the primate, however mild and unostentatious, were looked upon with an envious eye by the maligant observer of human nature; and the spontaneous homage which he received from some of the first noblemen in the realm was thus lampooned in the satirical composition just ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... "That is human nature, my boy," he said, smiling. "No doubt there are men who never know what fear is, but they must be very rare. ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... meanwhile what was causing the deep lines on the brow of this high-bred, courteous man, and the anxious look in the deep-set eyes. As priest he had looked into many others, framed in the side window of the confessional—the most wonderful of all schools for studying human nature—but few like those of the man before him; eyes so clear and sincere, yet shadowed by what the priest vaguely felt ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... entire social epoch—the eighteenth century; and the eighteenth century in Venice, who was then at the final stage of her moral death. And despite the denial of soul in these Venetians, there is no contempt, no facile "simplification" of a question whose roots lie deep in human nature, since even the animals and plants we cultivate into classes! The sadness is for the mutability of things; and among them, that lighthearted, brilliant way of life, which had so much of charm ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... that fortune had 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 ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... rank heresy is to be laid at the door of those who degrade and enslave that which they assert to be most beautiful in human nature. But I am not speaking to convince; merely to shew where you cannot count upon me for a point of ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... followed, when human nature looked to her uglier than it had ever done before, those letters were Mrs. Wheeler's comfort. As she read the newspapers, she used to think about the passage of the Red Sea, in the Bible; it seemed as if the flood of meanness and greed had been held back ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... been the object of his sister's affection. As long as he existed, she never ceased to labour in the promotion of his happiness. All her kindness was repaid by a stern and inexorable hatred. This man was an exception to all the rules which govern us in our judgments of human nature. He exceeded in depravity all that has been imputed to the arch-foe of mankind. His wickedness was without any of those remorseful intermissions from which it has been supposed that the deepest guilt is not entirely exempt. He seemed to relish ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... Indian, one of the original natives of this country. I was so enraged at the language addressed to him, that I discovered myself, and apostrophising the tomb in my turn; I cried, "O tomb! why dost not thou swallow up that monster so revolting to human nature, or rather why dost not thou swallow up both the lover ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... himself would never again tread the play platform, or throw his sonorous, magic voice over a London audience, the great children and characters of his matchless brain would hold the dramatic boards and thrill the heart and soul of mankind as long as human nature laughed and suffered on ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... pages of history that more or less correspond with this; and there are well-known characteristics of human nature that explain how such revulsions of feeling come about. It has never been found difficult to get up a case against those whom the great and powerful have made up their minds to destroy. The best men are fallible and have their weak side. Large bodies of men must contain some unworthy members. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... diminution, would, I thought, be sufficient to meet any emergency which might arise from occasional lapses of firmness in adhering to my self-imposed task, and more especially for the difficulties of the final struggle—difficulties I believe to be almost invariably incident to any strife which human nature is called upon to make in overcoming not merely an obstinate habit but the fascination of a long-entranced imagination. Up to this time I had taken the opium as I had always been accustomed to do, in a single dose on ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... ideas, and the gradual extension and improvement of them, he may eventually generate new ones, yet some traces cannot but remain of what was originally lodged in the mind, and will come into play as occasion may call them forth. Shakspeare was a perfect master of human nature, but he was a master of our language as well; he was indeed one of those who have improved it, but he could never have himself arrived at the degree of perfection in which he found it, had he not derived assistance from others, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... Pierre,' I said, 'it is worse than short—it is brutal. I hope no man who respects himself will ever countenance it. It is against the dignity of human nature, if nothing more.' ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... long to explain the intimate alliance of contradictions in human nature which makes love itself wear at times the desperate shape of betrayal. And perhaps there is no possible explanation. Indulgence—as somebody said—is the most intelligent of all the virtues. I venture to think that it is one of the least common, if not the ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... friends. But all of these persons, as well as the two lovers, are recreated, and this so skillfully that while they are made notably familiar to us as individuals, they are no less significant as permanent types of human nature. The hexameter measure which he employed, and which is retained in the present translation, he handled with such charm that it has since seemed the natural verse for the domestic idyl—witness the obvious imitation of this, as of other features ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... 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 in their ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... merely of flesh and blood, while their theories are alike influenced by circumstances. Those of the first, we (the South) are, at times, too apt to regard as sublimated and refined, while we hold the practices of the latter such as divest human nature of everything congenial. Nevertheless we can assure our readers that there does not exist a class of men who so much pride themselves on their chivalry as some of our opulent slave-dealers. Did we want proof ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... to see the portraits of those artists who have exalted one's ideas of human nature, and shewn what man can perform. Among these worthies a British eye soon distinguishes Sir Joshua Reynolds; a citizen of the world fastens his to ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Christianity or of Protestantism. It meant anything but equality, fraternity, or liberty, especially liberty, when it was translated into action by the fanatical apostles of "Reason," who were blind to the facts of human nature and defied the facts of econnomics. Terror, the usual instrument in propagating religions, was never more mercilessly applied. Any one who questioned the doctrines was a heretic and deserved a heretic's fate. And, as in most religious movements, the milder and less unreasonable ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury
... I often play Tschaikowsky. I know that you wonder why I am in such a place. I will tell you. I like human nature, and where can you get such an opportunity to come into contact with it in the ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... with a versatility highly creditable to human nature, did nothing of the kind. Rapidly adopting the very line of tactics they had just been so severely censuring, they simply denied the whole thing. What! the truth of the Bloomsbury dispatch? Yes, ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... would Richardson, the vainest and luckiest of living authors (i.e. while alive)—he who, with Aaron Hill, used to prophesy and chuckle over the presumed fall of Fielding (the prose Homer of human nature) and of Pope (the most beautiful of poets)—what would he have said, could he have traced his pages from their place on the French prince's toilets (see Boswell's Johnson) to the grocer's ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... us familiar with the thoughts of men who differ from us in manners and language, in thought and religion, and yet with whom we are able to sympathize, and from whom we are able to learn. It widens our minds and our hearts, and gives us that true knowledge of the world and of human nature in all its phases which but few can gain in the short span of their own life, and in the narrow sphere of their friends and enemies. We can hardly imagine a better book for boys to read or for men to ponder over; and we hope that M. de ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... temptation,—one, it must be confessed, of no common force and aided by pleas of public utility not a little plausible,—to become victorious over her first thoughts, her better feelings, her more virtuous resolves. For the honor of human nature, it may be believed that the latter state of feeling must have been that experienced by a princess whose life had been as yet unsullied by any considerable violations of faith, justice, or humanity: but it must not escape remark, that the first steps ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... was at the head of the Department of State of the United States. If anybody had suggested to him that there were nations which no treaty could bind, he would have answered, in the style of the prayer-meeting exhorter, "Ah! I have a higher faith in human nature." So he worked busily, building himself his niche in the temple of fame, and meanwhile the greatest war in history ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... transporting men and materials across three thousand miles of ocean seemed insuperable; the differing traditions of her population would make it impossible for her to concentrate her will in so unusual a direction. Basing their arguments on a knowledge of the deep-seated selfishness of human nature, Hun statesmen were of the fixed opinion that no amount of insult would compel America ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... extremely ridiculous, or some ludicrous failing, that is turned into contempt and held up to risibility. It is quite amazing to what an extent the genius of the improvvisatores go at times; they display consummate art and knowledge of human nature, quick repartie, subtle arguments, absurd conjunctions, startling metaphors, and are never at a loss to meet the assertions of their adversary on the other side; for it is always in the form of law-pleadings, for and against, that the comedy ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... higher sanction demanded for them, by the author, than he is willing to allow to facts attested under the solemnity of an oath. One could hardly have anticipated this atheistical appeal to the credulity of the public, even tho' human nature were as vile and monstrous in others, as it appears to be in that author. But perhaps there was a necessity for it, in order to preserve the dark uniformity of his production. If, as has been asserted more than one of his prominent certifiers (among ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... manners,' corrected Casimir. 'Heart, he never had. Why, Desprez, for a clever fellow, you are the most gullible mortal in creation. Your ignorance of human nature and human business is beyond belief. You are swindled by heathen Turks, swindled by vagabond children, swindled right and left, upstairs and downstairs. I think it must be your imagination. I thank ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... foolish. And yet this same young lady, according to their own previous showing, was not only one of the most beautiful in person and manners who had ever graced their circle, but was also of fine education; and in complexion as white as the whitest in the village. Truly, this, our human nature, is extremely ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... The contrariety of human nature is a subject that has given a surprising amount of occupation to makers of proverbs and to those moral philosophers who make it their province to discover and expound the glaringly obvious; and especially have they been concerned to enlarge upon that form of perverseness which ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... that the dogmas of revealed religion, though based rather on the ground of faith than on that of philosophy and strict criticism, are yet, for an upright man, susceptible of a degree of evidence equal to that of any other demonstrable truth, inasmuch as they have their foundation in human nature itself, and can be rejected but by him who rebels against the noblest impulses of the heart, to give himself up to the sway of passions ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... stage of social development. Fights would occur with more or less frequency through sexual competition. The known habits of primitive groups, as well as the habits of the anthropoid apes, argue to that effect, and the evidence from the well-known promptings of human nature enforces the same view. ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... he had already shown his ability to command. Stalwart and clumsy in frame, he had an iron constitution, and was a bold and good rider and a perfect master of the broadsword then in use. He had also a deep knowledge of human nature, and selected his troopers almost entirely from the sons of respectable farmers and yeomen, filled with physical daring and religious convictions, while his own religious enthusiasm, and his superiority in all military virtues, gave him ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... here, and therefore untrue, to overlook the fact that the conquest of her sister's beau, had been in itself a triumphant achievement, apart from any particular claims he might have to attraction. But is not human nature such that in any case it is always partially subdued by devotion? Does not even the love of an animal make an irresistible appeal to the most callous? Is not the common preference for dogs before cats in England, ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... queer freak of our human nature, that those who use the Bible in a dead, foreign language, unsuited for use in our public schools, should call our English version of the scriptures a sectarian book, and then oppose its use ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... than I of the greatness and goodness of his heart. In no place should I take it upon myself at this time to discourse of his books, of his refined knowledge of character, of his subtle acquaintance with the weakness of human nature, of his delightful playfulness as an essayist, of his quaint and touching ballads, of his mastery over the English language. But before me lies all that he had written of his latest story, and the pain I have felt in perusing it has not been deeper than the conviction that he was ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... old cattleman. And it was when Stillwell gave up that she resolved to take a hand. The persistent faith of Stillwell, his pathetic excuses in the face of what must have been Stewart's violence, perhaps baseness, actuated her powerfully, gave her new insight into human nature. She honored a faith that remained unshaken. And the strange thought came to her that Stewart must somehow be worthy of such a faith, or he never could have inspired it. Madeline discovered that she ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... when at last the order came to march, and they had to hike it straight up a hill with a great pack on their backs. It was not that they minded the packs or the hike or the hunger. It was the injustice of their treatment that weighed upon them like a burden that human nature could not bear. They had come to lift such a burden from the backs of another nation, and they had been treated like dogs all the way over! Like the low rumbling of oncoming thunder was the blackness of their countenances as they marched up, up, and up into Brest. The sun grew hot, and ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... a country residence either near Paris or in Burgundy; I am thinking of passing the winter there and of shutting myself up; I feel weary with human nature; I need solitude; I want to be alone; grandeur oppresses me, my feelings are distorted. Fame appears insipid at my twenty-nine years; I have tried every thing; nothing remains but to become an egotist." [Footnote: "Memoires du Roi ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... Greene, exultingly. "I thought that would do it! It isn't human nature to be under fire without sending back a shot or two—not even ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... been a part of his mother's lesson to correct that impression. If woman, in her folly, has allowed herself to make the same mistake, that, too, is working out its cure through the love that so arranged human nature that "a man should leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they twain should be one flesh," and that "her desire should be to her husband" in those matters wherein the mutual interest required that he should ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... gentlemen, can you for a moment believe that there was no art, no perseverance, no continued attention, no working on the passions before the criminal moment; but that the victim fell at once into the commission of the adulterous intercourse alleged? Human nature forbids such an idea. The female mind, always timid, would think of her ties—her husband—her children—her grand-children; and prevent her, before, at least, all her fears. I challenge the defendant to name, even in one slight instance, any ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... nurse, her voice soft, yet full of emotion, while she gazed into the face of the child that lay in her lap. Her soul was already swayed by that mysterious bond of affection which never fails to develop itself in the heart of the foster-mother. It is a noble trait in human nature, that we love those on whom we can confer a kindness. Their whole life gradually ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... particular and urgent are his instructions—The disciples, when sent forth, were admonished that they would be "as sheep in the midst of wolves;"—that they would be exposed to many and severe trials. And surely, under such circumstances, human nature would plead, that, when persecuted in the city, they might turn to the less prejudiced inhabitants of the country. But no: the command is, "When they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another; for, verily, I say unto ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2. No. 6., Nov. 1827 - Or Original Monthly Sermons from Living Ministers • William Patton
... to try to break him of this kindly habit! He was keen too, and held in particular disfavor any one who picked out the best portions of turkey or meat. "No like that," he would say; and I heartily agreed with him. Life in the open brought out the little miserable traits of human nature, of which no one was ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... it had really happened, and La Valliere afterwards told the king, who laughed exceedingly at it and pronounced Malicorne to be a first rate politician. Louis XIV. was right, and it is well known that he was tolerably well acquainted with human nature. ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... hobby, he was yet the only man who honourably and courageously championed in the last struggle the great system doomed to destruction. Just because the shrewdest lie feels itself inwardly annihilated before the simple truth, and because all the dignity and glory of human nature ultimately depend not on shrewdness but on honesty, Cato has played a greater part in history than many men far superior to him in intellect. It only heightens the deep and tragic significance of his death that he was himself a ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... All these sufferings come from our very nature. We say a thing comes from our very nature when everybody has it. Now, everyone in the world may at times be hungry, thirsty, or tired; but everybody in the world need not have a toothache or headache, because such things are not common to human nature, but due to some defect in our body; and such defects Our Lord did not have, because He was a perfect man. Therefore, Our Lord had a body like ours, not as it usually is with defects, but as it should be, perfect in all things that belong to its nature, as Adam's was before ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... And if it must be, force with force repel: I will not praise it, yet I can forgive it. But not—not to the traitor—yes!—the word Is spoken out—— Not to the traitor can I yield a pardon. 125 That is no mere excess! that is no error Of human nature—that is wholly different, O that is black, black as the pit of hell! Thou canst not hear it nam'd, and wilt thou do it? O turn back to thy duty. That thou canst, 130 I hold it certain. Send me to Vienna. I'll make thy peace for thee with the Emperor. He knows thee not. But I do know thee. He ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Is it in human nature, that the man of whom such anecdotes are told, and truly told, could be guilty of a mean unworthy action? Perhaps the reader will be curious to see how the writer of the "British Painters," who, from the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... Lord of the Treasury, and Livingstone was exploring the continent. At twenty-four Sir Humphrey Davy was Professor of Chemistry in the Royal Institution, Dante, Ruskin, and Browning had become famous writers. At twenty-five Hume had written his treatise on Human Nature, Galileo was lecturer of science at the University of Pisa, and Mark Antony was the "hero of Rome." At twenty-six Sir Isaac Newton had made his greatest discoveries; at twenty-seven Don John of Austria had won Lepanto, and Napoleon was commander-in-chief of the army of Italy. At twenty-eight ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... "The meanness of human nature," he said, "is seen in the action of Parliament immediately after Charles II. came to the throne in repealing every law enacted during the period of the Commonwealth. Having wiped out every statute, what do ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... ill-mannered, full of conceit, hatred for heretics, and desire to proselyte. Gradually this rough exterior wears away; and their estimable position, and the abundant emoluments which they enjoy, make them kindly disposed. The sound insight into human nature and the self-reliance which are peculiar to the lower classes of the Spanish people, and which are so amusingly revealed by Sancho Panza as governor, have full opportunity to assert themselves in the influential and responsible post which the cura occupies. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... and muscular tissue of a Man's Life: Living Formulas and dead. Habit the deepest law of human nature. A pathway through the pathless. Nationalities. Pulpy infancy, kneaded, baked into any form you choose: The Man of Business; the hard-handed Labourer; the genus Dandy. No Mortal out of the depths of Bedlam but lives by Formulas. ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... You are a happy woman and we are all crowing to think the people love, honor and call for you so loud and long. It suits one's sense of poetic justice; it confirms one's faith in human nature and the Heavenly Power not ourselves "that makes for righteousness." Lady Henry, Anna Gordon and I have "hoorayed" over your laurels and said, "Bless her; she is not only our Susan but everybody's." Lady Henry says you have the true sign of greatness that you are absolutely without pretension. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... artist works with is often, apparently, a more constant, more fundamental, more significant thing, than is the broken, mixed, inconsequential impression out of which it has been wrought. Which seems to explain why some of the writers who understand human nature so well in their books, do not always understand people similarly well in life. And always it is to be remembered that Lincoln was made an artist by nature, and made over into a man of action by circumstance. If Herndon's theory has any value it is in asserting ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... give. And he yearned with all his heart to have that love directed towards himself. It was a purely spiritual union that his heart was set on. The thought of bodily union did not enter his head. But the need for bodily touch as a means of expressing human feeling is inherent in human nature, and becomes more and more urgent as the feeling becomes warmer. Friends have to shake hands with each other and pat each other on the back in order to show the warmth of their feeling for one another. Women affectionately ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... three quarto pages with one sentence. We venture only its commencement: "Christ is God-man; God and man, born of his heavenly Father and his virgin mother; and Christ is according to his humanity the natural son of God, constant in his unity to one person, his divine and human nature impeccable." The favorite class-book of those times was Koenig's Theologia positiva acroamatica synoptice tractata; and it does but partial justice to this work to say that in dryness and meagreness ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... ticketted, under this one head, and made a more constant and explicit reference to it at every step of his progress, than any other writer. Perhaps the weak side of his conclusions also is, that he has carried this single view of his subject too far, and not made sufficient allowance for the varieties of human nature, and the caprices and irregularities of the human will. "He has not allowed for the wind." It is not that you can be said to see his favourite doctrine of Utility glittering everywhere through his system, like a vein of rich, shining ore (that ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... may be grafted upon the innate and instinctive needs, but at the beginning and during his first years the child's whole life is determined by the primitive desires of human nature. ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... general interest. For convenience' sake I have divided the original chapters into sections, which I have had to name; and I have also had to invent a title which should express their real scope. The reader will find that it is not so much Ethics and Politics that are here treated, as human nature itself in ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... wondering why he did so. He drew into his shell a little, giving the merest sketch of what had happened. But he listened closely while these two practical old friends supplied him with information in the gossiping way that human nature loves. No doubt there was much embroidery, and more perversion, exaggeration too, but the account evidently rested upon some basis of solid foundation for all that. Smoke and ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... people, and yet has to live their life. Cases of this kind are especially pathetic, when, having imbibed European ideals of womanhood, he is obliged to marry some girl chosen by his parents, with whom, however estimable she may be, he has nothing in common. Such is the contrariety of human nature that he usually visits his unhappiness, not on the social system which has resumed its hold upon him, but on the civilization which has killed his belief in it. Then there is the very mischievous type of young Indian who, having been ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... representative government has obviously lost both its power and its prestige. The labour party still hugs its comprehensive assortment of economic heresies. Organised religion remains as impotent as it was before the war. But one fact has emerged with startling clearness. Human nature has not been changed by civilisation. It has neither been levelled up nor levelled down to an average mediocrity. Beneath the dingy uniformity of international fashions in dress, man remains what he has always been—a splendid fighting ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... horrors unutterable. Being of such mind and temper, it was strange that he had not long ago joined the multitude of those who day by day fled from worldly life into ascetic seclusion; what withheld him was a spark of the ancestral spirit, some drops of the old Roman blood, prompting his human nature to assert and justify itself. Hence the sympathy between him and Basil, both being capable of patriotism, and feeling a desire in the depths of their hearts to live as they would have lived had they been born in an earlier time. But whereas ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... it no more in its inverted form than in the ordinary. I believe that affection between persons of the same sex, even when it includes the sexual passion and its indulgences, may lead to results as splendid as human nature can ever attain to. In short, I place it on an absolute equality with love as ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... suppressing disorder and in establishing a respect for law and government is not to be overlooked. She presented in her own organization an example of authority, of system, and of obedience, which, despite many failings and abuses, was of great value to the world. But there is in human nature an irrepressible tendency toward growth and progress, and when this tendency began to show itself in the Middle Ages, it found in the theological spirit, then personated by the Roman Church, its most bitter and most powerful enemy. The church, which ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... appeared like the ideas we are taught in the schools to form of things which may exist, but do not; of seas of milk, and ships of amber. But I saw my highest idea realised in Paoli. It was impossible for me, speculate as I pleased, to have a little opinion of human nature in him. ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... have been congratulating each other over the coming opening of Haughton Hall, over the intense pleasure of again being under the same roof daily with Lady Esmondet and Vaura, with their charming knowledge of human nature, causing a great charity and pleasant cynicism with no malice in it of the shams and pet weaknesses ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... had occasioned so much pondering to Philip, and so much diplomatic correspondence on the part of high personages in Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain. Certainly, it was of but little consequence to what church the unhappy Princess belonged, and they must be lightly versed in history or in human nature who can imagine these nuptials to have exercised any effect upon the religious or political sentiments of Orange. The Princess was of a stormy, ill-regulated nature; almost a lunatic from the beginning. The dislike which succeeded to her fantastic fondness for the Prince, as ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... solitude." Separation from his kind, of course, deprives a man of the humanizing influences, which are the consequences of association; but it may, at the same time, strengthen some of the noblest qualities of human nature. Thus, we are authorized to ascribe to this agency, a portion of the Indian's fortitude under hardships and suffering, his contempt for mere meanness, and above all, the proud elevation of his character. ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... for her children, the Opposition will not be comforted in respect of the continued absence of CHANCELLOR of the Duchy. 'Tis a touching trait, illustrating the high level of human nature the Commons reach. Had it been MASTERMAN'S political friends who mourned his absence, recognising in it cause of insecurity for the Empire, situation would be natural and comprehensible. It is from the so-labelled enemy's camp that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... at breakfast the next morning. The detective must have been thinking, too, for his glance at Mark held a trifle of suspicion. Mark was too old a student of human nature to miss the significance of the look, and Saunders was too young at his business entirely to conceal his own feelings. He tried—but too late—and was foolish enough to think he had not ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... La Monnoye.—It has been ingeniously said, that "Life is an epigram, of which death is the point." Alas for human nature! good points are rare; and no wonder, according ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.04.06 • Various
... that clever, she can do a'most anything. As for her looks, I'll say nothing about them. You've got eyes in your head. There ain't no mistake there, Mr. Newton; no paint; no Madame Rachel; no made beautiful for ever! It's human nature what you see there, ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... from Gladstonopolis, and showed great judgment in the selection. A prettier spot, as it turned out, for the fattening of both beef and mutton and for the growth of wool, it would have been impossible to have found. Everything that human nature wants was there at Little Christchurch. The streams which watered the land were bright and rapid, and always running. The grasses were peculiarly rich, and the old English fruit-trees, which we had brought with us from New Zealand, ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... duty, and upright and consistent in his walk and conversation, he was a universal favorite in the company, and greatly beloved by his friends. I don't think I have ever known a young man whose life was so free from the frailties of human nature, and whose character in all aspects formed so faultless a model for the imitation of others. Had his influence been restricted to the silent power and beauty of his example, his life on earth, short ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... the habit of ignorance has become so confirmed, that now none will see with the inner vision till agony has made the physical eyes not only unseeing, but without tears—the moisture of life. To be incapable of tears is to have faced and conquered the simple human nature, and to have attained an equilibrium which cannot be shaken by personal emotions. It does not imply any hardness of heart, or any indifference. It does not imply the exhaustion of sorrow, when the suffering soul seems powerless to suffer ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... in a sense make them yet nearer! But human nature is weak, and it is hard for us to realize the Unseen. She could not then feel that it was anything but hard, bitter, heart-breaking that he should be leaving her ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... partake of the horrible banquet. What struck me was the avidity with which the savages seized the fragments and devoured them. I would have avoided giving the dreadful account, were it not to show the depth of wickedness into which human nature, when left to itself, will inevitably sink. Often have I seen parties of men set out for the express purpose of capturing and murdering their fellow-creatures— people of the same colour and race, and chiefly helpless women and children—to satisfy their disgusting ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... began before the season was conscious of itself, was its own reward in the pleasures it yielded to the student of human nature and the lover of mild adventure. The belief in lodgings was a survival from an age of faith, when in the early eighteen-eighties they seemed the most commodious and desirable refuge to the outwandering American family which then first proved them. The fragmentary outwanderers who now visited ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... Andy commiseratingly, as one speaks to the sick or to one in mourning; the tone made Andy grind his teeth, though he knew in his heart that Billy Roberts wished him well—up to the point of losing the contest to him, which was beyond human nature. Billy Roberts was a rider and knew—or thought he knew—just how "sore" Andy must be feeling. Also, in the kindness of his heart he tried blunderingly to hide ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... 'Surely,' said his friend Sir Henry Taylor to him upon some occasion, 'the simple thing to do is so and so.' He answered doubtfully, adding, 'The truth is I am not a simple man.' 'No,' said Taylor, 'you are the most composite man that I have met with in all my experience of human nature.'[31] Taylor entered the Colonial Office in the beginning of 1824, and soon formed an intimate and lifelong friendship with his colleague. His autobiography contains some very vivid records of the impression made by ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... a delicate perception of, quick and keen sympathies for, and ability to express the various phases of human nature. Deep study and care are necessary for the best development of these faculties; but the nerves must be left free to be guided to the true expression,—neither allowed to vibrate to the ecstatic delight of the impressions, or in mistaken sympathy with them, but kept clear as conductors ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... round him. There are those whom the world's march leaves apart, and reality cannot touch. They walk with God, and the bestialities of us animals are fantastic to them. The spirit of the pack, as monsieur says, is in the air. I see all human nature now, running with gaping mouths and red tongues lolling out, their breath and their cries spouting thick before them. On whom they will fall next—one never knows; the innocent with the guilty. Perhaps if you were to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... suspected there was an old and intractable leaven in human nature that would effectually frustrate these airy schemes of happiness, which had been projected in every age, and always with the same result. At first the disclosure so confounded my understanding, that I almost fancied myself transported to some new ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... the scale in Archie's mind between disgust and pity. The creature stood in a vanishing 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
... All those letters were written from Roe Head or Dewsbury Moor, while the Haworth letters of the same period are sane and light-hearted. And when she is fairly settled at Haworth, instead of emulating the Saints of God, she and Miss Nussey are studying human nature and the art of flirtation as exhibited by curates. Charlotte administers to her friend a formidable amount of worldly wisdom, thus avenging herself for the dance Miss Nussey led her round the ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair |
