Human Nature Quotes

"There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere." ~ Mansfield Park by Jane Austen It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive. ~ The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham We live in a world of transgressions and selfishness, and no pictures that represent us otherwise can be true, though, happily, for human nature, gleamings of that pure spirit in whose likeness man has been fashioned are to be seen, relieving its deformities, and mitigating if not excusing its crimes. ~ The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper Adam was but human--this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent. ~ The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain Now he found out a new thing--namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing. ~ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it. ~ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it--namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. ~ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain Strong mental agitation and disturbance was no novelty to him, even before his late sufferings. It never is, to obstinate and sullen natures; for they struggle hard to be such. ~ Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens Mature as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober against the fire. ~ Howards End by E. M. Forster "I could easily forgive HIS pride, if he had not mortified MINE." ~ Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen