"Human nature" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had studied human nature deeply, and he knew that of all the torments which afflict the mind of man (and far beyond bodily torture), the pains of jealousy were the most intolerable, and had the sorest sting. If he could succeed in making Othello jealous of Cassio, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... tone?—"So that is the source of all this misfortune. Even as a child I detested that sort of arbitrary judgment which passes under the mask of stern morality. There is an example! Do you hear the howling of the storm? In human nature, as well as in the material world, there are tempests and volcanoes which bring destruction, and, if the original character of any individual is full of such devastating forces, like the neighbourhood of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... it. They lose no chance to gouge the manufacturers. It's like taxes. The government knows that everybody is going to dodge them, and so it allows for it. Nobody is deceived, and nobody is the worse for it. Human nature is what it is, and ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... invigorated by plenty, is repressed by the chilling breath of want. The hateful passions that had vanished reappear. The mighty law of self-preservation expels all the softer and more exalted emotions of the soul. The temptations to evil are too strong for human nature to resist. The corn is plucked before it is ripe, or secreted in unfair proportions, and the whole black train of vices that belong to falsehood are immediately generated. Provisions no longer flow in for the support of the mother with a large family. The children ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... poor human nature. Why did Edith's heart throb so painfully, as she thought of Nina cured, and taken to Arthur's bosom as his wife. She knew SHE could not be that wife, and only half an hour before she had said within herself, ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... you know, when they have recently escaped from severe pain, or are recovering the blessing of health, and Nurse Rooke thoroughly understands when to speak. She is a shrewd, intelligent, sensible woman. Hers is a line for seeing human nature; and she has a fund of good sense and observation, which, as a companion, make her infinitely superior to thousands of those who having only received 'the best education in the world,' know nothing worth ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... too great, and notwithstanding the knowledge he had of human nature, he could not check the torrent of treason that had been sedulously nursed against him by his enemies until it ignited the imagination of those whom he had a right to expect would stand loyally ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... you that you cannot take that as evidence of character. They will be justified in so telling you; but I, on the other hand, defy you not to take it as such evidence. Let us make what laws we will, they cannot take precedence of human nature. There too sits my client's son. You will remember that at the beginning of this trial the solicitor-general expressed a wish that he were not here. I do not know whether you then responded to that wish, but I believe I may take it for granted that you ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... at school possessed much loveliness of person and sweetness of conversation; and the master, from the frailty of human nature, was enamoured of his blooming skin. Like his other scholars, he would not admonish and correct him, but when he found him in a corner he would whisper in his ear:—"I am not, O celestial creature! so occupied with thee, that I am harboring in my mind ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... good. If anything good is then gained, it is not a sheepish tendency, but an independent resolve growing out of our nature. And, after all, when we talk of non-conformity, it may only be that we non-conform to the immediate sect of thought or action about us, to conform to a much wider thing in human nature. ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... privilege. The invention of printing opened a thousand channels to the flow of erudition and talent, and sent them out from the reservoirs of individual possession to fertilize the whole domain of human nature. War, which seems to be an instinct of man, and which particular instances of heroism often raise to the dignity of a passion, was reduced to a science, and made subservient to those great principles of policy in which society began to perceive its only chance of durable ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... hand, and the Countess Benvolio in the other, he pushed his way through the crowd of "pauvres miserables" congregated under the gateway, who exhibited every species of disease and infirmity that poor human nature is liable or heir to, and entered the hotel. The "Sally manger," as he called it, was a long brick-floored room on the basement, with a white stove at one end, and the walls plentifully decorated with a panoramic view of the Grand Nation wallopping the Spaniards at the siege of Saragossa. The ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... HORRIBLE MURDER!—Yesterday, at the plantation of William Reynolds, was committed one of those acts which revolt human nature. Henry Golpin, the overseer, a Creole, and strongly suspected of being a quadroone, had for some time acted improperly towards Mrs. Reynolds and daughters. A few days ago, a letter from W.R. was received from St. ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... If you do not care to travel fast, to go far, or to spend much money, this is a fine way. But let me caution you first of all about overloading, for this is the most natural thing to do. It is the tendency of human nature to accumulate, and you will continually pick up things on your route that you will wish to take along; and it will require your best judgment to start with the least amount of luggage, and to keep from adding ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould
... library," added Uncle Jack, with more subtle knowledge of human nature as to its appropriate temptations. "There's my friend the archbishop's collection to ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sick and destitute; and though shocked by the new combination of religion and trade which she here witnessed, yet she regarded it only as a fresh development of the selfishness and hypocrisy of human nature. This poor woman and her family must live. How, thought I, is she to do so in this season of declining prices of the only work she is able to perform? If she could survive such a crisis so uncomplainingly, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... possessing an unusual capacity for estimating the exact conditions of public sentiment, and for moulding his policy so as to satisfy that opinion, having a perfect understanding of the ambitions and weaknesses of human nature, believing that party success was often as desirable as the triumph of any great principle, ready to forget his friends and purchase his opponents when political danger was imminent, possessing a fascinating ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... It wasn't in human nature to contemplate this transformation and feel contrition for whatever steps had been necessary to bring ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... true landscape is the harmonious blending of selected natural effects, so the true dramatic embodiment is the crystallization of selected attributes in any given type of human nature, shown in selected phases of natural condition. McCullough did not present Virginius brushing his hair or paying Virginia's school-bills; yet he suggested him, clearly and beautifully, in the sweet domestic repose and paternal ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... Charley's Aunt and to pay like Colman's Mustard. It is a fact in which we can all rejoice, not only because it redeems the reputation of Bernard Shaw, but because it redeems the character of the English people. All that is bravest in human nature, open challenge and unexpected wit and angry conviction, are not so very unpopular as the publishers and managers in their motor-cars have been in the habit of telling us. But exactly because we have come to a turning point in the man's career I propose to interrupt ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... parties, reminds me of a rather curious incident at which I once assisted; which, as it throws much light upon the inner mental working of human nature in general, ought, I think, to be recorded in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... in attitude there has been much justification, for in my country, as elsewhere, the people do not always select their best men as representatives, and, with the imperfections of human nature, there has been so much of ignorance and, at times, venality, that the instinct of the people is to take the conduct of affairs into their own hands. On the other hand, this change of attitude has led, in many instances, ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... The unfortunate shorts were wrung dry and drier. In Gretry's office they heard their sentences, and as time went on, and Jadwin beheld more and more of these broken speculators, a vast contempt for human nature grew within him. ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... to expect too much from human nature, not to put too much trust in men, not to waste his strength in trying to remove mountains, not to jeopardize his chances on the threshold of manhood in trying to serve a world which, so far from thanking him, will very effectually ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... Torments sufficient, That he would not go further in punishing in others Crimes which he was satisfied he himself was most Guilty of, in that he might have prevented them by speaking his Displeasure sooner. Besides which the King said, he was in general averse to Tortures, which was putting Human Nature it self, rather than the Criminal, to Disgrace; and that he would be sure not to use this Means where the Crime was but an ill Effect arising from a laudable Cause, the Fear of Shame. The King, at the same time, spoke with much Grace upon the Subject of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... was over Evan received another lesson in the curious workings of human nature. Once more the brotherhood drew away from Evan as if the latter had the plague. Evan had them in an uncomfortable hole now, for all were conscious of being under an obligation to him. That only made matters worse, for when a person is resolved to hate you, to put him under an obligation only ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... a hundred thousand trees were clinging with all their fibres to hold back the soil just ready to peel away and crash down with all its rocks and forest-growths. And yet, by one of those strange contradictions we are constantly finding in human nature, there were natives of the town who would come back thirty or forty years after leaving it, just to nestle under this same threatening mountainside, as old men sun themselves against southward-facing walls. The old dreams and legends of danger added to the attraction. If the mountain should ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... The times called for action, and "Factis non verbis." was the motto of the hour. But human nature must find some vent for enthusiasm, and we are informed in the records, by the faithful clerk, that "three cheers were then given." They probably shook the building for genuine Marble-headers are blessed with strong lungs, and can never ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... section of Scotland Yard knows too well, and laughs at. A conspirator detests ridicule. More men have been stabbed with Lucrezia Borgia daggers and dropped into the Thames for laughing at Head Centres and Triangles than for betraying secrets; for this is human nature. ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... some savage and ungrateful words in the British Critic of 1840 against the controversialists of Rome: "By their fruits ye shall know them.... We see it attempting to gain converts among us by unreal representations of its doctrines, plausible statements, bold assertions, appeals to the weaknesses of human nature, to our fancies, our eccentricities, our fears, our frivolities, our false philosophies. We see its agents, smiling and nodding and ducking to attract attention, as gipsies make up to truant boys, holding out tales for the nursery, and pretty pictures, and gilt gingerbread, and ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... conducting similar interviews in the future, and fell in my own liking. One thing more: I learned a fresh tolerance for the dead ——; he too had learned—perhaps had invented—the trick of this manner; God knows what weakness, what instability of feeling, lay beneath. Ce que c'est que de nous! poor human nature; that at past forty I must adjust this hateful mask for the first time, and rejoice to find it effective; that the effort of maintaining an external smile should confuse and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Menschheit geben uns Vater und Mutter, die Menschlichkeit aber gibt uns nur die Erziehung. [Human nature we owe to father and mother, but humanity to ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... only healthy activity and the golden mean are necessary in everything. Indeed, Shakespeare is so penetrated by this conviction that, according to Gervinus's assertion, he allows himself to deny even Christian morality, which makes exaggerated demands on human nature. Shakespeare, as we read, did not approve of limits of duty exceeding the intentions of nature. He teaches the golden mean between heathen hatred to one's enemies and Christian love toward them (pp. 561, 562). How far Shakespeare was penetrated with this fundamental principle ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... circumstance of his uncle by his mother's side, having been my particular friend. His (that's Tom's uncle's) fate was a melancholy one. Gas was the death of him. When it was first talked of, he laughed. He wasn't angry; he laughed at the credulity of human nature. "They might as well talk," he says, "of laying on an everlasting succession of glow-worms;" and then he laughed again, partly at his joke, and partly at ...
— The Lamplighter • Charles Dickens
... learn from the past. It is necessary to keep the former experiences of our country both at home and abroad continually before us, if we are to have any science of government. If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations. We must realize that human nature is about the most constant thing in the universe and that the essentials of human relationship do not change. We must frequently take our bearings from these fixed stars of our political firmament if we expect to hold a true course. If we examine carefully what we have done, we can determine ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... rather gloating over him as a poor suffering millionnaire (of course millionnaires are unhappy), and there he sat, ruddy of face and hearty of body, pitying me for a poor unfortunate farmer back here in the country! Curious, this human nature of ours, isn't it? ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... origin, but in effect it would be similar. I should prefer to see my family about me—the one only pleasure I should have—the poorer and the more unhappy, the less I should care to part with them. This may be foolish, but I expect it is human nature. ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... nature of miracles as can be done by that which is not truly miraculous. It is hoped that intelligent readers will not disapprove of the manner in which appearances are solved, but that the solution will be found to correspond with the known principles of human nature. The power which the principal person is said to possess can scarcely be denied to be real. It must be acknowledged to be extremely rare; but no fact, equally uncommon, is supported by the same strength ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... to be quite respectable, and at the same time quite devoid of self-respect; and play the most delicate part of friendship, and yet never be seen; and wear the form of man, and yet fly in the face of all the laws of human nature:—and all this, in the hope of getting a belly-god Burgess through a needle's eye! Oh, let him stick, by all means: and let his polity tumble in the dust; and let his epitaph and all his literature (of which my own works begin to form no inconsiderable ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... interests you, look it over well but don't insist on so many showings that you wear out the patience of its occupants. Never, never belittle any property in the hearing of its owner. There are all too many people, cocksure but ignorant of human nature, who believe this helps to get a bargain. It works just the opposite. One would not expect to please a man by telling him that his son was wall-eyed and therefore no asset. The same man is no better pleased at hearing that his house ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... human nature unto which I felt That I belonged, and reverenced with love, Was not a punctual presence, but a spirit Diffused through time and space, with aid derived Of evidence from monuments, erect, Prostrate, or leaning toward their ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... World was simple in its terms, comprehensive in its policy, methodical in its arrangement, beautiful in its adaptation of parts to a whole, of means to an end. Compare it with any of the constitutions of the Old World then existing. I say nothing of those libels upon human nature, the so-called constitutions of the Continent of Europe—compare it reverently, as children speak of a father's roof, with that venerated structure, the British Constitution. How complex is the architecture of the latter! here exhibiting the clumsy work of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... had lost money at cards to some cardsharpers who scraped acquaintance with him. He never blinked at the truth or spared himself; but neither did he blind himself to the real characters of the people in question, when once he had discovered them. His villains became curious studies in human nature; he turned them over in his mind, and he caused Deuceace, Barry Lyndon, and Ikey Solomons, Esq., to pay back some of their ill-gotten spoils, in an involuntary but very legitimate fashion, when he put them ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... is as perfect and as delightful as any in the English language. Any one who cannot enjoy this has no perception of human nature, and no love of humor in his composition. In time Rip discovered that his only escape from his termagant wife was to take his gun, and stroll off into the woods with his dog. "Here he would sometimes ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... than a little proud of the way in which her judgement of this young man was being justified. Life in Bohemian New York had left her decidedly wary of strange young men, not formally introduced; her faith in human nature had had to undergo much straining. Wolves in sheep's clothing were common objects of the wayside in her unprotected life; and perhaps her chief reason for appreciating this friendship was the feeling of safety which it ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... the worst traits that caused England ultimately to forfeit America; the concentration of whatever is opposite to popular liberties. His deeds must be execrated; but we cannot put him beyond the pale of human nature, or deny that under different circumstances he would have been a better man. We may admit, too, that, in the wisdom of Providence, he was placed where, by doing so much mischief, he was involuntarily the ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... food—there natures are broke and gone, some almost loose there voices and some there hearing—they are crouded into churches & there guarded night and day. I cant paint the horable appearance they make—it is shocking to human nature to behold them. Could I draw the curtain from before you; there expose to your view a lean Jawd mortal, hunger laid his skinny hand (upon him) and whet to keenest Edge his stomach cravings, sorounded with tattred garments, Rotten Rags, close beset with unwelcome vermin. Could I do ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... about ancient histories and unknown events, on which topic he most frequently heard him with pleasure, it happened that when the subject of their discourse was the incarnation of our Lord, he said, amongst other things, "Before Christ assumed human nature, the demons had great power over mankind, which, at his coming, was much diminished; insomuch that they were dispersed on every side, and fled from his presence. Some precipitated themselves into the sea, others ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... Hamlet's madness. When she had quoted Wilhelm Meister on this point, and had afterwards testified that "Lear" was beyond adequate presentation, that "Julius Caesar" was an effective acting play, and that a poet may know a good deal about human nature while knowing little of geography, Hinze appeared so impressed with the plenitude of these revelations that he recapitulated them, weaving them together with threads of compliment—"As you very justly observed;" and—"It is most true, as you say;" and—"It were well if others ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... to one of Ranald's temperament exasperating to a high degree. His theme was Ranald's rescue of Maimie, and the pauses of the singing he filled in with humorous comments that, outside, would have produced only weariness, but in the church, owing to the strange perversity of human nature, sent a snicker along the seat. Unfortunately for him, Ranald's face was so turned that he could not see it, and so he had no hint of the wrath that was steadily boiling up to the point ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... a good prophet and a keen judge of human nature as exemplified in Gleason, who said that "the old man" was planning for a visit to the new ranches above Fort Phoenix. A day or two farther we plodded along down the range, our Indian scouts looking reproachfully—even sullenly—at ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... a great game, and you are the man for it, no doubt. But there are others who can play it, for soldiering today asks for the average rather than the exception in human nature. It is like a big machine where the parts are standardized. You are fighting, not because you are short of a job, but because you want to help England. How if you could help her better than by commanding a battalion—or a ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... was for this reason condemned to labor—the worst evil of life in the judgment of both the man about Mayfair and the tramp of the casual ward. But there are others who dare not count that labor an evil which helps to bring out the best elements of human nature, not even when the necessity for it outlasts any impulse towards it, and who remember the words of the Lord: "My Father worketh hitherto, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... ordinary tax-paying soil of the provinces. This distinction, however, was not carried out even in the agrarian surveys with which these writers were especially concerned,[63] and it applies still less to the towns. No doubt it is a fiction of the office. It would be only human nature if the surveyors, finding both forms in use, should invent a theory to account ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... ordeal through which they must pass, but their success or failure depends upon their intrinsic merit. Nothing is to be feared from opposition to any movement that possesses these elements. Whatsoever idea has its origin in the recesses of human nature, will, sooner or later, become embodied in living action, and so we have this assurance—that as here, so also in the political institutions of our country—this principle of equal rights, both to man and woman, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... sit down." I observed on this and other occasions that Russian gypsies are very naif. And as it is in human nature to prefer sitting by a pretty girl, these Slavonian Romanys so arrange it according to the principles of natural selection—or natural politeness—that, when a stranger is in their gates, the two prettiest girls in their possession sit at his right and left, the two ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... that there, within these mouldering ruins, the oracles of old gave forth their voice— forgetting, perhaps, too easily, while they indulge in these reminiscences of the past, that the warrior's end was wholesale murder, and that the oracle spoke only to deceive poor ignorant human nature. Ha! I would not give one hearty dash into pure, uncontaminated nature for all the famous ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... will be further graded by the number of the sins,—"Every transgression received a just recompense." Hence, the more one sins, the greater the punishment. If one knew that he was going to Hell, corrupt human nature would say, "Sin and enjoy while you live," but reason and Scripture would say, "Stop! add no more ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... not affect him seriously; he has tried so many cases that were not appealed, and the greater proportion of those that have been are affirmed. The reversal comes a long time after and does not hurt his feelings. In any event, he was trying to do the best he could and human nature may be fallible, although, as far as he can see, the whole world of the little court-room where he sits has conspired to show him that he is ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... so long I feared it would never end, and so dark I had lost the hope of seeing," he said, with a husky voice. "I give first thanks to the Lord, who has not abandoned me, and my next to thee, O Simonides. Thy faithfulness outweighs the cruelty of others, and redeems our human nature. 'There is nothing I cannot do:' be it so. Shall any man in this my hour of such mighty privilege be more generous than I? Serve me as a witness now, Sheik Ilderim. Hear thou my words as I shall speak them—hear and remember. And thou, Esther, good ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... of such a man as chief showed that M. de Broglie was a good judge of human nature, and was also perfectly acquainted with the situation, for Captain Poul was the very man to take a leading part in the coming struggle. "He was," says Pere Louvreloeil, priest of the Christian doctrine and cure of Saint-Germain de Calberte, "an officer of merit and ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was bid. For once we are lifted out of the trivialness and dust of politics into the region of truth and manhood. No man in America has ever stood up so persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature, knowing himself for a man, and the equal of any and all governments. In that sense he was the most American of us all. He needed no babbling lawyer, making false issues, to defend him. He was more than a match for all the judges that American voters, or office-holders of whatever grade, can create. ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... went on, the public attitude to Hester changed. Human nature, to its credit, loves more readily than it hates. Hester never battled with the public, but submitted uncomplainingly to its worst usage, and so a species of general regard had ultimately grown ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Alas, poor human nature! The few words, "I am well off," influenced Mrs. Besborough Power at once in her reception of ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... common failing of our human nature. It necessarily puffs itself up and prides itself on its gifts unless restrained by the Holy Spirit. I have often said that a man has no more dangerous enemy than himself. It is my own experience that I have not without me so great cause for fear as within me; ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... that the Captain should not have been so shocked, and that it would have been becoming in him to remember his own transgression committed in the little hut in the hollow of the hill. But human nature is not, as a rule at least, so constituted that the immediate or chief effect of the sight of another's wrong-doing is to recall our own. The scene before him outraged all the Captain's ideas of how his neighbours ought to conduct themselves, and (perhaps ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... Vicar of Wakefield. It is not enough to have rehabilitated Birotteau pecuniarily and socially; he must make him die triumphantly, spectacularly, of an opportune hemorrhage, in the midst of the festivities which celebrate his restoration to his old home. Before this happens, human nature has been laid under contribution right and left for acts of generosity towards the righteous bankrupt; even the king sends him six thousand francs. It is very pretty; it is touching, and brings the lump into the reader's throat; but it is too much, and one perceives that Balzac lived too ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... likewise shall the heavenly Father do also unto you, and to every man, who attempts to diminish the original claim of God to a perfect obedience and service, by pleading the fall of man, the corruption of human nature, the strength of sinful inclination and affections, and the power of earthly temptation. All these are man's work, and not that of the Creator. This helplessness and bondage grows directly out of the nature of sin. "Whosoever committeth sin is the slave ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... and grim and hideous. It has its lighter moments. The more terrible a situation the more keen is human nature to forget it for a time. Men play between shells in the trenches. London, suffering keenly, flocks to a comedy or a farce as a relief from strain. Wounded men, past their first agony, chaff each other in the hospitals. There are long hours behind the lines ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... whom I should adore—one far above me, from whom it would be honor to win a smile, and—and all that sort of thing. Alas! I found they smiled before I could make my first bow at an introduction. At first I blamed the poets—thought they had been mistaken—had not studied human nature; but the truth gradually dawned upon me. The fault was mine! The imagination of man had not been able to create a hero of fiction like myself: in fact, had authorship attained such a triumph, the most fastidious maiden would have been obliged to fall in love at first sight, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... at this description of the Resurrection-rig, but was quickly drawn from his contemplation of the depravity of human nature, and what he could not help thinking the dirty employments of life, by a shouting apparently from several voices as they passed the end of St. Martin's Lane: it came from about eight persons, who appeared to be journeymen mechanics, with pipes in their mouths, some of them rather ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... "children planted by our care, and nourished by our indulgence,"—"They planted by your care!—No! your oppressions planted them in America; they fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated wilderness, exposed to all the hardships to which human nature is liable! They nourished by your indulgence!—No! they grew by your neglect; your care of them was displayed in sending persons to govern them who were the deputies of deputies of ministers—men whose behavior, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... was, in her case, the faintest gleam of light—a most feeble and sickly ray at the best of times—but there it was, and it showed the poor girl in a better and purer aspect than any in which he had looked on human nature yet. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... punishments, there can, indeed, be none found sufficiently severe for great crimes; great crimes, consequently, for want of adequate punishment, will increase, and the little faults, that have met with disproportionate persecution, will become amiable and innocent in the eyes of commiserating human nature. It is not difficult to explain to young people the real meaning, or rather the nonsense, of a few complimentary phrases; their integrity will not be increased or diminished by either saying, or omitting ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... proceeding to explain this somewhat enigmatical conduct of Servadac, it is necessary to refer to a certain physiological fact, coincident but unconnected with celestial phenomena, originating entirely in the frailty of human nature. The nearer that Gallia approached the earth, the more a sort of reserve began to spring up between the captain and Count Timascheff. Though they could not be said to be conscious of it, the remembrance of their former rivalry, ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... few highly-paid officials and many badly paid warders, you have a number of independent, well-paid probation officers, chosen for their knowledge of human nature, and ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... of human nature was not at fault. Muriel jumped at the money, and a letter in her handwriting informed Roland next morning that his slate was clean. His gratitude to ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... 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 ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... Crocker, "I'm not half done. I tell you, Captain John, there's a heap of human nature comin' and goin' through ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... London, my dear lady,' said Mr. Woodseer. 'Good hearts are here, as elsewhere, and as many, if one looks behind the dirt. I have found it since I laboured amongst them, now twenty years. Unwashed human nature, though it is natural to us to wash, is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... there is a spark of manhood, if there is in your breasts the least feeling for our common humanity, and especially for the sufferings and distresses of that part of human nature which is made by its peculiar constitution more quick and sensible,—if, I say, there is a trace of this in your breasts, if you are yet alive to such feelings, it is impossible that you should not join with the Commons of Great Britain in feeling the utmost degree of indignation against ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... reading 'The Newcomes': have you ever read it? I find it hard to appreciate Thackeray as much as some people do. Occasionally he says some very true things and shows that he is acquainted with human nature in its brighter and darker aspects. But, on the whole, the story of marriage and giving in marriage—selling your daughter for money or a title—the picture of young men who sow their wild oats and then repent and marry innocent ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... said, "make themselves into a majority." If they do so, the higher drama will be produced. But if we really understand the value of the drama, we shall not be too rigid in our exactions. The drama is the art of human nature in picturesque or characteristic action. Let us be liberal in our enjoyment of it. Tragedy, comedy, historical-pastoral, pastoral-comical—remember the large-minded list of the greatest-minded poet—all are good, if wholesome—and will be wholesome if the public continue to take ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... Murdoch, not so. But,' he added, meaningly 'I have lived longer in life than you, and I have but a poor opinion of human nature.' ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... fair means, we are sure the other fellows have succeeded by foul. And, moreover, one is apt to forget how much talent is needed to be a charlatan. Never look down upon a charlatan. Courage, skill, personal force or charm, great knowledge of human nature, dramatic instinct, and industry—few charlatans succeed (and no one is called a charlatan till he does succeed, be his success as low or high as you please) without possessing a majority of these qualities; how many of which—it would be ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... that his sympathies with the melancholy stranger were not very deep, and that his idea of the survival of the fittest was the survival of the strongest. His human nature at that time was of the old Saxon type, that went directly for what it wanted, without much thought or sentiment for those ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... step, many steps lower, and, supplied by the governess, eagerly devoured the very worst fictions of Eugene Sue and George Sand. Next she was heard discussing and excusing the most heinous crimes of which human nature can be guilty. ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... precious, of which Mr. Foker had just become 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 • William Makepeace Thackeray
... they are likely to take pleasure in the philosopher, who is most allied to themselves. A moderate supply of good health, food, and social position, must undoubtedly be ensured to the philosopher; for, without these, human nature will not suffice for the business of contemplation. But he will demand nothing more than a moderate supply, and when thus equipped, he will approach nearer to happiness than any one else. Aristotle declares this confidently, citing Solon, Anaxagoras, and other sages, as having said much the ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... of her enemies, for facing or avoiding dangers with such sublime calmness and prudence, was partly inherited, partly acquired. That spirit she took with her to France, where her experience was widened and her opportunities for the study of human nature were increased. ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... They go mad and die. Not only their minds but their bodies perish after a few years. What causes death? If such a man were a plant, he would lack nothing, but he requires other nourishment. Emptiness of the soul is mortal even to the vilest criminal, for this is a law of human nature. His flesh, his viscera, his bones perish when deprived of spiritual food, just as an oak-tree would perish without the nitrates of the earth and the oxygen of the air. This slow death substituted for violent death was, indeed, denounced ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... Delvile with a smile, that where reproof takes any effect, it is not received: with that easiness you were just now admiring: on the contrary, where a concession is made without pain, it is also made without meaning, for it is not in human nature to project any amendment without a secret repugnance. That here, however, you should differ from Lady Honoria Pemberton, who can wonder, when you are superior to all comparison with her in ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... smothered groan, for the laughing hurt her head, that it seemed as if a whole regiment of dragoons was galloping through her brain; but the long words and the wrong words sounded so funny, and the children acted and talked so much like two old ladies over a cup of tea, it was not human nature to keep from being amused; and, in fact, their comical prattle acted like a fairy talisman or distant music; it soothed her, and made her in ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... the obstacle which had separated them was now removed. But nothing more came, and it would hardly be true to say that she was disappointed. She had no strong desire to marry Harry Handcock whom no one now called Harry any longer; but yet, for the sake of human nature, she bestowed a sigh upon his coldness, when he carried his tenderness no further than a wish that she might ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... teacher should study human nature as it exhibits itself in the school-room by taking an interest in the sports and enjoyments of the pupils, and connecting, as much as possible, what is interesting and agreeable with the pursuits of the ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... pictures from a bygone day. Indeed, Miss Grant is one of the best drawn women in all Mr Stevenson's books; she has life and reality in a greater degree than most of his female characters. She is true to feminine human nature in any age, and as she makes eyes at David Balfour from under her plumed hat, and flirts with him across the narrow close, she is very woman, and alive enough to be some later day judge's daughter of modern Edinburgh, coquetting with Mr Stevenson himself, while she playfully adjusts her becoming ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... block efficiency. So the problem of industrial labor is one with the problem of the discontented business man, the indifferent student, the unhappy wife, the immoral minister—it is one of maladjustment between a fixed human nature and a carelessly ordered world. The result is suffering, insanity, racial-perversion, and danger. The final cure is gaining acceptance for a new standard of morality; the first step towards this is to break down the mores-inhibitions to free ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... taken him a long time to tell it, for after he had driven them twice around the Park the driver of the hansom decided that he could ask eight dollars at the regular rates, and might even venture on ten, and the result showed that as a judge of human nature he was a success. ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... of words and thoughts, which are as requisite in this [satire], as in heroic poetry itself, of which the satire is undoubtedly a species"; and earlier in the Discourse he had called heroic poetry "certainly the greatest work of human nature."[20] ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... and contemptible weaknesses, the like of which Estenega could not be capable of. No man can be perfect, and it is the man of great strength and great weakness who alone understands and sympathizes with human nature, who is lovable and magnetic, and who has the power to rouse the highest as well as the most passionate love of a woman. Such men cause infinite suffering, but they can give a happiness that makes the suffering worth while. You never will meet another man like Diego Estenega. Do not ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... 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
... hand, and told her she was good enough for human nature's daily companionship. Then he began to give her news of their neighbors. "It falls out fortunately that it is holiday-time. Young Christie is here: you know him? He told us how he had met you at some grand house in the winter, where he went to paint a picture: the lady had too little expression ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... not quite agree with you," answered the American Minister; "but, I still think, that the irritability of human nature will overcome reason, and so, in anger, men seize the sabre while they throw down the pen; but that is only temporary. 'Ira ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... truth of Mr. Iff's assertion: the bill-fold with its remaining two-hundred dollars was safely tucked away in the waistcoat pocket. Furthermore, the two twenty-pound notes were unquestionably genuine. The tide of Staff's faith in human nature began again to flood; the flower of his self-conceit flourished amazingly. He surmised that he wasn't such a bad little judge of ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... the day of its consecration. Solomon had made to himself an everlasting name, and it would be natural to expect that in such a scene of splendid triumph he would have felt exalted to the proudest height that human nature was capable of attaining. But Solomon had not only heard of God by the hearing of the ear, but by internal communion had seen and conversed with him. He could say with Job, when he had been restored from the deepest abasement to an elevated position, 'Mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and masters anything at all, it is the politics of his county and state. It is a matter of long experience with him, as he has been handled by politicians ever since he entered the reservation, and there is not a political trick that he cannot understand. He is a ready student of human nature, and usually a correct observer. I am sorry to say that the tendency of the new generation is to be diplomats of a lower type, quick and smart, but not always sound. At present, like any crude or partially developed people, ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman
... thus be seen that mutual recriminations regarding national peculiarities are not likely to be convincing to either party. Human nature is much the same the world over. From this view-point at least we may discreetly ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... see this in old men, children, Europeans; Asians, hot and cold climes; sanguine are merry, melancholy sad, phlegmatic dull, by reason of abundance of those humours, and they cannot resist such passions which are inflicted by them. For in this infirmity of human nature, as Melancthon declares, the understanding is so tied to, and captivated by his inferior senses, that without their help he cannot exercise his functions, and the will being weakened, hath but a small power ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... facts are against his argument. The evils of student life are two—vice and disorder. So far as the former is concerned, no system has succeeded, or will ever succeed, in extirpating it. Vice may be punished, but it is too deeply rooted in human nature to be wholly cured. Its predominating forms are drinking and gambling, neither of which is checked by the dormitory system. At Oxford, for instance, both these vices prevail despite the most elaborate system of gates and night-patrols. Our college faculties must perforce ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... their own evil ends, whilst they try to cloak their designs in a mantle of righteousness and liberty." I may not have given the exact words of the President, as I am writing from memory, but I think I have given his exact sentiments; and, if I am any judge of human nature, the love of his country is ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... His family have published the Work on the Great Learning, and one or two others. He most vehemently impugns nearly every judgment of Chu Hsi; but in his own exhibitions of the meaning he blends many ideas of the Supreme Being and of the condition of human nature, which he had learned from ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... homeless, without the sheltering and protecting care of that master who had ever before been to them the incarnation of a kindly Providence —at that moment when, by all the rules which govern Caucasian human nature, their eyes should have been red with regretful tears, and their hearts overburdened with sorrow, these addled-pated children of Africa, moved and instigated by the perverse devil of inherent contrariness, were grinning from ear to ear with exasperating exultation, or bowed in still ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... argument proving that, according to the covenant of eternal life, revealed in the Scriptures, man may be translated from hence, without passing through death, although the human nature of Christ himself could not be thus translated, till ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the thought and feeling of the world has been very great. He himself said, "The young will read my poems and be better for their truth." Many of his lines pass as current coin: "The child is father of the man," "The light that never was on land nor sea," "Not too bright and good for human nature's daily food," "Thoughts that do lie too deep for tears," "The mighty stream of tendency," and many others. "Plain living and high thinking" is generally given to Emerson, but he discovered it in Wordsworth, and recognizing it as his own he ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard |
