Quotes about Human nature

Jesus never told us to erase our ambition. Jesus never said to shun all thought of rewards. He told us to turn from earthly ambition and to shun earthly rewards. He said in effect, "Put yourself last here on earth, and in heaven you'll be first." That's a trade, not a complete denial! That thirst for glory you feel in your heart is part of what makes you human. Jesus just wants us to focus it on heaven, looking for our rewards there.

If he had not been a small degree civilized, he very probably would not have troubled himself with boots at all; but then, if he had not been still a savage, he never would have dreamt of getting under the bed to put them on.

All human sin seems so much worse in its consequences than in its intentions.

Sin, too, is real. All we have to do is look at the news or, if our vision is good enough, look in the mirror.

I don't think a man can hurt another, not in any important way. Neither hurt him nor help him. I have really nothing to forgive you.

Only the man who extols the purity of a love devoid of desire, is capable of the depravity of a desire devoid of love. But observe that most people are creatures cut in half who keep swinging desperately to one side or to the other.

What is kinder—to believe the best of people and burden them with a nobility beyond their endurance—or to see them as they are, and accept it because it makes them comfortable?

Forgive me, O Heavenly Father, according to the multitude of Thy mercies. I have lusted in my heart to break a man's skull and scatter the stench of his brains across several people's back yards.

I believe that there are parts to human nature that cannot be reached by either legislation or education, but require the power of God to deal with.

In the midst of the most degrading circumstances imaginable, Frankl used the human endowment of self-awareness to discover a fundamental principle about the nature of man: Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.

Free will, though it makes evil possible, also makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.

Everyone has come to understand that unconditional love is a reality, but with as shelf life of about eight to ten seconds.