#human

The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody. ↗

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

#inequality #politics #nature

Buffy: I know. But I think she'll be fine. You know, it's Willow. She of the level head. Anya: Well, those are the ones you have to watch out for the most. Responsible types. Buffy: Right, she might go crazy and start alphabetizing everything. Anya: I'm serious. Responsible people are... always so concerned with... being good all the time, that when they finally get a taste of being bad... they can't get enough. It's like all kablooey. ↗

— Drew Z. Greenberg

#humour #responsibility #nature

Men are not angels,” Akhmar affirmed. “And so men have the chance to be noble, in a way that angels cannot. ↗

— J. Leigh Bralick

#bravery #human-nature #nobility #men

I believe that the rape-is-not-about-sex doctrine will go down in history as an example of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds. It is preposterous on the face of it, does not deserve its sanctity, is contradicted by a mass of evidence, and is getting in the way of the only morally relevant goal surrounding rape, the effort to stamp it out. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#human-nature #rape #nature

For all their simplicity, humans could be remarkably perceptive, though they didn't know it most of the time, and their ability to thrust straight through deception and see to the heart of truth was often lost with childhood. By adulthood humans had trained themselves to be coy and manipulative in response to the coy and manipulative society in which they lived, which led them to believe that everyone was trying to be as coy and manipulative as themselves and were uncertain about what was true and what was not. Beyond their few flashes of clarity, everything became a muddle of colliding doubts. ↗

— Sean DeLauder

#nature

Our thoughts are private to protect others not ourselves. People don't have the ability to handle what you really think about them ↗

— Morena Baloyi

#philosophy #nature

Mortals are odd creatures in that sense—flawed yet hopeful. One can study them through millennia and still get nowhere near full understanding of their nature. ↗

— Hayden Thorne

#philosophy #nature

Most distinguishable about the idiot, Hedge noted, was their fear of that which was different. Those who feared difference always made a point of finding difference in others in order to feel more secure in their sameness. ↗

— Sean DeLauder

#nature

All growth toward perfection is but a returning to original existence. ↗

— Wilhelm von Humboldt

#nature

But, ah me! where is the faultless human creature who can persevere in a good resolution, without sometimes failing and falling back? ↗

— Wilkie Collins

#failure #faultlessness #faults #human-nature #steadfastness