#nature

Everybody looked at Sully suspiciously. A rumor that he had burned up in the blaze had been circulating, and people had quickly adjusted to the idea of profound human tragedy. They were reluctant to give it up, Sully could tell. He smiled apologetically at the crowd. ↗

— Richard Russo

#humor #nature

When one tries to rise above Nature one is liable to fall below it. The highest type of man may revert to the animal if he leaves the straight road of destiny. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#doyle #sherlock-holmes #nature

The unrealistic nature of these tales (which narrowminded rationalists object to) is an important device, because it makes obvious that the fairy tales’ concern is not useful information about the external world, but the inner process taking place in an individual. ↗

— Bruno Bettelheim

#psychology #nature

What separates or unites people is not their language, their laws, their customs, their principles, but the way they hold their knife and fork. ↗

— Irène Némirovsky

#human-nature #society #nature

Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness. ↗

— Walter Brueggemann

#nature

We are members of one great body, planted by nature…. We must consider that we were born for the good of the whole ↗

— Lucius Annaeus Seneca

#oneness #seneca #nature

Another war is always coming Robert. They are never properly extinguished. What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. The threat of violence, the fear of violence, or actual violence is the instrument of this dreadful will. You can see the will to power in bedrooms, kitchens, factories, unions, and the borders of states. Listen to this and remember it. The nation-state is merely human nature inflated to monstrous proportions. QED, nations are entities whose laws are written by violence. Thus is ever was, so ever shall it be. ↗

— Mitchell David

#nature

The sacred tree, the sacred stone are not adored as stone or tree they are worshipped precisely because they are hierophanies, because they show something that is no longer stone or tree but sacred, the ganz andere or 'wholly other. ↗

— Mircea Eliade

#organic #sacred #spirituality #nature

No man stops caring as long as he breathes. As long as he has a mind and memory, he will care. This is what separates us from the animals. We have feelings. ↗

— F. Sionil José

#feelings #human-nature #nature

The human soul is an abyss ↗

— Fernando Pessoa

#human-nature #soul #wisdom #nature