The Nature Of A Person Quotes

Humans naturally reflect their nature upon the nature of their God. So to know a person, just ask what the person thinks about their God. It's either that, or an individual aims to reflect the nature of their God onto themselves; in either case, just ask about the God and you will know the person, or at least, what the person thinks of himself. ~ C. JoyBell C.

It is the nature of a person as he/she grows older to protest against change, particularly changes for the better. ~ John Steinbeck

Oh for women at sea to obviate the eternal crosscat-harpings,' he said to himself, 'to do away with the grumlinfuttocks, and to inject a little civilization, even of an equivocal nature, even at the risk of moral deviation. ~ Patrick O'Brian

An indiscriminate distrust of human nature is the worst consequence of a miserable condition, whether brought about by innocence or guilt. And though want of suspicion more than want of sense, sometimes leads a man into harm; yet too much suspicion is as bad as too little sense. ~ Herman Melville

It is this fact which gives America its utter newness. All civilizations we know of were shaped by exclusive minorities of kings, nobles, priests, and the equivalents of the intellectual. It was they who formulated the ideals, aspirations, and values, and it was they who set the tone. America is the only instance of a civilization shaped and colored by the tastes and values of common folk. No elite of whatever nature can feel truly at home in America. This is true not only of the aristocrat proper, but also of the intellectual, the military leader, the business tycoon, and even the labor leader. ~ Eric Hoffer

Markets do not automatically generate trust, cooperation or collective action for the common good. Quite the contrary: it is in the nature of economic competition that a participant who breaks the rules will triumph - at least in the short run - over more ethically sensitive competitors. ~ Tony Judt

I was very withdrawn and definitely played with dolls well into eighth grade. But I was the oldest of nine, and that grounded me in a way that I don't think I would have been grounded otherwise. So I was able to - or forced to - function practically. But I think, by nature, I was someone who lived in my head, in my imagination. ~ Susan Sarandon

In the whole vast domain of living nature there reigns an open violence, a kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom. As soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom, you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life. You feel it already in the vegetable kingdom: from the great catalpa to the humblest herb, how many plants die, and how many are killed. But from the moment you enter the animal kingdom, this law is suddenly in the most dreadful evidence. A power of violence at once hidden and palpable … has in each species appointed a certain number of animals to devour the others. Thus there are insects of prey, reptiles of prey, birds of prey, fishes of prey, quadrupeds of prey. There is no instant of time when one creature is not being devoured by another. Over all these numerous races of animals man is placed, and his destructive hand spares nothing that lives. He kills to obtain food and he kills to clothe himself. He kills to adorn himself, he kills in order to attack, and he kills in order to defend himself. He kills to instruct himself and he kills to amuse himself. He kills to kill. Proud and terrible king, he wants everything and nothing resists him.

From the lamb he tears its guts and makes his harp resound ... from the wolf his most deadly tooth to polish his pretty works of art; from the elephant his tusks to make a toy for his child - his table is covered with corpses ... And who in all of this wil ~ Joseph De Maistre

The death of Christ made it possible for God to accept sinful man, and that he has, in fact, done so. Consequently, whatever separation there is between man and the benefits of God's grace is subjective in nature and exists only in man's mind and unregenerate spirit. The message man needs to hear then, is not that he simply has a suggested opportunity for salvation, but that through Christ he has, in fact, already been redeemed to God and that he may enjoy the blessing that are already his through Christ ~ Carlton Pearson

The dominant theories of elite art and criticism in the 20th century grew out of a militant denial of human nature. One legacy is ugly, baffling, and insulting art. The other is pretentious and unintelligible scholarship. And they're surprised that people are staying away in droves? ~ Steven Pinker

Does it take the harsh light of disaster to show a person's true nature? ~ Jean-Dominique Bauby

An intelligent man is not one who can merely reason correctly, but one whose mind is open to perceiving objective contents, who is able to receive the impact of their essential structures and to render it in human language; this holds also for the nature of thinking as such, and for its truth content. The neutralization of reason that deprives it of any relation to objective content and of its power of judging the latter, and that degrades it to an executive agency concerned with the how rather than with the what, transforms it to an ever-increasing extent into a mere dull apparatus for registering facts. ~ Max Horkheimer

His action of joining them, which would have been rude in a restaurant that was not moving at three hundred kilometers an hour, was perfectly acceptable on a train, which mimicked the entirely random joinings of life but revealed their true nature by making them last only hours or days, rather than years and decades. People on a train form an alliance, as if the world that surrounded the parallel rails were hostile and and they refugees from it. The dining car, humming and rocking gently in the night, annihilated past and future and made all associations outside of itself seem vaguely unreal. So they welcomed him at their table, for he was one of them, a traveler, not one of those wraiths through whose night-lit cities they passed. ~ Alexander Jablokov

The laws of physics and chemistry must be the same in a crucible as in the larger laboratory of Nature. ~ Alfred Harker

It was a glorious morning. The wind had fallen quite, and the sun was shining as if he would say, "Keep up your hearts; I am up here still. I have not forgotten you. By and by you shall see more of me." But Nature lay dead, with a great white sheet cast over face and form. Not dead? - Just as much dead as ever was man, save for the inner death with which he kills himself, and which she cannot die. It is only to the eyes of his neighbours that the just man dies: to himself, and to those on the other side, he does not die, but is born instead: "He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die." But the poor old lord felt the approaching dank and cold of the sepulchre as the end of all things to him - if indeed he would be permitted to lie there, and not have to get up and go to worse quarters still. ~ George MacDonald

Together with the patient, a therapist looks at the nature of the pain. Often, the therapist can uncover causes of suffering that stem from the way the patient looks at things, the beliefs he holds about himself, his culture, and the world. The therapist examines these viewpoints and beliefs with the patient, and together they help free him from the kind of prison he has been in. But the patient's efforts are crucial. A teacher has to give birth to the teacher within his student, and a psychotherapist has to give birth to the psychotherapist within his patient. The patient's "internal psychotherapist" can then work full-time in a very effective way. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

For centuries after Christ, the church and other religions that use cruciform symbols have misrepresented the physical nature of Christ's death with a satanic symbol (cross), and a pagan idol (corpus). This secret has been concealed by the church for centuries after Christ. ~ Nwaocha Ogechukwu

We have never observed infinity in nature. Whenever you have infinities in a theory, that's where the theory fails as a description of nature. And if space was born in the Big Bang, yet is infinite now, we are forced to believe that it's instantaneously, infinitely big. It seems absurd. ~ Janna Levin

The power of attaching an interest to the most trifling or painful pursuits, in which our whole attention and faculties are engaged, is one of the greatest happinesses of our nature. The common soldier mounts the breach with joy; the miser deliberately starves himself to death; the mathematician sets about extracting the cube-root with a feeling of enthusiasm; and the lawyer sheds tears of admiration over "Coke upon Littleton." It is the same through life. He who is not in some measure a pedant, though he maybe wise, cannot be a very happy man. ~ William Hazlitt

Nature is a constant reminder of the beauty of consistence, the utility of patience and persistence, the vanity of arrogance, and the necessity of impermanence. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Today something unusual happened; I was walking without even knowing, where I was going. I was smiling without any cause. I was just happy without reasons. I can tell you that birds do sing, leaves of trees, do dance, and it's beautiful. I am, a complete nature boy! Maybe, I was fully satisfied that sunlight was falling on my cheek. I got the power to love myself, nature and rest of humankind. Cheers, Everyone! ~ Santosh Kalwar

A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent
sweet, not lasting;
The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
No more. ~ William Shakespeare

Do you understand, son? Today's lesson is on being. I made you to be with Me, to enjoy Me, and to walk with Me. Everything flows out of intimacy with Me. Purpose, meaning, goals, even creativity - all these things are a result of your relationship with Me, and are enhanced by the time you spend with Me. My nature is 'I AM', not 'I DO'. Without Me, you can do nothing. You are a human being, not a human doing. You must learn how to be. ~ Dale Fife

Sensory deprivation has a devastating psychological impact and can lead to the complete dissolution of the personality accompanied by hallucinations, delusional thinking and general incoherence. It is presently acknowledged as a form of torture; in fact, it is one of a group of "enhanced techniques" that are entirely psychological in nature and unique in that they do not conform to the general public understanding of what torture is. ~ Brian Moss

We can't talk about our own health without understanding our place in our environment, because in order to fulfill our potential we have to live in the context of our surroundings.
We have to know our place in the ecosystem of which we are a part, and this means living 'consciously': being aware of nature and how it affects us and how we, in turn, affect nature. ~ Sebastian Pole

Evil is the most difficult problem in the world. It is also the strongest objection to God's existence. If God does exist, it is also the most problematic challenge to his nature and power. As a Christian, it is my greatest temptation for doubt and unbelief. ~ Jon Morrison

[I]t becomes clearer and clearer that we do not live in a divided world. The harsh divisions of spirit and nature, mind and body, subject and object, controller and controlled, are seen more and more to be awkward conventions of language. These are misleading and clumsy terms for describing a world in which all events seem to be mutually interdependent[.] ~ Alan W. Watts

The heart of the matter is that the very nature of the European Union, and of this country's relationship with it, has fundamentally changed after the coming into being of the European monetary union and the creation of the eurozone, of which - quite rightly - we are not a part. ~ Nigel Lawson

In place of a view of the genome as a static blueprint that operates independently of experience and only up to the moment of birth, we have come to understand the genome as a complex, dynamic set of self-regulating recipes that actively modulate every step of life. Nature is not a dictator hell-bent on erecting the same building regardless of the environment, but a flexible Cub Scout prepared with contingency plans for many occasions. ~ Gary F. Marcus

Everyone is supposed to be a combination of nature and nurture, their true selves shaped by years of friends and fights and parents and dreams and things you did too young and things you overheard that you shouldn't have and secrets you kept or couldn't and regrets and victories and quiet prides, all the packed-together detritus that becomes what you call your life. ~ Melissa Albert

The civil law, as well as nature herself, has always recognized a wide difference in the respective spheres and destinies of man and woman. Man is, or should be, woman's protector and defender ... The constitution of the family organization, which is founded in the divine ordinance, as well as in the nature of things, indicates the domestic sphere as that which properly belongs to the domain and functions of womanhood. The harmony, not to say identity, of interests and views which belong, or should belong, to the family institution is repugnant to the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and independent career from that of her husband ... The paramount destiny and mission of women are to fulfil the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator. 1872 ~ Joseph P. Bradley

Wholeness or health is our natural state. The nature of healing involves removing obstructions to this natural state and bringing individuals into alignment with themselves and their world. Free of these obstructions, an individual's innate intelligence and self-regulating capabilties will guide him toward a state of well being. ~ Richard Carlson

If I give you two possible worlds to choose from, in which you would like your children and grandchildren to live, which one would you choose - a world filled with hatred and discrimination, or a world where the humans care about their fellow humans beyond the petty little man-made labels of religion, race, nationality, intellect, gender etc.!

We do not need to make efforts and be kind in order to keep Nature running, she can do that quite well and far better than us herself, in fact, it'd benefit Nature, if suddenly the humans were to disappear. It is us who need Nature in order to exist, not the other way around.

We must stand on the side of kindness, goodness, compassion and conscience, not to keep the processes in Nature functioning, but because if we don't, the environment that we would be giving our future generations, would be no different than the violent and lethal environment of the wild. Hence, our kindness would make no difference to Nature whatsoever, rather it would simply be a selfish yet humanely necessary act on our part, that we must carry out to create a humane environment for the human species.

Upon the kindness of us humans, the fate of humanity is predicated, not the fate of Nature. We are born in a world filled with hatred and discrimination, hence it is our existential responsibility as sentient and conscientious beings to contribute in the elimination of such discrimination and hatred. Kindness of ours in our daily wal ~ Abhijit Naskar

We love surfers for the same reasons we have always admired doctors and pilots and firemen and shamans, for the same reasons we admire excellent soldiers: because despite themselves they have bowed to a force much greater than themselves, which in this case is the wave, and submitted to the gnarly rigors of its discipline. They have allowed themselves to be shaped and polished by the sea. They have given themselves up to this greater force, day after day, year after year. Crushed and punished, battered into something tempered and resilient, and sharpened to an edge by constant refinement. They are warriors in the best sense: by bending to the often brutal demands of surfing they have transformed themselves into beings who can respond to great violence with grace and humility. And beauty. ~ Peter Heller

If reason be judge, no writer has produced such inconsistent characters as nature herself has. It must call for no small sagacity in a reader unerringly to discriminate in a novel between the inconsistencies of conception and those of life. As elsewhere, experience is the only guide here; but as no one man's experience can be coextensive with what is, it may be unwise in every case to rest upon it. ~ Herman Melville

Men cannot abandon their religious faith without a kind of aberration of intellect and a sort of violent distortion of their true nature; they are invincibly brought back to more pious sentiments. Unbelief is an accident, and faith is the only permanent state of mankind. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

On the other hand, the conditions of human existence - life itself, natality and mortality, worldliness, plurality, and the earth - can never "explain" what we are or answer the question of who we are for the simple reason that they never condition us absolutely. This has always been the opinion of philosophy, in distinction from the sciences - anthropology, psychology, biology, etc. - which also concern themselves with man. But today we may almost say that we have demonstrated even scientifically that, though we live now, and probably always will, under the earth's conditions, we are not mere earth-bound creatures. Modern natural science owes its great triumphs to having looked upon and treated earth-bound nature from a truly universal viewpoint, that is, from an Archimedean standpoint taken, wilfully and explicitly, outside the earth. 2 ~ Hannah Arendt

A woman means by Unselfishness chiefly taking trouble for others; a man means not giving trouble to others ... thus, while the woman thinks of doing good offices and the man of respecting other people's rights, each sex, without any obvious unreason, can and does regard the other as radically selfish. ~ C.S. Lewis

In a certain sense, and to a certain extent, he [the president] is the representative of the people. He is elected by them, as well as congress is. But can he, in the nature [of] things, know the wants of the people, as well as three hundred other men, coming from all the various localities of the nation? If so, where is the propriety of having a congress? ~ Abraham Lincoln

We suffer not from overproduction but from undercirculation. You have heard of technocracy. I wish I had those fellows for my competitors. I'd like to take the automobile it is said they predicted could be made now that would last fifty years. Even if never used, this automobile would not be worth anything except to a junkman in ten years, because of the changes in men's tastes and ideas. This desire for change is an inherent quality in human nature, so that the present generation must not try to crystallize the needs of the future ones. ~ Charles Kettering

The machine which at first blush seems a means of isolating man from the great problems of nature, actually plunges him more deeply into them. As for the peasant so for the pilot, dawn and twilight become events of consequence. His essential problems are set him by the mountain, the sea, the wind. Alone before the vast tribunal of the tempestuous sky, the pilot defends his mails and debates on terms of equality with those three elemental divinities. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

Like the body, courage, too, is a thing weakened, especially when we are young and invincible. We can't give one the rest it needs and expect the other to protect us. Don't anger Nature with talk of wishing she had chosen differently. See to your own nature. ~ Andrew Krivak

Every well built house started in the form of a definite purpose plus a definite plan in the nature of a set of blueprints. ~ Napoleon Hill

I cannot copy nature in a servile way; I am forced to interpret nature and submit it to the spirit of the picture. From the relationship I have found in all the tones there must result a living harmony of colors, a harmony analogous to that of a musical composition. ~ Henri Matisse

The introduction of cinematography enabled us to corral time past and thus retain it not merely in the memory - at best, a falsifying receptacle - but in the objective preservative of a roll of film. But, if past, present and future are the dimensions of time, they are notoriously fluid. There is no tension in the tenses and yet they are always tremulously about to coagulate. The present is a liquid jelly which settles into a quivering, passive mass, the past, as soon as - if not sooner than - we are aware of it as present. Yet this mass was intangible and existed only conceptually until arrival of the preservative, cinema.
The motion picture is usually regarded as only a kind of shadow play and few bother to probe the ontological paradoxes it presents. For it offers us nothing less than the present tense experience of time irrefutably past. So that the coil of film has, as it were, lassoed inert phenomena from which the present had departed, and when projected upon a screen, they are granted a temporary revivification.
[...]
The images of cinematography, however, altogether lack autonomy. Locking in programmed patterns, they merely transpose time past into time present and cannot, by their nature, respond to the magnetic impulses of time future for the unachievable future which does not exist in any dimension, but nevertheless organizes phenomena towards its potential conclusions. The cinematographic model is one of cyclic recurrences alone, even if these recu ~ Angela Carter

Bjartur declared that he had never denied that there was much that was strange in nature. "I consider that there's nothing wrong in believing in elves even though their names aren't on the parish register," he said. "It hurts no one, yes and even does you good rather than harm; but to believe in ghosts and ghouls
that I contend is nothing but the remains of popery and hardly fit for a Christian to give even a moment's consideration." He did his utmost to persuade the women to accept his views on these matters. ~ Halldor Laxness

Passion is of the nature of seed, and finds nourishment within, tending to a predominance which determines all currents towards itself, and makes the whole life its tributary. ~ George Eliot

The wise know that living by scriptural injunctions (good deeds, sacrifice, and so forth) will help you reach heaven. But the true yogi knows that even heaven is part of nature (prakriti) and thus is eventually perishable. This yogi therefore transcends all of nature to reach Me, Brahman, the Imperishable Godhead, the Divine Love who lives in your heart."

But know, Arjuna, that I quickly come to those who offer Me all their actions, set their minds on Me with unswerving devotion, worship Me as their dearest delight, and takeMe as their one and only goal in life. Because they so dearly love Me, I save them from the sorrow of death and endless waves of rebirth.
"It is true that one is where one's mind is. So fix your mind on Me. Be absorbed in Me alone. Focus your devotion on Me. Still yourself in Me. Without a doubt you will then come and live within Me. ~ Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

They are the humans, who are uniquely adorned with the priceless characteristic of empathizing. They are the humans who shed tears full of purity and piety, when they see even a complete stranger in pain and misery. They are the humans who come together to save a kid in the neighborhood when he is trapped under the wreckage of his fallen home, regardless of caste, creed and religion. ~ Abhijit Naskar

If I love order, it's not the mark of a character subjected to an inner discipline, a repression of the instincts. In me the idea of an absolutely regular world, symmetrical and methodical, is associated with that first impulse and burgeoning of nature.
The rest of your images that associate passion with disorder, love with intemperate overflow - river fire whirlpool volcano - are for me memories of nothingness and listlessness and boredom. ~ Italo Calvino

It is the assumption of this book that there is a typical human nature. It is the aim of this book to seek it. Just like a surgeon, a psychiatrist can make all sorts of basic assumptions when a patient lies down upon the couch. He can assume that the patient knows what it means to love, to envy, to trust, to think, to speak, to fear, to smile, to bargain, to covet, to dream, to remember, to sing, to quarrel, to lie. The 'smile' of a baboon is a threat; the smile of a man is a sign of pleasure: it is human nature, the world over. ~ Matt Ridley