Quotes · Skopia

130 quotes

The Gay Science · 1882

★ 9.8

Philosophical literature

All men by nature desire to know.

Aristotle

Metaphysics · 322 BC

★ 9.2

Political literature · Philosophical literature

Man is by nature a political animal.

Aristotle

Politics · 350 BC

★ 8.7

Scientific literature

Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system—with all these exalted powers—Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.

Charles Darwin

The Descent of Man · 1871

★ 8.5

Scripture · Religious literature

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Genesis 1:26-27

1405 BC

★ 8.4

Poem · Epic poem

All men have need of the Gods.

Homer

The Odyssey · 700 BC

★ 8.3

Poem

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Walt Whitman

Song of Myself · 1855

★ 8.0

Poem

How little do we know that which we are! How less what we may be!

Lord Byron

Don Juan · 1824

★ 7.5

Personal journal

It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals. They seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.

Anne Frank

The Diary of a Young Girl · 1944

★ 7.4

Play · Tragedy (play)

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals-And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

William Shakespeare

Hamlet · 1616

★ 7.3

Essay · Philosophical literature

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

Immanuel Kant

1784

★ 7.1

Political literature

Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.

Albert Camus

The Rebel · 1951

★ 7.1

Novel

The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him; they crush those beneath them.

Emily Bronte

Wuthering Heights · 1847

★ 7.1

Essay · Political literature

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist 15 · 1787

★ 7.1

Philosophical literature

For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes.

Francis Bacon

Novum Organum · 1620

★ 7.0

Scripture · Religious literature

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

1st John 1:8

★ 7.0

Essay · Political literature

It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

James Madison

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 7.0

Film · Drama (film) · Drama

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind.

Gordon Gekko

Wall Street · 1987

★ 6.9

Political literature · Philosophical literature

Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasions for it.

Niccolo Machiavelli

Discourses on Livy · 1531

★ 6.2

Film · Psychological drama (film) · War (film) · Psychological drama · War

In this war, things get confused out there. Power, ideals, the old morality, practical military necessity. But out there with these natives, it must be a temptation to be God. 'Cause there's a conflict in every human heart, between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil, and good does not always triumph. Sometimes, the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a breaking point. You and I have one. Walt Kurtz has reached his and very obviously, he has gone insane.

General R. Corman

Apocalypse Now · 1979

★ 6.0

Personal journal

If all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need of government.

Abraham Lincoln

1854

★ 5.5

Essay · Philosophical literature

As long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.

Aldous Huxley

1937

★ 5.2

Essay · Magazine

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.

Aldous Huxley

1956

★ 5.2

Speech

It is useful to distinguish among four factors which give importance, urgency, and inevitability to the advancement of space technology. The first of these factors is the compelling urge of man to explore and to discover, the thrust of curiosity that leads men to try to go where no one has gone before.

James R. Killian

1958

★ 5.0

Poem · Epic poem

We are quick to flare up, we races of men on the earth.

Homer

The Odyssey · 700 BC

★ 5.0

Scripture · Religious literature

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Genesis 6:5

1405 BC

★ 4.6

Historical literature · Autobiography and memoir

Men are nearly always willing to believe what they wish.

Julius Caesar

The Gallic Wars · 49 BC

★ 4.0

Religious literature

The weakness of little children's limbs is innocent, not their souls.

St. Augustine

Confessions · 400

★ 4.0

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

So long as the great majority of men are not deprived of either property or honour, they are satisfied.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince · 1532

★ 4.0

Novel

There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast.

Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist · 1837

★ 4.0

Travel writing

Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.

Mark Twain

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 4.0

Film · Action (film) · Science fiction (film) · Action · Science fiction

It's in your nature to destroy yourselves.

The Terminator

Terminator 2: Judgment Day · 1991

★ 4.0

Philosophical literature

Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit.

Aristotle

The Nicomachean Ethics · 322 BC

★ 3.9

Political literature · Philosophical literature

I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.

Thomas Hobbes

Leviathan · 1651

★ 3.9

Essay

The heart of man is made to reconcile contradictions.

David Hume

1741

★ 3.9

Essay · Political literature

Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.

James Madison

Federalist 55 · 1788

★ 3.9

Novel

Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden.

Mark Twain

Pudd'nhead Wilson · 1893

★ 3.9

Novel · Dystopian fiction

The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.

George Orwell

Nineteen Eighty-Four · 1949

★ 3.9

Philosophical literature

The tendency of man's nature to good is like the tendency of water to flow downwards.

Mencius

300 BC

★ 3.8

Biography

It is part of human nature to hate the man you have hurt.

Tacitus

★ 3.8

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