"Believe only half of what you see, and nothing that you hear," is a cynical saying, and yet less bitter than at first appears. It does not argue that human nature is false, but simply that it is human nature. How can any fallible human being with two eyes, two ears, one judgment, and one brain — all more or less limited in their apprehensions of things external, and biased by a thousand internal impressions, purely individual — how can we possibly decide on even the plainest actions of another, to say nothing of the words, which may have gone through half-a-dozen different translations and modifications, or the motives, which can only be known to the Omniscient Himself?"
React to this quote
More by Dinah Craik
See allResonant Thoughts
"So long as we have failed to eliminate any of the causes of human despair, we do not have the right to try to eliminate those means by which man tries to cleanse himself of despair."
"It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God Himself gloried in beco…"
Explore Further
Related Quotes
"Almost all the people who have had most effect on me I seem to have met by chance."
— W. Somerset Maugham"Some people dye their hair yellow or put rings in their noses"
— Bertie Ahern"The learning process is endless. We must read, we must observe, we must assimilate, and we must ponder that…"
— Gordon B. Hinckley"Baldness that appears to be normal is a disease in Europe, almost all of them are bald, and that is because…"
— Evo Morales"He is not a Pope, he is a theologian. I do not like him. He has no humanity. It has pissed off the whole Is…"
— Beatrice Borromeo"An immoral society betrays humanity because it betrays the basis for humanity, which is memory. An immoral …"
— Elie Wiesel
Related Thinkers
Related Topics
Deep Dives
- Stephen King on Human Nature
- Robert A. Heinlein on Human Nature
- Ernest Hemingway on Human Nature
- Mark Twain on Human Nature
- George Bernard Shaw on Human Nature
- Anton Chekhov on Human Nature
- Virginia Woolf on Human Nature
- Ursula K. Le Guin on Human Nature
- Stephen King on life
- Stephen King on time
- knowledge & Beauty
- knowledge & Change
