Human Nature

"And just so — if I could, because he insulted a lot of people. I've had more calls on that statement that Ted made — New York is a great place. It's got great people, it's got loving people, wonderful…"

"Lonely people, in talking to each other can make each other lonelier."

"Humankind too often cooks up an excuse to start war instead of making peace. Rather than developing better strategies to win wars, we should focus on better recipes to attain peace."

"Well, I like people a lot. I could define myself as a pacific being, a lover of nature, music and people. The qualities that I admire the most in the human being is the capacity of getting along with …"

"Social order is a human product, or more precisely, an ongoing human production."

"To me, adventure is a concept that applies only to those men and women of earlier historical times, like the mediaeval knights who travelled into the unknown. The concept has degenerated constantly si…"

"Do not listen to talk about other people's sins. For through such listening the form of these sins is imprinted on you."

"The vast majority of people eat animal products not because of how they’re produced, but in spite of it."

"The final dismantling of the great master narratives is itself a grand narrative—why else would people get so excited about it?"

"Only a de-humanised moron would get rid of the Routemaster."

"I consider a good reputation is a great part of the human happiness. Some people, if they are very, very rich can permit themselves certain negligence to their reputations."

"The noble Nazarene ... who raged against "the world," against the philistinism, the halfheartedness, the lack of ideals—if he had guessed that he was forging a weapon for the hands of exactly "this wo…"

"They want me to immolate myself, and I sincerely believe that for some of them, when they see bad news from Iraq, the reaction is simply 'This will make Hitchens look bad!' I've been trying to avoid s…"

"Moving among wretched people in mean places, as I often saw him do, he had the impulses of a saint but not the serenity."

"The trail of the human serpent is thus over everything."

"Perhaps never before have the peoples of the world been so close to losing the very core of their humanity; for of what use are cosmic energies, if they are handled by disoriented and demoralized men?"

"Maybe war is an inevitable product of human nature. Maybe to get rid of war, we have to become something other than human."

"To me, there is no greater calling … If I can inspire young people to dedicate themselves to the good of mankind, I've accomplished something."

"In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill will to any human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their fellow men, not knowing what they do."

"Policies should take account of the emotional dimensions of human behaviour rather than assuming rational action."