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The human mind treats a new idea the way the body
by Peter Medawar

The human mind treats a new idea the way the body
treats a strange protein; it rejects it.
- Peter Medawar

Related topics: Life Human-Nature Psychology Open

Human Quotes and Sayings

The very essence of instinct is that
it's followed independently of reason.
- Charles Darwin

Each man is afraid of his neighbor's disapproval -
a thing which, to the general run of the human race,
is more dreaded than wolves and death.
- Mark Twain

The purpose of human life is to serve,
and to show compassion and the will to help others.
- Albert Schweitzer

Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man.
And man can be as big as he wants.
No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
- John F. Kennedy

NO ONE is really different;
each of us is actually a member of the human race.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The human spirit ranges across a truly amazing
diversity of experiences and emotions -
the highest peaks and the lowest valleys.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Mostly, it is human to dislike surprises -
often with great intensity.
Be open to new ways;
sometimes newness just knocks on our door;
welcome it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Being angry is as close as a human being
can come to experiencing hell on earth.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

As human beings, our greatness lies
not so much in being able to remake the world -
as in being able to remake ourselves.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

If you were a warrior,
you would know that the worst thing
one can do is confront human beings directly.
- Carlos Castaneda

Every human life contains a potential,
if that potential is not fulfilled,
then that life was wasted...
- Carl Jung

If you fear making anyone mad,
then you ultimately probe for
the lowest common denominator of human achievement.
- Jimmy Carter

Human nature is potentially aggressive and destructive
and potentially orderly and constructive.
- Margaret Mead

In the arena of human life,
the honors and rewards fall to those
who show their good qualities in action.
- Aristotle

The human mind is our fundamental resource.
- John F. Kennedy

Nature is not human hearted.
- Lao Tzu

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being.
With freedom comes responsibility.
For the person who is unwilling to grow up,
the person who does not want to carry is own weight,
this is a frightening prospect.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Action is no less necessary than thought
to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

I'm not used to feeling so human.
Is it always like this?
- Edward, from Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer

Two things are infinite:
the universe and human stupidity;
and I'm not sure about the universe.
- Albert Einstein

It's humbling to think that all animals,
including human beings,
are parasites of the plant world.
- Isaac Asimov

Nature and human life are as various
as our several constitutions.
Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?
- Henry David Thoreau

The problem with making assumptions
is that we believe they are the truth
- don Miguel Ruiz

Human salvation lies in the hands
of the creatively maladjusted.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable...
Every step toward the goal of justice
requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle;
the tireless exertions and
passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The more laws and order are made prominent,
the more thieves and robbers there will be.
- Lao Tzu

Being human, we are imperfect. That's why we need each other.
To catch each other when we falter.
To encourage each other when we lose heart.
Some may lead; others may follow; but none of us can go it alone.
- Hilary Clinton

I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another
and I know there are people in the world
that do not love their fellow human beings
and I HATE people like that.
- Tom Lehrer

We cannot despair of humanity,
since we ourselves are human beings.
- Albert Einstein

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities...
because it is the quality which guarantees all others.
- Winston Churchill

What we call human nature in actuality is human habit.
- Jewel

What do you take for granted?
It is human nature to take everything for granted -
our companions, our homes,
our electricity, our TVs and computers.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy
between the genius and his human qualities
that one has to ask oneself whether
a little less talent might not have been better.
- Carl Jung

There are only two or three human stories,
and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely
as if they had never happened before.
- Willa Cather

My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool;
it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.
- Ursula K. Le Guin

To err is human, to forgive divine.
- Alexander Pope

There is no truth, only human opinion.
- Anonymous

We may have found a cure for most evils;
but we have found no remedy for the worst of them all,
the apathy of human beings.
- Helen Keller

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
- Socrates

Any human being who is becoming independent of conditionings,
of religions, scriptures, prophets and messiahs, has arrived home.
He has found the treasure which was hidden in his own being.
- Osho

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes
the objects of his creation
and is but a reflection of human frailty.
- Albert Einstein

To deal with individual human needs
at the everyday level can be noble sometimes.
- Jimmy Carter

The future has nothing in common with the past -
except natural laws and human nature.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect,
but of all human contemplations,
the most abhorrent is body without mind.
- Thomas Jefferson

Few are the giants of the soul that actually feel
that the human race is their family circle.
- Freya Stark

No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool.
Writers, alas, have to be fools in public,
while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.
- Erica Jong

I do not believe in immortality of the individual,
and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern
with no superhuman authority behind it.
- Albert Einstein

Music produces a kind of pleasure
which human nature cannot do without.
- Confucius

Be a Human BEing Rather Than a Human DOing.
- Anonymous

Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious,
one should preserve it.
- Anais Nin

Is the system going to flatten you out
and deny you your humanity,
or are you going to be able to make use of the system
to the attainment of human purposes?
- Joseph Campbell

It's all right for a woman to be, above all, human.
I am a woman first of all.
- Anais Nin

I must admit that I personally measure success
in terms of the contributions
an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings.
- Margaret Mead

The essence of being human is that one
does not seek perfection.
- George Orwell

In human intercourse the tragedy begins,
not when there is misunderstanding about words,
but when silence is not understood.
- Henry David Thoreau

The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy.
- John Galsworthy

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.
- Henry David Thoreau

Human subtlety will never devise an invention
more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature,
because in her inventions nothing is lacking,
and nothing is superfluous.
- Leonardo da Vinci

All that is valuable in human society
depends upon the opportunity for development
accorded the individual.
- Albert Einstein

One of the oldest human needs is having someone
to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.
- Margaret Mead

The effort to understand the universe is one
of the very few things that lifts human life
a little above the level of farce,
and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
- Steven Weinberg

Seriousness is a sickness; your sense of humor
makes you more human, more humble.
The sense of humor - according to me -
is one of the most essential parts of religiousness.
- Osho

I adore the human experience
- Jewel

There comes a pause, for human strength will not endure
to dance without cessation;
and everyone must reach the point at length of absolute prostration.
- Lewis Carroll

Sometimes our light goes out but
is blown into flame by another human being.
Each of us owes deepest thanks
to those who have rekindled this light.
- Albert Schweitzer

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
- Robert A. Heinlein

I claim that human mind or human society
is not divided into watertight compartments
called social, political and religious.
All act and react upon one another.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary.
It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body.
It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
- Winston Churchill

There is no hope of joy except in human relations.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I am a plain ordinary magnificent creation of God,
just like every other plain ordinary
mountain, ocean, tree, animal, and human.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Let freedom reign. The sun never set
on so glorious a human achievement.
- Nelson Mandela

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Today is Your Day to Dance Lightly with Life.  It Really Is.
      - Jonathan Lockwood Huie