Howard Lindsay Quotes

We can't legislate human nature.

Against human nature one cannot legislate.

Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved.

I think we present extreme aspects of human behavior and hopefully get at times, messages across or bring issues to the table or as we so often say, shed light into the dark crevices of human nature.

England has always been disinclined to accept human nature.

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.

You can find inspiration for man's behaviour wherever you look.

It may be a mistake, that man, in a state of nature, is more disposed to cruelty than courtesy.

Human nature fascinates me.

A theme I'm obsessed with is the tension between human nature and the frameworks designed to curb the worst and promote the best of it.

Revolutions are all based on the false idea that humans and their nature can be changed.

You can't change laws without first changing human nature.' -Nurse Greta You can't change human nature without first changing the law.' -Nurse Yvonne

You cannot legislate an attitude.

I still ponder what gets in people's minds and souls, why they do the things they do.

Laws matter. With effective implementation and enforcement, good laws can nudge forward positive changes in social and cultural mores.

Man is an extraordinarily fixed and limited animal whose nature is absolutely constant. It is only by tradition and organisation that anything decent can be got out of him.

Nature is seldom in the wrong, custom always.

Human beings are better and lazier than their rules and instructions.

Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good, and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different.

Laws that do not embody public opinion can never be enforced.

Human behavior is timeless.

I think that sexuality is the part of human beings that is closest to nature. And nature is dangerous somehow, yes, if you put nature against civilisation, nature is definitely a threat.

I discovered that Human Nature was not, as I had always supposed, a fixed and unalterable entity, that wars are not caused by a natural urge in men to fight, that ownership of land and factories is not necessarily the natural reward of greater wisdom and energy.

Considering how bad men are, it is wonderful how well they behave.

The conceptions which any nation or individual entertains of the God of its popular worship may be inferred from their own actions and opinions, which are the subjects of their approbation among their fellow-men.