Eleanor Catton Quotes

If you look at life with any honesty and intelligence, it's clear that human nature is dark, vile, selfish, and despondent. But I also see a force in human nature, namely grace, that sometimes works against our natural moral entropy.

Even if my fellow man has proven faithless time after time, I can at least retain a hope that he will improve, pray for him, and think kindly without frustration and disappointment.

I haven't lost faith in human nature and I haven't decided to be less compassionate to strangers.

I think there's good in everybody.

Man's nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been known to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.

Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes, and men grow better as the world grows old.

I see the good in people, and I believe in forgiveness.

...the ultimate dwindling resource in the human arrangement isn’t cheap oil or potable water or even common sense, but mercy.

A little more patience, a little more charity for all, a little more devotion, a little more love; with less bowing down to the past, and a silent ignoring of pretended authority; brave looking forward to the future with more faith in our fellows, and the race will be ripe for a great burst of light and life.

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world.

I'm a big believer in human nature.

I've always thought, and it gets tested at times, that I have a great faith in the fundamental goodness of human beings.

Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.

I'm an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals.

I don't want to tell your story because you're a insensitive, self-centered moron. I've told a lot of stories about young people, and I always feel there's hope.

Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another.

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

When we love like Jesus does, lives change for the better.

God forgives us... who am I not to forgive?

In these times of stress, snark, division and despair, I still suspect that two of the most important features we possess are imagination and a capacity for goodness. Those are qualities for which we will be remembered most fondly.

I've learned never to expect people to be better than they are, but to always have faith that they can be more.

I will overlook bad behavior if I know that people's intentions are good. I have this belief that people really can do good things and that people want to be good.

I've never met a person who does not want a safer world, better medical care and education for their children, and peace with their neighbours. I just don't meet those people. What I meet, over and over again, as I travel around, is that the essential human condition is optimistic - in every one of these places.

I just believe that our most redeeming feature as a species is our capacity for love.

To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.