Upton Sinclair Quotes

Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.

What is called an acute knowledge of human nature is mostly nothing but the observer's own weaknesses reflected back from others.

Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage.

We like to believe we are in control of our destinies, even though we never are and we never have been.

I love how 'Game of Thrones' has resonated with so many people around the world. I feel like it has really tapped into our need to hear stories about the human condition, love, death, good, evil... For me, it really is a modern version of the old Greek theatre or cave men sitting around fires telling stories.

Man is the creature that cannot emerge from himself, that knows his fellows only in himself; when he asserts the contrary, he is lying.

Hope was an instinct only the reasoning human mind could kill. An animal never knew despair.

As history confirms, people will change their minds about almost anything, from which god they worship to how they style their hair. But when it comes to existential judgments, human beings in general have an unfalteringly good opinion of themselves and their condition in this world and are steadfastly confident they are not a collection of self-conscious nothings.

Very few live by choice. Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did not always willingly cooperate; and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbor better than his own.

Man is and remains an animal.Here a beast of prey, there a housepet, but always an animal.

They're animals, all right. But why are you so goddam sure that makes us human beings?

Sex and excretion are reminders that anyone's claim to round-the-clock dignity is tenuous. The so-called rational animal has a desperate drive to pair up and moan and writhe.

In the highest sense, we are all creatures of light. And I have a very difficult time talking with people who are cynical about the world. "The world is no damn good, and we're all animals," and that kind of thing. Well, I'm an animal.

The greatness of man is so evident that it is even proved by his wretchedness. For what in animals is nature, we call in man wretchedness--by which we recognize that, his nature being now like that of animals, he has fallen from a better nature which once was his.

I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear, or anything but that vain animal who is so proud of being rational.

Man, however, is the most courageous animal: thereby has he overcome every animal. With sound of triumph has he overcome every pain; human pain, however, is the sorest pain.

We easily forget our faults when no one knows them but ourselves.

What is human behavior, except trying to prove that we're not animals?

What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?

Space-ships and time machines are no escape from the human condition. Let Othello subject Desdemona to a lie-detector test; his jealousy will still blind him to the evidence. Let Oedipus triumph over gravity; he won't triumph over his fate.

We make a goddess of Fortune ... and place her in the highest heaven. But it is not fortune that is exalted and powerful, but we ourselves that are abject and weak.

Animals we are, and animals we remain, and the path to our regeneration and happiness, if there be such a path, lies through our animal nature.

Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears - the glasses, the business suit - that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent. He's weak... he's unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race.

Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions about himself.

Too much of the animal disfigures the civilized human being, too much culture makes a sick animal.