T. E. Hulme Quotes

That man is a creature who needs order yet yearns for change is the creative contradiction at the heart of the laws which structure his conformity and define his deviancy.

It's human nature to be curious about people, and to be more curious about young people than old people. We want to cheer something on at the same time we want to tear it down. That's just so normal.

It is essential that we realize once and for all that man is much more of a sex creature than a moral creature. The former is inherent, the other is grafted on.

You should know as much as you can about the human species if you have a hand in designing human society.

One of the best ways of understanding human nature is to study children. After all, if we want understand who we are, we should find out how we got to be that way.

In the evolution of mankind there has always been a certain degree of social coherence.

Nature makes only dumb animals. We owe the fools to society.

It will, of course, be understood that directly or indirectly, soon or late, every advance in the sciences of human nature will contribute to our success in controlling human nature and changing it to the advantage of the common weal.

We are born princes and the civilizing process makes us frogs.

The true science and study of man is man.

Ideas for my first experiments in human aggression came from discussions we had in a research seminar about William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies.'

Human Nature is the only science of man; and yet has been hitherto the most neglected.

Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.

My opinions about human nature are shared by many psychologists, linguists, and biologists, not to mention philosophers and scholars going back centuries.

We can't legislate human nature.

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

All laws are an attempt to domesticate the natural ferocity of the species.

I think... the history of civilization is an attempt to codify, classify and categorize aspects of human nature that hardly lend themselves to that process.

The philosophers, who have inquired into the foundations of society, have all felt the necessity of going back to a state of nature; but not one of them has got there.

The Social Sciences will concern themselves with the rationalization of social control... the control of human behavior.

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.

One of my pleasures is observing people's behavior and pointing out the inconsistencies that we all sort of have at the center of our lives.

Public opinion is the atmosphere of society, without which the forces of the individual would collapse, and all the institutions of society fly into atoms.

The intelligence which has converted the brother of the wolf into the faithful guardian of the flock ought to be able to do something towards curbing the instincts of savagery in civilized men.

Civilization largely consists in hiding human nature. When the barbarian learns to hide it we account him enlightened.