H. P. Lovecraft Quotes

Our animal origins are constantly lurking behind, even if they are filtered through complicated social evolution.

We are all ruled in what we do by impulses; and these impulses are so organized that our actions in general serve for our self preservation and that of the race.

My point of view is that men are basically animals, and I'm okay with that.

Man as a pure animal does not exist.

Man is a predatory animal, and this aspect of his nature is nowhere better suited by environment than in the world of politics.

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.

I think the default position of humans is to be terrible, and we have to train it out of our children. That's just part of survival, right? Predator animals don't survive by being nice; humans are basically predator animals.

There is certainly a longstanding idea within western culture that civilization is only a thin veneer. As soon as something happens, say a war or a natural disaster or an epidemic like we're going through right now, the worst comes out in each of us.

Evolutionary psychology is one of four sciences that are bringing human nature back into the picture.

It's weird... people say they're not like apes. Now how do you explain football then?

Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same rules as nature.

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

Certain gorillas are more evolved than certain human beings I know.

Evolution is an indispensable component of any satisfying explanation of our psychology.

Some people would claim that things like love, joy and beauty belong to a different category from science and can't be described in scientific terms, but I think they can now be explained by the theory of evolution.

I believe that evolution is a true account of nature, but I think we should try to escape it or transcend it in our society.

I can't think of anyone who is up on evolutionary psychology and related areas who is deluded enough to be called a utopian.

I really knew I wanted to be Adam, because Adam was the first man. Ant I chose because, if there's a nuclear explosion, the ants will survive.

There is a great deal of human nature in man.

I have an odd theory on happiness, and it bothers people. My general theory is that happiness is a reward for an animal doing what it should be doing. So if a horse runs, it feels happy. Or if you are too thin, you can't be happy, because evolution wants you to be tense and anxious, trying to wake up in the morning looking for food.

Man is a competitive creature, and the seeds of conflict are built deep into our genes. We fought each other on the savannah and only survived against great odds by organising ourselves into groups which would have had a common purpose, giving morale and fortitude.

If we compare the present time with former ages, we find that the same tendencies and desires have at all times governed states and peoples.

Many people, whether religious believers or not, were repelled by the idea that we humans are nothing more special than a species of mammal directly descended from the higher primates, and that we achieved that status by winning a long struggle, shockingly red, as Tennyson famously put it, “in tooth and claw

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.

Science explained people, but could not understand them.