Better Nature Quotes

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle—field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Anyone can identify with those moments in life where circumstances or people inform us that we've strayed from the path of our better nature and intentions. We know what that's like, and we resist it - so as not to feel like we're bad people.

Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves an essential spiritual and ethical question: Are we the kind of people who take everything for ourselves and leave nothing for others, or do the angels of our better nature still live? I believe the angels are still alive.

Music wasn't made to make us wise, but better natured.

Raillery is a mode of speaking in favor of one's wit at the expense of one's better nature.

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'm not surprised that Spielberg was able to capture the heroism of Schindler; so many of his movies are about the better part of mankind.

Never appeal to a man's 'better nature.' He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.

Though involvement in music and the arts can't cure all the ills of society, I do believe that the inspiration they provide has the potential to help us reflect, at times, on the better angels of our natures.

I thought children were pure and innocent, and that was inherently better.