Man must be disciplined, for he is by nature raw and wild..
—Immanuel Kant
Human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions, which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature, but which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind.
—Immanuel Kant
War seems to be ingrained in human nature, and even to be regarded as something noble to which man is inspired by his love of honor, without selfish motives.
—Immanuel Kant
The schematicism by which our understanding deals with the phenomenal world … is a skill so deeply hidden in the human soul that we shall hardly guess the secret trick that Nature here employs.
—Immanuel Kant
Great men are always of a nature originally melancholy.
—Aristotle
Nature does nothing uselessly.
—Aristotle
It is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.
—Aristotle
All men by nature desire to know.
—Aristotle
If we assume man has been corrupted by an artificial civilization, what is the natural state? the state of nature from which he has been removed? imagine, wandering up and down the forest without industry, without speech, and without home.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence is but a word of degrees.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
In spite of all opposition, from nature, from the world, from all the powers of darkness, still fight the good fight of faith, and lay hold on eternal life!
—John Wesley
Allowing that the whole creation now groaneth together under the sin of man, our comfort is, it will not always groan: God will arise and maintain His own cause; and the whole creation shall then be delivered both from moral and natural corruption.
—John Wesley
How astonishingly little do we know of God!—How small a part of his nature do we know of his essential attributes!
—John Wesley
Help me O God, enable me to turn to thee with my whole heart and to serve thee in newness of nature in Christ.
—William Wilberforce
I have sadly neglected the cultivation of my natural talents. Let me now attend to it, imploring the divine blessing. I will form a plan of study and exercise, having a special reference to the faults of my intellect, whether natural or superinduced.
—William Wilberforce
The life given us, by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.
—Cicero
All the works of God in nature and grace, in creation and re-creation, and in the world and history enable us to know something of the incomprehensible and lovely nature of God.
—Herman Bavinck
I remind you that it is characteristic of the natural man to keep himself so busy with unimportant trifles that he is able to avoid the settling of the most important matters relating to life & existence.
—AW Tozer
To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. Tis much better to do a little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing.
—Isaac Newton
Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.
—Isaac Newton
The renewed nature of a saint restrains him from sin. The spirit lusts against the flesh, so that you cannot do the thing you would (Gal. 5:17).
—John Flavel
The gracious soul hates not only this or that particular sin, but the whole kind—everything that is sinful. True hatred is of the whole nature or kind. I hate every false way (Ps. 119:104).
—John Flavel
The Holy Spirit can take a man whose mind is blind to the truth of God, whose will is at enmity with God, whose affections are corrupt and vile, and transform that man, impart to him a new nature, so that he thinks God’s thoughts, love what God loves, and hate what God hates.
—R. A. Torrey
There is certainly nothing that will bring greater comfort and consolation to the believer than to understand the nature of prophecy.
—Martyn Lloyd-Jones
By Nature man is not what he ought to be; only through a transforming process does he arrive at truth.
—Georg Hegel
By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.
—Thomas Aquinas
Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend’s success.
—Oscar Wilde
Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.
—Blaise Pascal
To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.
—Charles Dickens
Nothing could be more pleasant than to live in solitude, enjoy the spectacle of nature, and occasionally read some book.
—Nikolai Gogol