“The common belief of the age [the 18th century] that human nature was forever the same referred essentially to the raw biological nature upon which the environment operated.”
Gordon S. Wood The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787.
“What in our history makes you think I’m capable of something like that?”
Roy O’Bannon (Owen Wilson) to Chon Wang (Jackie Chan) in Shanghai Knights according to www.imdb.com
“Although God is said to test people at times, the reason does not seem to be that He needs to find out something about them. Rather they need to find out something about themselves.”
J. Budziszewski "Underground Thomist" Feb. 25, 2019
“A strange strand of eternal pathos runs through dreams which comes from the very loom of life itself. Dreams are, if I may so express it, like life only more so. Dreams, like life, are full of nobility and joy utterly arbitrary and incalculable. We have gratitude, but never certainty.”
G.K. Chesterton, “The Meaning of Dreams,” reprinted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 8 #4 (Jan.-Feb. 2005)
“We must realize that human nature is about the most constant thing in the universe and that the essentials of human relationship do not change.”
Calvin Coolidge, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1925
“An egotist is a man who thinks that if he hadn’t been born, people would have wondered why.”
Dan Post, quoted on https://www.hound-dog-media.com
“It’s funny, he thought. I’m always sure things are going to turn out badly, and, damn it, they usually do.”
Tom Rath's internal monologue in Sloan Wilson The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit
“Maturity is knowing when to be immature"
Greg Hall, not otherwise identified, quoted in a reader-submitted "Thought du Jour" in their contest seeking same, in Globe & Mail Oct. 31, 2002