Human Nature Quotes and Sayings - Quotes about Human Nature (5)

Human Nature Quotes and Sayings (5)
Quotes about Human Nature
by Jonathan Lockwood Huie

In many ways, it is easier to be a good giver than a good receiver.
The giver chooses the gift and the timing.
More important, societal and religious traditions
tend to elevate the status of giver and lower the status of receiver.
When the Bible (Acts 20:32-35) speaks of it being
more blessed to give than to receive,
I believe that a better translation might be
"take" rather than "receive," as the context
of that passage is "coveting."
Certainly there is nothing blessed about coveting,
stealing, begging, or demanding,
however the skill of graciously receiving a freely offered gift
is another matter entirely.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Loneliness is not what it seems.
One does not feel lonely because one is alone,
but because of a feeling of lack -
a feeling that something is missing.
Loneliness is essentially independent
of how many other humans are around.
It has much more to do with one's self-esteem -
one's sense of inherent worth.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Be clear that expectations are demands.
Demanding that life turn out the way we prefer
is a sure path to disappointment and suffering.
Happiness lies in having no expectations,
and accepting life as it comes.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Stress is always waiting
just outside your door
like a vicious wild-dog.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Happiness is a figment of the imagination.
Imagine happiness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is a constant opponent,
and an overpowering adversary if attacked directly.
The successful and happy ones dance lightly with life -
a parry here, a feint there - always engaged,
but never in the direct line of life's heaviest blows.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is a journey. It is not a race to test
who can finish first or who can end up with the most loot.
Rather, life is best enjoyed as a meander -
watching the view to left and right - above and below -
as the days slowly move past in dress review.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life cannot be lived fully or joyfully if
our thoughts are focused on regretting the past,
preoccupied with anticipating the future,
or lost in the mind-fog of unconscious habitual behavior.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is unlimited.
Your world expands with the generosity, compassion,
inventiveness, and service that you contribute.
Money that is spent or given away returns multiplied.
The more love that is given, the more love returns.
The more a helping hand is given, the more hands
are strengthened and empowered to help.
We can help each other to all be winners.
We can all have food, and jobs, and love, and happiness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Always question WHY you are doing something.
Is it a free-will gift or an obligation?
That which is done out of a feeling of obligation
is unworkable as a substitute for a gift.
Obligation creates a feeling of resentment on your part,
and evokes resentment rather than gratitude
on the part of the recipient.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

One cannot have a mind that is empty of all thoughts,
but one can have a mind that is content with
whatever thoughts fill it at the moment.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When one gets angry, it is always angry AT someone -
perhaps a friend or spouse, perhaps a stranger,
perhaps the nameless "they" - "those people at the bank wronged me,"
perhaps God, or perhaps oneself.
In any case, when one gets angry,
they want to find someone to be "responsible" for what happened.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

People sort themselves into groups
of happy people and unhappy people
through two different, but complementary mechanisms,
influence and affinity.
I influence those around me
with my emotional state, either happy or unhappy.
At the same time, I feel an affinity
for others who are like me in some way -
in this case by sharing my emotional outlook on life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Not everyone is always going to like what you do.
Your job application, your book proposal,
your offer of marriage is going to
get rejected sometimes - perhaps often.
Your boss, your spouse, even the person
behind you in the supermarket checkout line
is occasionally going to think that you are doing it all wrong.
Don't take it personally.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Identify your assumptions (what you believe).
Question how you feel when you hold those assumptions.
Visualize holding different assumptions.
Ask yourself how it feels to hold a different world-view.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Important ideas can come from unexpected places.
We tend to label people - Genius, Idiot,
Socialist, Regressive, Wingnut, Revolutionary, Terrorist.
But it is helpful to remind ourselves to be open
to good ideas - whatever their source.
It is equally important to avoid accepting any idea
merely because we respect that person's
other ideas or accomplishments.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Most unhappiness comes from resisting life.
Occasionally, you have such a strong commitment
to changing the world order that it is worth
struggling against the flow of life.
But don't live your life as if each minor happening
were a matter of life and death.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The "stories" we choose to tell about our past
are never what a video camera would have recorded.
We can tell a sad story or a happy story,
and neither story is either
more accurate or "better" than the other story.
The difference is that one story causes us to suffer,
while the other brings us joy. I choose joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I am but a grain of sand on the beach of life.
My footprints in the sands of time soon wash away.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

For everything observed or experienced,
each of us creates a "story" - not sometimes, but always.
A "story" is the fiction a person tells themselves
about what has happened or is happening.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I recognize that the person I was in my past
is not the person I am today.
That person did the very best they could,
given the knowledge, emotions, and prior experience
they had to draw upon at the time.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is about more than today, and more than yourself.
What will your legacy be?
What will your great-grandchildren be told about you?
Creating a legacy does not have to be a burden,
it can be your joy and can create
your satisfaction with living each day.
What kind of world do you want to leave your great-grandchildren?
What can you do today to help create that world?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I Dance with a Light Heart.
I play with life, laugh with life,
dance lightly with life,
and smile at the riddles of life,
knowing that life's only true lessons are writ small in the margin.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Living in fear of anything is a terrible waste
of what could be a great life.
If you live in fear of losing your job,
either you fear the embarrassment of being jobless,
or you fear the loss of material goods -
house, car, and such.
If you live in fear of losing your stuff and money,
it is clear that they own you.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Essentially all suffering is the result of...
1. Comparing what we have (or don't have) today
... with what we had yesterday.
2. Comparing what we fear we might have (or not have) tomorrow)
... with what we have today.
3. Comparing what we have (or don't have) with what others have.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is a fine line between perseverance and insanity.
At what point have you tried your best,
and it's time to do something different?
It's a balance - a paradox.
If you get in the habit of giving up
as soon as something gets difficult,
your life won't work,
but if you keep tilting at windmills -
madly trying the same thing again and again,
your life also won't work.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

From the way most people live,
one would never guess that humans are beings of free will.
Repetition can be a choice, but often it isn't.
The athlete or pianist who practices the same routine
day after day, year after year, has their eye on a goal.
The unending repetition is a conscious choice
in the pursuit of a life dream.
But what about the sameness of most lives?
Observe the morning commute, the after-work drink,
the Sunday football game or religious service -
how many of those people are consciously following their dream,
training their mind, body, and spirit through that daily repetition?
And how many are mindlessly slogging through each day
out of habit and boredom?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Everyone has an opinion on many subjects
and is ready to share those opinions -
labeling them as "truth."
Sometimes it is relatively easy
to filter out these opinions.
Upon hearing an ad for the latest
weight-loss powder on late-night TV,
our skepticism leaps to our defense.
However, if we have heard the same opinion for years
from our parents, friends,
government officials, or religious leaders,
we are more likely to believe without questioning
than to raise our filter of skepticism
and ask the hard questions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

During his training, a baseball player strives
to make each swing better than the last.
The repetition of a faulty swing would be worse than useless.
It would ingrain bad habits.
The same is true of emotional responses.
If we allow ourselves to continue to have the same angry responses,
we just entrench our anger habit.
But if we strive - through consciousness, visualization, and coaching -
to moderate our anger response,
over time, we can train ourselves to respond
to events as we choose - without anger.
You can't magically be free from anger tomorrow,
but you can put yourself on your own training program
that will reduce the frequency and intensity
of your anger response day by day, year by year.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We are composed of self-contradictions.
Each of us is loving in some moments - hateful in others.
Patient and calm sometimes - harried by urgency at others.
Understanding - and self-absorbed.
Reassuring - and sarcastic.
Generous - and greedy.
Trusting - and jealous.
Comforting - and snappish.
Original - and stuck in a rut.
Thankful - and needy.
Forgiving - and vengeful.
Nurturing ourself - and stuffing ourself with fast food.
Honoring our bodies - and overstressing.
Being Joyful - and Suffering.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Life is magnificent - just as it comes.
Life has no need for fancy clothes, or lipstick.
Life is no pig.
Our life is the greatest gift of all creation.
When we are unhappy with life -
when we are shocked by the stock market,
or dismayed by our choice of political candidates,
let us not lash out in anger.
But also, let us not try to pretty up life
with some lipstick and some party clothes.
See life clearly - no rose colored glasses -
and then CHOOSE to love life.
CHOOSE to be happy, be joyful, be grateful,
be forgiving of everyone and of every act
we believe has hurt us.
Life just "IS."
We get to CHOOSE our relationship with life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

It really does matter when we tell even the slightest untruth.
Even something as well intentioned as
telling someone their ill-finished
hair style looks wonderful will backfire -
certainly karmically, and usually practically.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Quotations are slippery things, really.
A brief sentence or phrase, often repeated -
always completely out of its original context -
and sometimes not an accurate representation
of the author's original words, let alone his intentions.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Give your time and efforts freely or not at all.
When you are tempted to say,
"Oh, if I have to, I'll skip my golf game
and watch my daughter play soccer," don't do it.
Either generate the heart-felt emotion
to make the free-will gift,
"I'd love to watch your game today, Sandy,"
or the honesty to decline the request gracefully.
Martyrdom doesn't create happiness
for any of the parties involved.
An honest, "No" is preferable to a coerced "Yes."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We fear the unknown,
perhaps more than we fear anything else,
and yet we are, at heart, adventurers.
We seek to expand our realm of knowledge and dominion.
Perhaps we are attempting to overcome and crush the unknown,
but our duel with the unknown is such a one-sided clash
that we must know in our hearts
that our adventure is no more than a child's game.
Perhaps we hope that the unknown
is like the darkness of a cave
and that the brief light of our adventurer's candle
can illuminate the entire cave.
Nonetheless, the path of the adventurer
is a path of joy, while the way of fear is one of suffering.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We are all "neighbors."
Our world has gotten too small for us to be anything else.
We can no longer have "us" and "them" - friends and enemies.
A person from Iraq, or Russia, or Columbia is
no more a stranger or enemy than a person from across town.
A few people everywhere are troublemakers.
Every religion provokes a few people to become extremists.
Do we need police around the globe? Unfortunately, we always will.
Do we need war? Does that question even deserve an answer?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Fear of the unknown is
the greatest fear of humankind,
and death the greatest unknown.
Acknowledging these doubts and the fears
is a powerful beginning.
It is liberating to say,
"Yes, I don't know, and yes, I am afraid."
Beyond that, the path to happiness
lies in living in the moment -
enjoying what you are doing today.
You don't need a reason to be happy,
just a choice.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Have a talk with your mind
(it really is something separate from yourself).
Lay down the law.
"My life begins TODAY.
I am like a newborn.
I have what I have today;
I have my fingers, my toes,
some people in my life,
some material and financial state.
Yesterday is only a dream -
perhaps a nightmare,
perhaps a cherished memory,
but only a dream - nothing more.
I will make all decisions and actions based solely
on what I have today as a starting point."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Liar is a strong word, but we are all liars.
Not in the sense of intentionally speaking untruths,
but in the sense of carrying so much historical
and emotional baggage that none of us is believable.
To lie means to speak an untruth,
and virtually everything that comes out of our mouth
is an untruth - an opinion, an assumption,
a point-of-view based on our past.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Most people think that anger is an instinctive response,
and that some people were just born with the temperament
to get angrier faster than others.
That statement is only half right.
Anger is an instinctive response.
We respond to an affront with anger essentially instantaneously -
much too quickly for conscious thought to be called upon.
But the instinct of the anger response
can be trained through conscious repetition,
visualization, and coaching.
Visualization is seeing the event
we desire to master in our mind's eye.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Anger and Danger are intimately intertwined.
An angry person is a dangerous person,
whether that person crosses our path
or whether the angry person is ourself.
To complete the anger/danger cycle,
whenever we feel threatened -
when we believe we are in danger -
we tend to exhibit anger as well as fear.
We look for someone to blame for the dangerous situation,
and direct our anger toward them.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Expectation (demand) is always a cause of suffering.
Rather than "expecting" to be repaid
when we "loan" something to someone,
consider the "loans" we make to be forward payments
for the "loans" we received from
our ancestors, nurturers and others.
Request that any "loan" that we make be repaid FORWARD,
when the recipient is able,
and then completely forget about the "loan."
It is no longer our business if, when, or how
the "loan" is repaid - or is not repaid.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Anger is something that each one of us has experienced -
some of us only occasionally, some almost daily.
Can we eliminate all anger? Probably not.
We will always have expectations,
and those expectations will often be unmet.
Disappointment is the principle cause of anger.
When we are disappointed, we look for someone to blame.
Declaring someone to be at fault is the nature of anger.
Anger is always directed at someone -
possibly toward God or the non-specific "they,"
but at some animate entity.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Personally, I have fond memories of playing
on slippery rocks on the banks of a rushing river
as a child and hitchhiking in college.
To those who say, "But times are different now,"
I reply that statistically life is much safer now
than in the 1950s, with regard to both crime and accidents.
What has changed is our attitudes.
In those years, a broken leg from falling off a swing
or the back of a tractor was just part of childhood -
an excuse for gathering autographs.
Today that broken leg would be a source
of outrage and probably lawsuits.
I long for a simpler time when life was taken less seriously.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Are you feeling stressed and upset?
If so, you are worrying about tomorrow.
Events that have already occurred may cause you regret,
but they only appear to cause worry.
If you just lost your job, you are not worrying about losing your job -
that already happened.
You are worrying about paying your bills and finding a new job.
Those are worries about tomorrow.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What if happiness were found in the serenity of simple pleasures.
What if we didn't need the newest gizmo... the highest high?
What if happiness is in the air we breathe...
slowly, deeply, and consciously?
What if happiness is one fresh grape, savored with gratitude?
What if happiness is in our oneness with all creation?
What if happiness is about enjoying life exactly as it comes to us -
without chasing after it?
What if happiness is something we CHOOSE...
regardless of our circumstances?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

While you can and should keep your composure and happiness
regardless of circumstances - regardless of your friends,
family and co-workers - regardless of gossip, sarcasm, and negativity.
Nonetheless, life is much easier and more pleasant
when you spend as much time as possible
in the company of enthusiastic positive people -
not necessarily those who agree with you,
but those who respect your right to your point of view.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Regrets and their cousins, resentments,
are a huge cause of self-inflicted suffering.
Sometimes it takes years of psychotherapy
to gain freedom from regrets about what you did or did not do,
and freedom from resentment over what others did or did not do.
Sometimes it takes a lifetime of self-talk to remember
to put the past in the past where it belongs.
However, sometimes a simple symbolic act can help immeasurably
to grant ourselves freedom from the past.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Great relationships begin with two people who are each
self confident and who come to each other with the openness
to see and accept the other as a unique and wonderful person.
If there is true love and an alignment of fundamental values,
choose to join your life with your new partner
and vow never to criticize their nature -
the essence that makes them uniquely themselves.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Pause to appreciate the beauty around you.
Whether rainbow or butterfly,
mountain or tree, painting or poem -
whether crafted by nature or by a human hand -
beauty adds a magical element to life
that surpasses logic and science.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

What do you take for granted?
It is human nature to take everything for granted -
our companions, our homes,
our electricity, our TVs and computers.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Use heroes as a springboard for inquiry
into the identity and nature of admirably human qualities.
Do not judge heroes -
neither to put them unquestioningly on a pedestal
nor to unkindly probe their flaws.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Human Quotes and Sayings

The future has nothing in common with the past -
except natural laws and human nature.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Mostly, it is human to dislike surprises -
often with great intensity.
Be open to new ways;
sometimes newness just knocks on our door;
welcome it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The human spirit ranges across a truly amazing
diversity of experiences and emotions -
the highest peaks and the lowest valleys.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

NO ONE is really different;
each of us is actually a member of the human race.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Whenever I look at a human face,
I say to myself: "That Is The Face Of God."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Pay It Forward.
Gift future generations in proportion to your gratitude.
The nature of life is that we pay forward
our biological creation and nurture.
Our parents gift us with life and nurture,
and we gift our children with life and nurture.
While this much is essential to continued human existence,
choose to take "pay it forward" farther - much farther.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

My own gratitude list begins with health, family, friends,
and the beauty around me - from the butterflies and rainbows,
to the dolphins, to the birds, to the works produced by the human hand.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Being angry is as close as a human being
can come to experiencing hell on earth.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Whenever I look at a human face today,
I will say to myself: "That Is The Face Of God."
Whenever I look in the mirror today,
I will say to myself: "That Is The Face Of God."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I am a plain ordinary magnificent creation of God,
just like every other plain ordinary
mountain, ocean, tree, animal, and human.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Recall a recent time when someone was strongly critical
of your opinions (perhaps your political or religious beliefs).
Now, put yourself in their shoes - with compassion.
Try to understand and appreciate their point-of-view -
not to change your own opinions,
but to celebrate all our human differences - in peace.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

AUM, the most primordial human sound -
and the sound most connected to Spirit,
is pronounced in these three parts:
A (as in mama) - a throat sound
that vibrates in the abdomen - signifies waking.
U (as in who) - a tongue sound
that vibrates in the chest - signifies dreaming.
M (as in mama) - a lip sound
that vibrates in the head - signifies sleeping.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Our honorable and worthy ancestors knew that the world was flat,
motionless, and the center of the universe.
They knew the human body could not withstand
the forces of traveling faster than 19 mph.
They knew that the way to salvation was
exorcising witches and slaying non-believers.
They knew that it was a mortal sin to marry
someone of a different skin color.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Nature Quotes and Sayings

The fog unrolls itself to be a prayer rug to the mountains.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Pay attention to rainbows, and snowflakes,
butterflies and the songs of birds,
the crash of storm-driven waves
and the mirror-surface of a quiet pond.
Let the depths of nature become a part of your innermost being.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Flowers are Nature's messengers -
reminders of an unspeakable beauty.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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Quotes and Sayings (by Jonathan)

Human Nature Quotes and Sayings (5)
Quotes about Human Nature
by Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Quotes and Sayings
(by Jonathan)