Human Affairs Quotes

In human affairs the solution to every problem contains within it the seeds of a new problem.

We all resort to the ad hominem from time to time: in human affairs, it is difficult to avoid it, and probably not desirable. After all, our opponents are human. The proper use of an ad hominem argument, however, still requires evidence to back it up.

One conversation centered on the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.

All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.

We were in the presence of a new factor in human affairs. We possessed powers which were irresistible ... our outlook on the future was transformed.

There is not, in the whole compass of human affairs, so noble a spectacle as that which is displayed in the progress of jurisprudence; where we may contemplate the cautious and unwearied exertion of a succession of wise men, through a long course of ages, withdrawing every case, as it arises, from the dangerous power of discretion, and subjecting it to inflexible rules.

Human affairs are governed by such a variety of whimsical circumstances, that we should always be prepared to stand the shock of that disappointment which the best concerted measures are constantly subject to.

Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.

If there is one safe generalization in human affairs, it is that revolutions always destroy themselves.

The twenty-first century will be regarded by future historians as a century in which religion replaced ideology as the prime animating and destructive force in human affairs.

Mysticism joins and unites; reason divides and separates. People crave belonging more than understanding. Hence the prominent role of mysticism, and the limited role of reason in human affairs.

The nature of man is intricate. The objects of society are of the greatest complexity and therefore no simple disposition or direction of power can be suitable either to man's nature or to the quality of his affairs.

The greatest blessings of mankind are the gifts of God … —the priesthood and the imperial authority. The priesthood ministers to things divine; the imperial authority is set over, and shows diligence in, things human …. Both adorn the life of man.

No perfect solution is, not merely in practice, but in principle, possible in human affairs, and any determined attempt to produce it is likely to lead to suffering, disillusionment and failure.

Parties from principle, especially abstract, speculative principle, are known only to modern times, and are, perhaps, the most extraordinary and unaccountable phenomenon, that has yet appeared in human affairs.

There are certain seasons in the course of human affairs, when Genius, Virtue, and Patriotism, seems to nod over the vices of the times.

Violence is never a solution in my plays, just as ultimately violence is never a solution in human affairs.

Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.

Fate rules the affairs of men, with no recognizable order.

It’s very hard to predict the weather. Predicting human affairs is very difficult.

This policy of supplying by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, both private and public.

It yet remains a problem to be solved in human affairs, whether any free government can be permanent when the public worship of God, and the support of religion constitute no part of the policy or duty of the state in any assignable shape. The future experience of Christendom, and chiefly of the American states, must settle this problem as yet new in the history of the world, abundant as it has been in experiments in the theory of government.

The press is new and certainly a powerful agent in human affairs. It will change societies; but it is difficult to conceive how, by rendering men indocile and presumptuous, it can change them for the better.... It has inspired ignorance with presumption, so that those who cannot be governed by reason are no longer awed by authority.

It is an adherent condition of human affairs that no intention, however sincere, of protecting the interests of others, can make it safe or salutary to tie up their own hands.

All human affairs are ever in a state of flux and cannot stand still, either there will be improvement or decline.