„There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature.“

„Stepping out of their proper sphere and arrogating to themselves an authority to which they have no claim, professed teachers of spiritual truths long presumed to deny the truths of the natural sciences. But now professed teachers of the natural sciences, stepping in turn out of their proper sphere and arrogating to themselves an authority to which they have no claim, presume to deny spiritual truths.“

—  Henry George American economist 1839 - 1897

Conclusion : The Moral of this Examination
A Perplexed Philosopher (1892)
Contexto: Stepping out of their proper sphere and arrogating to themselves an authority to which they have no claim, professed teachers of spiritual truths long presumed to deny the truths of the natural sciences. But now professed teachers of the natural sciences, stepping in turn out of their proper sphere and arrogating to themselves an authority to which they have no claim, presume to deny spiritual truths. And there are many, who having discarded an authority often perverted by the influence of dominant wrong, have in its place accepted another authority which in its blank materialism affords as efficient a means for stilling conscience and defending selfish greed as any perversion of religious truth.
Mr. Spencer is the foremost representative of this authority. Widely regarded as the scientific philosopher; eulogized by his admirers as the greatest of all philosophers — as the man who has cleared and illuminated the field of philosophy by bringing into it the exact methods of science — he carries to the common mind the weight of the marvelous scientific achievements of our time as applied to the most momentous of problems. The effect is to impress it with a vague belief that modern science has proved the idea of God to be an ignorant superstition and the hope of a future life a vain delusion.

„Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.“

—  Ralph Waldo Emerson American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803 - 1882

History
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Essays, First Series
Variante: Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.

„When people attempt to rebel against the iron logic of Nature, they come into conflict with the very same principles to which they owe their existence as human beings. Their actions against Nature must lead to their own downfall.“

—  Adolf Hitler Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party 1889 - 1945

„To legislation… the Puritans resorted. Instead of guiding, they repressed, and thus pitted themselves against the unconquerable impulses of human nature. Believing that nature to be depraved, they felt themselves logically warranted in putting it in irons. But they failed; and their failure ought to be a warning to their successors.“

—  John Tyndall British scientist 1820 - 1893

New Fragments (1892)
Contexto: To legislation... the Puritans resorted. Instead of guiding, they repressed, and thus pitted themselves against the unconquerable impulses of human nature. Believing that nature to be depraved, they felt themselves logically warranted in putting it in irons. But they failed; and their failure ought to be a warning to their successors.<!--p.34

„If human nature were unchangeable, as ignorant people still suppose it to be, the situation would indeed be hopeless.“

—  Bertrand Russell logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist 1872 - 1970

Fonte: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 17: Some Prospects: Cheerful and Otherwise

„There are, in fact, as I began to say above, not a few principles which are the special property of mathematics, such principles as are discovered by the common light of nature, require no demonstration, and which concern quantities primarily; then they are applied to other things, so far as the latter have something in common with quantities. Now there are more of these principles in mathematics than in the other theoretical sciences because of that very characteristic of the human understanding which seems to be such from the law of creation, that nothing can be known completely except quantities or by quantities. And so it happens that the conclusions of mathematics are most certain and indubitable.“

—  Johannes Kepler German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer 1571 - 1630

Vol. VIII, p. 148

„Nature offers nothing that can be called this man's rather than another's ; but, under nature, everything belongs to all — that is, they have authority to claim it for themselves.“

—  Baruch Spinoza Dutch philosopher 1632 - 1677

Fonte: Political Treatise (1677), Ch. 2, Of Natural Right
Contexto: Nature offers nothing that can be called this man's rather than another's; but, under nature, everything belongs to all — that is, they have authority to claim it for themselves. But, under dominion, where it is by common law determined what belongs to this man, and what to that, he is called just who has a constant will to render to every man his own, but he, unjust who strives, on the contrary, to make his own that which belongs to another.

„Political realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature.“

—  Hans Morgenthau, livro Politics Among Nations

Six Principles of Political Realism http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/morg6.htm, § 1.
Politics Among Nations (1948)
Contexto: Political realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature. In order to improve society it is first necessary to understand the laws by which society lives. The operation of these laws being impervious to our preferences, men will challenge them only at the risk of failure.
Realism, believing as it does in the objectivity of the laws of politics, must also believe in the possibility of developing a rational theory that reflects, however imperfectly and one-sidedly, these objective laws. It believes also, then, in the possibility of distinguishing in politics between truth and opinion — between what is true objectively and rationally, supported by evidence and illuminated by reason, and what is only a subjective judgment, divorced from the facts as they are and informed by prejudice and wishful thinking.

„The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.“

—  William James American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist 1842 - 1910

„Our thesis now is that the Portuguese seafarers and scientists of the 15th and 16th centuries made an important contribution to the rise of modern science by unintentionally undermining the belief in scientific authorities and by strengthening the confidence in an empirical, natural, historical method.“

—  Reijer Hooykaas Dutch historian 1906 - 1994

"The Portuguese Discoveries and the Rise of Modern Science," 1983

„Reason may be employed in two ways to establish a point: firstly, for the purpose of furnishing sufficient proof of some principle, as in natural science, where sufficient proof can be brought to show that the movement of the heavens is always of uniform velocity. Reason is employed in another way, not as furnishing a sufficient proof of a principle, but as confirming an already established principle, by showing the congruity of its results, as in astrology the theory of eccentrics and epicycles is considered as established, because thereby the sensible appearances of the heavenly movements can be explained; not, however, as if this proof were sufficient, forasmuch as some other theory might explain them.“

—  Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica

I, q. 32, art. 1, reply obj. 2
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)

„The text is really a comment on the limited nature of human language. Such language must by nature be diverse in its attempts to describe that which is One and finally indescribable.“

—  Anantanand Rambachan Hindu studies scholar 1951

Fonte: The Nature and Authority of Scripture (1995), p. 20
Contexto: The famous Rgveda text, "One is the Truth, the sages speak of it differently" (1.64.46), is often employed to explain away doctrinal differences as merely semantic ones. The point of this text, as its context makes quite clear, is not really to dismiss the significance of the different ways in which we speak of the One or to see these ways as equally valid. The text is really a comment on the limited nature of human language. Such language must by nature be diverse in its attempts to describe that which is One and finally indescribable. The text, however, is widely cited in ways that seem to make interreligious dialogue redundant.

„The specific media my change, but the principles of human nature have remained fairly constant over the millenia.“

—  Randal Marlin Canadian academic 1938

Fonte: Propaganda & The Ethics Of Persuasion (2002), Chapter One, Why Study Propaganda?, p. 15

„Our reliance on naturalism, then, is not an assumption decided in advance, but a result of experience—the experience of men like Darwin and Laplace who found that the only way forward was to posit natural rather than supernatural explanations. Because of this success, and the recurrent failure of supernaturalism to explain anything about the universe, naturalism is now taken for granted as the guiding principle of science.“

—  Jerry Coyne, livro Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Fonte: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 92

„Political ideological systems are based on conceptions of the natural life process. They may further or hinder the natural life process. They themselves, however, do not function at the roots of the social process. They may be democratic; in that case they further the natural human life process. They may be authoritarian and dictatorial; in that case they are its deadly enemy.“

—  Wilhelm Reich, livro The Mass Psychology of Fascism

The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Ch. 10 : Work Democracy

„It is a cruel proof of the want of generosity in human nature, that an affection too utterly self-sacrificing always meets with an evil return.“

—  Letitia Elizabeth Landon English poet and novelist 1802 - 1838

The Monthly Magazine

„Caring passionately about something isn't against nature, and it isn't against human nature. It's what we're here to do.“

—  Annie Dillard American writer 1945

„And that is what the Constitution is all about -- providing freedom from abuse by those in authority. Anyone who says the American Constitution is obsolete just because social and economic conditions have changed does not understand the real genius of the Constitution. It was designed to control something which has not changed and will not change - namely, human nature.“

—  W. Cleon Skousen ex FBI agent, conservative United States author and faith-based political theorist 1913 - 2006

The 5,000 Year Leap (1981)

„We do not need to be able to say what “human nature” is in order to be able to say that some training is “against human nature.”“

—  Paul Goodman, livro Growing Up Absurd

Fonte: Growing Up Absurd (1956), p. 6.