It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility.

Human nature is accused of much more selfishness than it really has ; a thousand kindly emotions break in upon and redeem our daily and interested life.

but I know that I have an easier time loving humankind than I do loving particular human beings.

It is my nature to join in love, not hate.

One always has hope for human nature

There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism

Man is naturally more disposed to beneficent than selfish actions. This we learn even from the history of savages. The domestic virtues have something in them so inviting and genial, and the public virtues of the citizen something so grand and inspiring, that even he who is barely uncorrupted, is seldom able to resist their charm.

Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.

Ah! Here we be! 'Human beings most readily love others of their species who, alpha, do services for them; beta, flatter them; gamma, refrain from reproaching them for errors; and delta, cultivate good nature and ease of manner.'

Love of humanity … belongs undeniably to the conditions of human welfare; but if it consists in mutual assistance in the striving for happiness and wellbeing, and if this happiness and wellbeing consist above all – as is likewise undeniable – in the satisfaction of our inborn natural drives and the development of our natural powers … [then] the most fertile soil for love of humanity will evidently not be the belief that human nature is thoroughly degenerate and worthless, but rather in the view according to which we regard it [viz., human nature] as the essentially and generally acceptable foundation and condition of all our being, feeling, thinking and striving…

Love is better than hate, because it brings harmony instead of conflict into the desires of the persons concerned. Two people between whom there is love succeed or fail together, but when two people hate each other the success of either is the failure of the other.

Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes.

How good a society does human nature permit? How good a human nature does society permit?

To like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness.