“I interpret contemporary human social behavior to comprise hypertrophic outgrowths of the simpler features of human nature joined together into an irregular mosaic.”
On Human Nature (1978), Ch.4 Emergence
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Edward O. Wilson 83
American biologist 1929Related quotes
“Behind every managerial decision or action are assumptions about human nature and human behavior.”
Source: The Human Side of Enterprise (1960), p. 33

Journals A 126 (March 1836)
1830s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1830s
Context: One could construe the life of man as a great discourse in which the various people represent different parts of speech (the same might apply to states). How many people are just adjectives, interjections, conjunctions, adverbs? How few are substantives, active verbs, how many are copulas? Human relations are like the irregular verbs in a number of languages where nearly all verbs are irregular.
"Our Natural Place", p. 243
Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes (1983)

“That irregular and intimate quality of things made entirely by the human hand.”
Book I, Ch. 3
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927)

“Socialism is humanity's second nature. All politicians do is turn human vice into votes.”
“Can the Incredible Hulk Strike at Socialism?” http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=620 WorldNetDaily.com, September 30, 2011.
2010s, 2011
Source: Philosophy and Real Politics (2008), p. 52.

Source: 1930s, Growing Up in New Guinea (1930), p. 281, as cited in: Lenora Foerstel, Angela Gilliam (1994) Confronting Margaret Mead: Scholarship, Empire, and the South Pacific. p. 84

Academy of Achievement interview (1991)
Context: Why do I see things differently from the way other people see them? Why do I pursue the questions that I pursue, even if others regard them as, as they say, "controversial?" Which merely means that they have a difference of opinion. They see things differently. I am interested both in nature, and in the human side of nature, and how the two can be brought together, and effectively used.

“Powers and Prospects: Reflections on Human Nature and the Social Order.”
London: Pluto, 1996.
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999, Powers and Prospects (1996)