Human Nature

His Holiness the Dalai Lama spoke of human nature and its basic goodness in his book with Howard C. Cutler M.D. called, The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World (Doubleday, c2009):

The basic goodness of human beings doesn't rule out that there will be these destructive acts like we saw on 9/11. We can't expect that every human being will live in accordance with these principles reflecting our basic human nature. After all, all our spiritual teachers failed to turn the entirety of humanity into something good. The Buddha failed. Jesus Christ failed. But then to go on to say that since all these great masters in the past failed, we will fail too, so, well then, why bother? That approach is also foolish. We should do what we can.