Part 2: Metaphysical Rebellion
The Rebel (1951)
Context: The ancients, even though they believed in destiny, believed primarily in nature, in which they participated wholeheartedly. To rebel against nature amounted to rebelling against oneself. It was butting one's head against a wall.
“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.”
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Adolf Hitler 265
Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi … 1889–1945Related quotes
"The Commercial Motive" Christian Century 40 (Feb 22, 1923)
XVII. That the World is by nature Eternal.
On the Gods and the Cosmos
New Fragments (1892)
Context: 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
the happening world (15) “Equal and Opposite”
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)
Source: Ethics and Education (1912), The Biology of Child Nature, p. 135
1860s, Cooper Union speech (1860)
Context: Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling — that sentiment — by breaking up the political organization which rallies around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has been formed into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if you could, how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box, into some other channel?
Interview with Mark Shapiro (2000)