“Somewhere in the child, somewhere in the adult, there is a hard, irreducible, stubborn core of biological urgency, and biological necessity, and biological reason that culture cannot reach and that reserves the right, which sooner or later it will exercise, to judge the culture and resist and revise it.”

—  Lionel Trilling

"Freud: Within and Beyond Culture," Beyond Culture (1965)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Somewhere in the child, somewhere in the adult, there is a hard, irreducible, stubborn core of biological urgency, and …" by Lionel Trilling?
Lionel Trilling photo
Lionel Trilling30
American academic 1905–1975

Related quotes

Erich Fromm photo

“Man’s biological weakness is the condition of human culture.”

Erich Fromm book Escape from Freedom

Source: Escape from Freedom (1941), Ch. 2

Margaret Mead photo

“Fathers are biological necessities, but social accidents.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Attributed in Two Hugs for Survival (1982) by Harold A. Minden (1982), p. 22
1980s

Edward O. Wilson photo

“Cultural evolution is Lamarckian and very fast, whereas biological evolution is Darwinian and usually very slow.”

Edward O. Wilson book On Human Nature

On Human Nature (1978), Ch.4 Emergence

Oskar R. Lange photo

“Human needs, although originally derived from biological necessity, are thus a result of the existence of society and are conditioned by the stage of development which society has reached.”

Oskar R. Lange (1904–1965) Polish economist

"The Subject Matter of Political Economy: Elementary Concepts"

Edward O. Wilson photo

“Because it is… far slower than Lamarckian evolution, biological evolution is always quickly outrun by cultural change.”

Edward O. Wilson book On Human Nature

On Human Nature (1978), Ch.4 Emergence

Jerzy Vetulani photo

“The expression of aggression is conditioned both biologically and culturally and it can be learned. On the other hand, proper upbringing can completely eliminate aggressive behavior, but it must be remembered that biological conditions remain present and aggression can easily be restored.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Wojnar, Anna (April 2011): O mózgu interdyscyplinarnie. Alma Mater”, 134–135, pp. 24–25 (in Polish).

Ervin László photo

“Independent of biological need fulfillment and the reproductive needs of the species, cultures] satisfy not bodily needs, but values. Values define cultural man's need for rationality, meaningfulness in emotional experience, richness of imagination, and depth of faith. All cultures respond to such supra-biological values. But in what form they do so depends on the specific kind of values people happen to have.”

Ervin László (1932) Hungarian musician and philosopher

Source: The systems view of the world (1996), p. 76.

Lewis Mumford photo

“The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity.”

Lewis Mumford book The City in History

Source: The City in History (1961), Ch. 18

“Life continued, the wheel turned, the earth moved, and even death—that delightful biological necessity—was an aspect of life.”

Avram Davidson book Masters of the Maze

Source: Masters of the Maze (1965), Chapter 4 (p. 57)

Related topics