“Anyone who says human nature can’t be changed is out of his head. To make it stick, he’s got to define human nature—and he can’t.”

“You can’t study human nature in books. Books is a hindrance more than anything else. p. 25”

“Conservatives believe that human nature is what makes us imperfectible. Liberals believe that human nature can be changed and perfected.”

“Just what makes that little old ant
Think he’ll move that rubber tree plant?
Anyone knows an ant, can’t
Move a rubber tree plant.
But he’s got high hopes, he’s got high hopes
He’s got high apple pie, in the sky hopes.”

“We have been told over and over that "you can't change human nature", but the study of emic realities shows quite the contrary, that almost anything can become "human nature" if society defines it as such.”

“The most human thing about anyone is a thing he learns and … and earns. It’s a thing he can’t have when he’s very young; if he gets it at all, he gets it after a long search and a deep conviction. After that it’s truly part of him as long as he lives.”

“The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove.”

“You can’t get out of getting old. You can’t get out of having a relationship change.”

“Anyone who says he knows God's intention is showing a lot of very human ego.”

“Someplace between apathy and anarchy is the stance of the thinking human being; he does embrace a cause, he does take a position, and can’t allow it to become business as usual. Humanity is our business.”