“We do not need to be able to say what “human nature” is in order to be able to say that some training is “against human nature.””
Source: Growing Up Absurd (1956), p. 6.
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Paul Goodman 47
American novelist, playwright, poet and psychotherapist 1911–1972Related quotes

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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?