Gen. Edward Cummings, in Pt. 1, Ch. 11
The Naked and the Dead (1948)
“Education makes a greater difference between man and man, than nature has made between man and brute.”
Letter to Abigail Adams (29 October 1775), published Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife, Vol. 1 (1841), ed. Charles Francis Adams, p. 72
1770s
Context: Human nature with all its infirmities and depravation is still capable of great things. It is capable of attaining to degrees of wisdom and goodness, which we have reason to believe, appear as respectable in the estimation of superior intelligences. Education makes a greater difference between man and man, than nature has made between man and brute. The virtues and powers to which men may be trained, by early education and constant discipline, are truly sublime and astonishing. Newton and Locke are examples of the deep sagacity which may be acquired by long habits of thinking and study.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "Education makes a greater difference between man and man, than nature has made between man and brute." by John Adams?
John Adams 202
2nd President of the United States 1735–1826Related quotes
Vol. 4, letter 17.
Sir Charles Grandison (1753–1754)
Thomas Henry Huxley
(1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist
Source: 1860s, Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), Ch.2, p. 110
Source: Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (1951), p. 151
Context: There is thus a certain plausibility to Nietzsche's doctrine, though it is dynamite. He maintains in effect that the gulf separating Plato from the average man is greater than the cleft between the average man and a chimpanzee.
H.L. Mencken
(1880–1956) American journalist and writer
Prejudices, Fourth Series, ch. 11 (1924)
1920s
“It is a more rational belief that man may become a brute than that a brute may become a man;”
David Brewster
(1781–1868) British astronomer and mathematician
The facts and fancies of Mr. Darwin (1862)
Context: It is a more rational belief that man may become a brute than that a brute may become a man; and it is an easier faith that plants and animals may dwindle down into an elemental atom, than that this atom should embrace in its organization, and evolve, all the noble forms of vegetable, animal, and intellectual life.
“The new media are not bridges between man and nature: they are nature.”
Marshall McLuhan
(1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …
Source: 1960s, Counterblast (1969), p. 14
Abraham Isaac Kook
book
Orot
Orot Yisrael, Ch. 5, article 10, p. 156; as quoted in "The Distinction between Jews and Gentiles in Torah" by Rabbi David Bar Chaim http://www.daatemet.org.il/articles/article.cfm?article_id=119&lang=en
Variant:
The dissimilarity between the Jewish soul, in all its independence, inner desires, longings, character and standing vis-à-vis the soul of all the Gentiles — on all of their levels — is greater and deeper than the difference between the soul of a man and the soul of an animal, for the difference in the latter case is one of quantity, while the difference in the first case is one of essential quality
As quoted in "A British Synagogue Bans a Famous Hassidic Text!" (February 2010) by Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel http://rabbimichaelsamuel.com/2010/02/2744/#_ftn1.
Orot