“ We speak of nature; it is folly; there is no such thing as nature ”
Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889). copy citation
| Author | Mark Twain |
|---|---|
| Source | A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
| Topic | folly |
| Date | 1889 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/86/86-h/86-h.htm |
Context
““Crime!” she exclaimed. "How thou talkest! Crime, forsooth! Man, I am going to pay for him!”
Oh, it was no use to waste sense on her. Training—training is everything; training is all there is to a person. We speak of nature; it is folly; there is no such thing as nature; what we call by that misleading name is merely heredity and training. We have no thoughts of our own, no opinions of our own; they are transmitted to us, trained into us. All that is original in us, and therefore fairly creditable or discreditable to us, can be covered up and hidden by the point of a cambric needle, all the rest being atoms contributed by, and inherited from, a procession of ancestors that stretches back a billion years to the Adam-clam or grasshopper or monkey from whom our race has been so tediously and ostentatiously and unprofitably developed.”
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