A Quote by Lionel Trilling

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

Quote Topics

Adult Biological Cannot Child Core Culture Exercise Hard Judge Later Necessity Reach Reason Reserves Resist Revise Right Somewhere Sooner Sooner Or Later Stubborn Urgency Which Will

Quote Author

Lionel Trilling
American - Critic
July 4, 1905 - November 5, 1975

War is a biological necessity of the first importance, a regulative element in the life of mankind which cannot be dispensed with. ... But it is not only a biological law but a moral obligation and, as such, an indispensable factor in civilization.

Friedrich von Bernhardi

Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see. From a biological point of view it is inconceivable that any culture will forget that it needs to reproduce itself. But it is quite possible for a culture to exist without a social idea of children. Unlike infancy, childhood is a social artifact, not a biological category.

Neil Postman

Evolution explains our biological evolution, but human beings are very unique creatures. As the Dobzhansky said, all animals are unique; humans are the uniquest. And that uniqueness of being human, language, art, culture, our dependency on culture for survival, comes from the combination of traditional biological evolution.

Donald Johanson

If reincarnation is a useful biological idea it is certain that somewhere in the universe it will happen.

Kary Mullis

Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness and envy, and to be rude, aggressive or violent, they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture - especially toward those in need. This inbuilt ethical sense is a biological feature of our species.

Jerome Kagan

When you talk to a human in 2035, you'll be talking to someone that's a combination of biological and non-biological intelligence.

Ray Kurzweil

I don't believe in a biological apocalypse, but I think there is stormy biological weather ahead as the human population continues to grow.

Richard Preston

The identification of the genes which determine biological phenomena and the study of the control they exert on these phenomena has proven to be the most successful approach to a detailed understanding of the mechanism of biological processes.

Baruj Benacerraf

The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity – it’s envy.

Yann Martel

From spending my decades thinking about behavior and the biological influences on it, I'm convinced by now free will is what we call the biology that hasn't been discovered yet. It's just another way of stating that we're biological organisms determined by the physical laws of the universe.

Robert Sapolsky

One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents.

Colin Powell

Man's biological weakness is the condition of human culture.

Erich Fromm

I'd love to go somewhere warm, somewhere near the beach and somewhere with a cool culture. It could be Hawaii, Cuba, South America - anywhere that has a cool culture and a beautiful climate.

Steve Nash

There's going to be biological differences between the genders. There's going to be biological differences between two women or two men. There's biological differences between all of us. My concern is, why are we so concerned about it?