We have in past been forced into reluctant change by weather, calamity, and plague. Now the pressure comes from our biologic success as a species. We… - John Steinbeck

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Engraved portrait of John Steinbeck, facing left

We have in past been forced into reluctant change by weather, calamity, and plague. Now the pressure comes from our biologic success as a species. We have overcome all enemies but ourselves.

English
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About John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (27 February 1902 – 20 December 1968) was an American writer. A recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, his works include the novella Of Mice and Men (1937) and the novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 1940), both of which examine the lives of the working class and migrant workers during the Great Depression.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, McFadden Publications, Inc.; no photographer credited; photo likely the work of Sonya Noskowiak, as Steinbeck is wearing the same clothes from her 1935 studio session that produced the work shown here: https://www.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.2006.74 (Public domain / CC0)

Also Known As

Birth Name: Jeffery Ernest Steinbeck
Alternative Names: John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. John Ernst Steinbeck John Ernest Steinbeck John Ernst Steinbeck Jr Steinbeck

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Additional quotes by John Steinbeck

Men don't get knocked out, or I mean they can fight back against big things. What kills them is erosion; they get nudged into failure. They get slowly scared.[...]It's slow. It rots out your guts.

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"Look now — in all of history men have been taught that killing of men is an evil thing not to be countenanced. Any man who kills must be destroyed because this is a great sin, maybe the worst we know. And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, "use it well, use it wisely." We put no checks on him. Go out and kill as many of a certain kind or classification of your brothers as you can. And we will reward you for it because it is a violation of your early training."

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