Your Questions About Gardening

GardenersCardiff answers:

“If there were no God, it would have been necessary to invent him.” – Voltaire

“Dogs never bite me. Just humans.” – Marilyn Monroe

“Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed.” – Abraham Lincoln

“It is human nature to think wisely and act foolishly” – Anatole France

“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.” – Dale Carnegie

“We need more understanding of human nature, because the only real danger that exists is man himself . . . We know nothing of man, far too little. His psyche should be studied because we are the origin of all coming evil.” – Carl Gustav Jung

“Men become old, but they never become good” – Oscar Wilde

“There is nothing that can be changed more completely than human nature when the job is taken in hand early enough.” – George Bernard Shaw

“The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.” – William James

“No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on the grounds that it was human nature.” – A. A. Milne

“Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.” – Jane Austen

“Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without” – Confucius

“You don’t really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around – and why his parents will always wave back.” – William D. Tammeus

“I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.” – Stephen Hawking

“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” – William James

“Race hate isn’t human nature; race hate is the abandonment of human nature.” – Orson Welles

“There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.” – Alexander Hamilton

GardenersCardiff answers:

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view–until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

“There are just some kind of men who – who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.”

“I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year.”

“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

“The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

“I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.”

GardenersCardiff answers:

The edition of the book in my library is the Warner Books paperback edition published in 1988. It is to that edition that I shall be referring.

NOTES: Regarding QUOTE 1, there are a number of places in the novel when Scout listens to abuse because Atticus is defending Tom Robinson. I have selected the instance closest in time to the explanation Atticus provides in QUOTE 2a below. Regarding all of the QUOTES below, I have included exchanges so that the context is clearer. If you wish, you may simply use the text you prefer.

___QUOTE 1: CHAPTER 9, p.77 (first pages of Chapter 9) — Cecil Jacobs teases Scout about her father’s defending ni_ gers. Scout asks Attucus about what Cecil Jabobs meant.

__[Scout as narrator] “…My fists were clenched and I was ready to let fly. Atticus had promised me he would wear me out if he ever heard of me fighting any more; I was far too old and too big for such childish things, and the sooner I learned to hold in, the better off everybody would be. I soon forgot. Cecil Jacobs made me forget. He had announced in the schoolyard the day before that Scout Finch’s daddy defended ni_ gers. I denied it, but told Jem…”
__[Scout] “Do you defend ni_ gers, Atticus?…”
__[Atticus] “Of course I do. Don’t say ni_ ger, Scout. That’s common.”
__[Scout] “‘s what everybody at school says….Do all lawyers defend n-Ne_ groes, Atticus?”
__[Atticus] “Of course they do, Scout.”
__[Scout] “Then why did Cecil say you defended ni_ gers? He made it sound like you were runnin‘ a still.”

____QUOTE 2a: CHAPTER 9, pp. 77-78 (first pages of Chapter 9 and immediately after Scout’s question in QUOTE 1 above) — Atticus is speaking to Scout.

__[Atticus] “…I’m simply defending a N_ gro—his name’s Tom Robinson. He lives in that little settlement beyond the town dump. He’s a member of Calpurnia’s church, and Cal knows his family well. She says they’re clean-living folks. Scout, you aren’t old enough to understand some things yet, but there’s been some high talk around town to the effect that I shouldn’t do much about defending this man. It’s a peculiar case—it won’t come to trial until summer session. John Taylor was kind enough to give us a postponement…”
__[Scout] “If you shouldn’t be defendin‘ him, then why are you doin’ it?”
__[Atticus] “For a number of reasons…The main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again.”
__[Scout] “You mean if you didn’t defend that man, Jem and me wouldn’t have to mind you any more?….Why?”
__[Atticus] “Because I could never ask you to mind me again. Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one’s mine, I guess. You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will: you just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ‘em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change… it’s a good one, even if it does resist learning.”

____QUOTE 2b: CHAPTER 11, p. 108 (within the first 10 pages of Chapter 11) — Mrs. Dubose has insulted Atticus for defending ni_ gers; and Jem becomes so angry that he tears up her garden. When Atticus comes home, he tells Jem to return to Mrs. Dubose’s. Scout asks Atticus about his defending Tom Robinson and Atticus replies.

__[Atticus] “Scout…when summer comes you’ll have to keep your head about far worse things… it’s not fair for you and Jem, I know that, but sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down—well, all I can say is, when you and Jem are grown, maybe you’ll look back on this with some compassion and some feeling that I didn’t let you down. This case, Tom Robinson’s case, is something that goes to the essence of a man’s conscience—Scout, I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man.”
__[Scout] “Atticus, you must be wrong…most folks seem to think they’re right and you’re wrong…”
__[Atticus] “They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions…but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with my with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

Good luck!