Anatomy is destiny.
Contrary to what some parents might believe or hope for, children are not born a blank slate. Rather, they come into the world with predetermined abilities, proclivities and temperaments that nurturing parents may be able to foster or modify, but can rarely reverse.
Some of us were born to hate and some of us were born to be great.
You can't expect a poodle to guard your house the way a Doberman pinscher does, and you can't expect a Doberman pinscher to jump in your lap the way a poodle does. Some people are just animals of a certain nature, and they are always going to have certain impulses that motivate them.
Schwartz's research suggests something important: we can stretch our personalities, but only up to a point. Our inborn temperaments influence us, regardless of the lives we lead. A sizeable part of who we are is ordained by our genes, by our brains, by our nervous systems. And yet the elasticity that Schwartz found in some of the high-reactive teens also suggests the converse: we have free will and can use it to shape our personalities.
Leadership cannot be taught. Either you're a leader by the time you're 12 years old, or you never will be.
There is no thing we cannot overcome Say not thy evil instinct is inherited, Or that some trait inborn makes thy whole life forlorn, And calls down punishment that is not merited.
I look like this for a reason. I was born this way. It was God-given.
The most important thing to realize is we're not blank slates at birth. We don't start off with nothing in our heads, and then get imprinted entirely by our environment. There's something in our heads on the day we're born, and then we grow up and make choices.
A true freak cannot be made. A true freak must be born.
It is futile to go against human nature.
Eisenhower refused. See {632894} for how the Japanese, in contrast forced women into military brothels.
The individual disposition is already a factor in childhood; it is innate, and not acquired in the course of a life.
Some people are genetically programmed to be difficult.
Children will grow up substantially what they are by nature--and only that.
A person can't help their birth.