# Paul Goodman - Quotes: 43 - Author page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman ## Books - [Growing Up Absurd](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd.md) — 43 quotes ## Recently added quotes > We certainly have at present the dismal situation that the most imaginative men are directed by a group, the top managers, who are among the least. p. 94 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/we-certainly-have.md) > The ancient dream of man to fly among the stars and go through the could and look down on the lands and seas has degenerated in its realization to the socialized and apathetic behavior of passengers who hardly look out the windows. p. 144 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/the-ancient-dream.md) > To consider powerful souls as if they were a useful public resource is quite foreign to our customs. In a small sense it is undemocratic, for it assumes that some people really know better in a way that must seem arbitrary to most. In a large sense it is certainly democratic, in that it makes the great man serve as a man. p. 153 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/to-consider-powerful.md) > One striking characteristic of modern education is the unanimous disapproval of exploiting the powerful feeling of shame. … Yet in ancient education, e.g. in the Socratic dialogs, this very arousal of shame is a chief device; the teacher greets the hot flush as a capital sign that the youth is educable, he has noble aims. Such a youth has dignity in his very shame. > > The difference seems to be that we cannot offer available opportunities for honor, we do not have them; and therefore we must protect what shreds of dignity the youth has. Since he has no future, if we make him ashamed of his past and present, he is reduced to nothing. In other ages, the community had plenty of chances of honor, and to belong to the community itself was an honor. p. 149 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/one-striking-characteristic.md) > We define boredom as the pain a person feels when he’s doing nothing or something irrelevant, instead of something he wants to do but won’t, can’t, or doesn’t dare. Boredom is acute when he knows the other thing and inhibits his action, e.g., out of politeness, embarrassment, fear of punishment or shame. Boredom is chronic if he has repressed the thought of it and no longer is aware of it. A large part of stupidity is just the chronic boredom, for a person can’t learn, or be intelligent about, what he’s not interested in, when his repressed thoughts are elsewhere. (Another large part of stupidity is stubbornness, unconsciously saying, “I won’t. You can’t make me.”) p. 71 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/we-define-boredom.md) > Naturally, grown-up citizens are concerned about the beatniks and delinquents. … The question is why the grownups do not, more soberly, draw the same conclusions as the youth. Or, since no doubt many people are quite clear about the connection that the structure of society that has becoming increasingly dominant in our country is disastrous to the growth of excellence and manliness, why don’t more people speak up and say so? [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/naturally-grown-up-citizens.md) > It is hard to grow up in a society in which one’s important problems are treated as nonexistent. It is impossible to belong to it, it is hard to fight to change it. p. 36 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/it-is-hard.md) > When the sciences are supreme, average people lose their feeling of causality. p. 144 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/when-the-sciences.md) > Thwarted, or starved, in the important objects proper to young capacities, the boys and young men naturally find or invent deviant objects for themselves. … Their choices and inventions are rarely charming, usually stupid, and often disastrous; we cannot expect average kids to deviate with genius. But on the other hand, the young men who conform to the dominant society become for the most part apathetic, disappointed, cynical and wasted. p. 13 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/thwarted-or-starved.md) > In our truly remarkable an unexampled civil peace, where there are rarely fist fights; where no one is born, is gravely ill, or dies; where meat is eaten but no one sees an animal slaughtered; where scores of millions of cars, trains, elevators, and airplanes go their scheduled way and there is rarely a crash; where an immense production proceeds in orderly efficiency and the shelves are duly clears—and nevertheless none of this come to joy or tragic grief or any other final good—it is not surprising if there are explosions. p. 209 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/in-our-truly.md) > In such an environment there operates an unfortunate natural selection. Since not only the rewards but also the means and opportunities of public activity belong to the organized system, a bright boy will try to get ahead in it. He will do well in school, keep out of trouble, and apply for the right jobs. It would follow from this that the organized system is sparked by a good proportion of the bright boys, and so it is. On the other hand, in sheer self-protection, smart boys who are sensitive, have strong animal spirits or great souls, cannot play that game. There are two alternative possibilities: (1) Either the advantages of the organized system cause them to inhibit their powers, and they turn into cynical pushers or obsessional specialists or timid hard workers that make up the middle status of the system. Or (2) their natural virtues and perhaps alternative training are too strong and they become independents; but as such they are hard put, not so much hard put for money as for means to act; and so they are likely to become bitter, eccentric, etc., and so much the less effective in changing the system they disapprove p. 157 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/in-such-an-environment.md) > During childhood, they played games with fierce intensity, giving themselves as sacrifice to the game, for play was the chief business of growth, finding and making themselves in the world. Now when they are too old merely to play, to what shall they give themselves with fierce intensity? They cannot play for recreation, since they have not been used up. … Since each activity is not interesting to begin with, its value does not deepen and it does not bear much repetition. … In these circumstances, the inevitable tendency is to raise the ante of the compulsive useless activity. p. 42 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/paul-goodman/growing-up-absurd/during-childhood-they.md)