PEOPLE DON'T CHANGE. ASK THE DICTIONARY

I have always held—don’t ask me why—that human beings do not change. This is a pessimistic view, I know, but experience has taught me to be rather dim about people’s characters, including my own.

It so happens that language agrees with me. Our languages have preserved, for centuries, some wonderfully unflattering observations about human nature. Take the English saying: You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy. In other words, habits, beliefs, and ways of thinking die hard; we may change our surroundings, but we do not necessarily change ourselves.

Spanish comes to my aid with an even older saying: Muchos entran en la corte y no la corte en ellos. Many enter the court, but the court does not enter them. The meaning is much the same: people may enter a new environment without allowing that environment to alter their essential nature.

I have found these citations:

— “You can take the boy out of the country, she thought, but…” Fantasy and Science Fiction, November–December 2016 (COCA), US.

— “Muchos entran en la corte y no la corte en ellos.” Pedro Vallés, Libro de refranes, 1549, Spain.

So perhaps I am not quite as pessimistic as I thought. I am merely agreeing with five centuries of Spanish and English wisdom.