American - Critic | July 4, 1905 - November 5, 1975
It is possible that the contemplation of cruelty will not make us humane but cruel; that the reiteration of the badness of our spiritual condition will make us consent to it.
Lionel Trilling
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Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.
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Youth is a time when we find the books we give up but do not get over.
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The poet may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather.
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Probably it is impossible for humor to be ever a revolutionary weapon. Candide can do little more than generate irony.
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Being a Jew is like walking in the wind or swimming: you are touched at all points and conscious everywhere.
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Every neurosis is a primitive form of legal proceeding in which the accused carries on the prosecution, imposes judgment and executes the sentence: all to the end that someone else should not perform the same process.
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There is no connection between the political ideas of our educated class and the deep places of the imagination.
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