Quotes of Lionel Trilling - somelinesforyou

“ What marks the artist is his power to shape the material of pain we all have. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ Literature is the human activity that takes the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ Any historian of the literature of the modern age will take virtually for granted the adversary intention, the actually subversive intention, that characterizes modern writing — he will perceive its clear purpose of detaching the reader from the habits of thought and feeling that the larger culture imposes, of giving him a ground and a vantage point from which to judge and condemn, and perhaps revise, the culture that produces him. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ Being a Jew is like walking in the wind or swimming: you are touched at all points and conscious everywhere. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ 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

“ 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

“ The poet may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ The poet is in command of his fantasy, while it is exactly the mark of the neurotic that he is possessed by his fantasy. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ Our culture peculiarly honors the act of blaming, which it takes as the sign of virtue and intellect. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ Literature is the human activity that make the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ The immature artist imitates. Mature artists steal. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ Literature is the human activity that make the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ The immature artist imitates. Mature artists steal. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ Our culture peculiarly honors the act of blaming, which it takes as the sign of virtue and intellect. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ Any historian of the literature of the modern age will take virtually for granted the adversary intention, the actually subversive intention, that characterizes modern writing — he will perceive its clear purpose of detaching the reader from the habits of thought and feeling that the larger culture imposes, of giving him a ground and a vantage point from which to judge and condemn, and perhaps revise, the culture that produces him. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ A theory of the middle class: that it is not to be determined by its financial situation but rather by its relation to government. That is, one could shade down from an actual ruling or governing class to a class hopelessly out of relation to government, thinking of government as beyond its control, of itself as wholly controlled by government… ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ Probably it is impossible for humor to be ever a revolutionary weapon. Candide can do little more than generate irony. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ A theory of the middle class: that it is not to be determined by its financial situation but rather by its relation to government. That is, one could shade down from an actual ruling or governing class to a class hopelessly out of relation to government, thinking of government as beyond its control, of itself as wholly controlled by government… ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ There is no connection between the political ideas of our educated class and the deep places of the imagination. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ The immature artist imitates. The mature artist steals. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ Being a Jew is like walking in the wind or swimming: you are touched at all points and conscious everywhere. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ A theory of the middle class: that it is not to be determined by its financial situation but rather by its relation to government. That is, one could shade down from an actual ruling or governing class to a class hopelessly out of relation to government, thinking of government as beyond its control, of itself as wholly controlled by government… ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian. ”

- Lionel Trilling

“ Any historian of the literature of the modern age will take virtually for granted the adversary intention, the actually subversive intention, that characterizes modern writing — he will perceive its clear purpose of detaching the reader from the habits of thought and feeling that the larger culture imposes, of giving him a ground and a vantage point from which to judge and condemn, and perhaps revise, the culture that produces him. ”

- Lionel Trilling
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