Section 93
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice
Context: People whose lives are barren and insecure seem to show a greater willingness to obey than people who are self-sufficient and self-confident. To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief of the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure. They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility.
“It is silly to call fat people “gravitationally challenged”, a self-righteous fetishism of language which is no more than a symptom of political frustration.”
Guardian (October 27, 1992)
1990s
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Terry Eagleton 57
British writer, academic and educator 1943Related quotes
“You know, even more than playing chess, I dislike dealing with self-righteous chess players.”
Source: Michaelmas (1977), Chapter 7 (p. 98)
"American Fat" (p.46)
So This Is Depravity (1980)
“There is nothing more silly than a silly laugh.”
Nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est.
XXXIX, line 16
Carmina
Source: Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1963), p. 368
1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Context: I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
Source: Systems Engineering Tools, (1965), p. vii; as cited in: Joseph E. Kasser (2010) " Seven systems engineering myths and the corresponding realities http://www.synergio.nl/media/59286/7_myths_of_se.pdf"
As quoted in "Acne, alcohol … and non-stop sex" by Lynda Lee-Potter in Daily Mail http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=229872&in_page_id=1879 (6 September 2003)
Source: Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910), Ch. 16
Context: I have come to believe … that the stage may do more than teach, that much of our current moral instruction will not endure the test of being cast into a lifelike mold, and when presented in dramatic form will reveal itself as platitudinous and effete. That which may have sounded like righteous teaching when it was remote and wordy, will be challenged afresh when it is obliged to simulate life itself.