“Of course, not everything old is beautiful, any more than everything black, or everything white, or everything young. But the notion that old means ugly is every bit as harmful as the prejudice that black is ugly.”

Time is an Artist (1978) Epilogue : Old is Beautiful http://taimur.sarangi.info/text/kaufmann_time.htm
Context: Of course, not everything old is beautiful, any more than everything black, or everything white, or everything young. But the notion that old means ugly is every bit as harmful as the prejudice that black is ugly. In one way it is even more pernicious.
The notion that only what is new and young is beautiful poisons our relationship to the past and to our own future. It keeps us from understanding our roots and the greatest works of our culture and other cultures. It also makes us dread what lies ahead of us and leads many to shirk reality.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Of course, not everything old is beautiful, any more than everything black, or everything white, or everything young. B…" by Walter Kaufmann?
Walter Kaufmann photo
Walter Kaufmann 7
American philosopher 1921–1980

Related quotes

Henryk Sienkiewicz photo

“She never can grow ugly, changed, or old to me. I accept everything, agree to everything, and worship her as she is.”

11 November
Without Dogma (1891)
Context: I love her now beyond all words; she sees it, — she reads it in my eyes, and in my whole manner towards her. When I succeed in cheering her up, or call forth her smiles, I am beside myself with delight. There is at present in my love something of the attachment of the faithful servant who loves his mistress. I often feel as if I ought to humble myself before her, as if my proper place were at her feet. She never can grow ugly, changed, or old to me. I accept everything, agree to everything, and worship her as she is.

Alice Walker photo
Théophile Gautier photo

“There is nothing truly beautiful but that which can never be of any use whatsoever; everything useful is ugly.”

Il n'y a de vraiment beau que ce qui ne peut servir à rien; tout ce qui est utile est laid.
Mademoiselle de Maupin (1835; Paris: Charpentier, 1866), Préface, p. 21; Burton Rascoe (trans.) Mademoiselle de Maupin, and One of Cleopatra's Nights (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1925) p. xxv.

Oscar Wilde photo
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux photo

“Gold gives an appearance of beauty even to ugliness:
But with poverty everything becomes frightful.”

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636–1711) French poet and critic

L'or même à la laideur donne un teint de beauté :
Mais tout devient affreux avec la pauvreté.
Satire 8, l. 209
Satires (1716)

Cassandra Clare photo
Gillian Flynn photo
Lucian photo

Related topics