“Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.”

— Salman Rushdie

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Salman Rushdie 122

British Indian novelist and essayist 1947

Flann O'Brien (1911–1966) Irish writer

Source: "At Swim-Two-Birds" (1939), P. 9.

“Man is a conscious, rational thinker and a supra-conscious creator genius.”

Pitirim Sorokin (1889–1968) American sociologist

Pitirim Sorokin (1964) The basic trends of our times http://books.google.nl/books?id=SXrO4qCbmMIC, p. 39

“The materials in these still standard books never betray the author’s original purpose in amassing them: to demonstrate that Christianity is rationally superior to Hinduism.”

John Muir (indologist) (1810–1882) Scottish Sanskrit scholar and Indologist

R.F.Young, quoted from Goel, S. R. (2016). History of Hindu-Christian encounters, AD 304 to 1996. Chapter 10. ISBN 9788185990354 https://web.archive.org/web/20120501043412/http://voiceofdharma.org/books/hhce/
About John Muir

“A society has many pasts from which it chooses those that go into the creation of its history. The choice is made by those in authority—the authority being of various kinds—although occasionally the voice of others may be heard.”

Romila Thapar (1931) Indian historian

The Past as Present : Forging Contemporary Identities Through History

“One must always paint in opposition to nature, and to one’s own 'mood'. To let oneself go is a weakness, a sort of hysterics. If you are full of red, choose a green or a blue; if you feel like yellow, choose grey or black. In this continuous opposition lies the entire secret of plastic creation… To create a great work of art demands self-mortification.”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Quote in his article 'Elementarism', as cited in De Stijl – Van Doesburg Issue, January 1932, pp. 17–19
1926 – 1931

“But one cannot weep for the entire world. It is beyond human strength. One must choose.”

Jean Anouilh (1910–1987) French playwright

On ne peut pleurer pour le monde entier : C'est au-delà des forces humaines. Il faut choisir !
Cecile or The School for Fathers http://books.google.com/books?id=MeWmNXPF2T0C&q="But+one+cannot+weep+for+the+entire+world+it+is+beyond+human+strength+One+must+choose"&pg=PA186#v=onepage (1954)