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Wallace Stevens 278
American poet 1879–1955Related quotes
“Our English economists have been living in a fool's paradise.”
Preface To The Second Edition, p. 27-28.
The Theory of Political Economy (1871)
Context: The conclusion to which I am ever more clearly coming is that the only hope of attaining a true system of economics is to fling aside, once and forever, the mazy and preposterous assumptions of the Ricardian school. Our English economists have been living in a fool's paradise. The truth is with the French school, and the sooner we recognize the fact, the better it will be for all the world, except perhaps the few writers who are far too committed to the old erroneous doctrines to allow for renunciation.
“Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places.”
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance
Context: Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.
“Rats in paradise! Rats in paradise!”
Song lyrics, Mutiny (1993), Mutiny in Heaven
“The best paradise is the paradise we are exiled from.”
The Secrets of Ishbar (1996)
"On Telling the Truth" in William and Mary College Monthly (November 1897), VII, p. 53-55
Context: If we assiduously cultivate our powers of exaggeration, perhaps we, too, shall obtain the Paradise of Liars. And there Raphael shall paint for us scores and scores of his manifestly impossible pictures … and Shakespeare will lie to us of fabulous islands far past 'the still-vex'd Bermoothes,' and bring us fresh tales from the coast of Bohemia. For no one will speak the truth there, and we shall all be perfectly happy.
Vol. 1: 'My beautiful One, My Unique!', pp. 130-140
1895 - 1905, Lettres à un Inconnu, 1901 – 1905; Museo Communale, Ascona
In a 2009 interview
Quoted in "Soleimani, a General Who Became Iran Icon by Targeting US" https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/01/02/world/middleeast/ap-ml-iran-qassem-soleimani.html. The Associated Press
“Paradise is here, my good man. God, give me no other paradise!”
Freedom and Death (1956)
Context: God, what is all this talk put out by the popes? Paradise is here, my good man. God, give me no other paradise!