“Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically.”
D.H. Lawrence book Lady Chatterley's Lover
Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)
“To joke in the face of danger is the supreme politeness, a delicate refusal to cast oneself as a tragic hero.”
Speaking to the Académie française in 1903, as quoted by John Lahr in "Fighting and Writing" in The New Yorker (12 November 2007) http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/theatre/2007/11/12/071112crth_theatre_lahr
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Edmond Rostand20
French writer 1868–1918Related quotes
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Quoted in: The Artist, Vol. 93 (1978) p. 5.
1970s
“Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.”
Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism
Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer
Interviewed by J. Rentilly, "The Best Jokes Are Dangerous" http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2002/09/16vonnegut1.html, McSweeny's (September 2002) <br class="br">Various interviews
“To throw oneself into strange teachings is quite dangerous.”
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
The word translated "strange teachings" means literally another end [of textile]. There are two different understandings about "strange teachings" or heretical. One possible understanding is "strange from the authentic teaching", another understanding is simply different subjects, just as two authors or two scholastic fields literature and politics.
Source: The Analects, Chapter II
“State socialism is the refusal to others and the abandonment for oneself of all true human rights.”
Auberon Herbert (1838–1906) British politician
Under it a man would have no rights over his own property, over his own labor, over his own amusements, over his own home and family — in a word, either over himself, or all that naturally and reasonably belonged to him, but he would have as his compensation (if there were 10,000,000 electors in his country) the one-tenth millionth share in the ownership of all his fellow-men (including himself) and of all that naturally and reasonably belonged to them and not to him.
The Principles of Voluntaryism and Free Life
“The worst thing about loneliness is that it brings one face to face with oneself.”
Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist
Source: No Man's Mistress
“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself”
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer
Variant: A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.