Malheureux qui craint de rentrer
Dans la retraite de son âme!
Le coeur qui cherche a s'ignorer
Redoute un censeur qui le blâme.
Les Quatre saisons, ou les Géorgiques françoises, poëme (1763), Chant IV.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 154.
“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.”
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985)
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Neil Postman 106
American writer and academic 1931–2003Related quotes
Foreign Policy Congress in Milan, June 1938. Quoted in "The decline of the intellectual" - Page 189 - by Thomas Molnar - 1994.
“Oh! Death would take so much from us, how should we not fear?”
From De Profundis
Context: But we of the rich plain of sweet airs and pure,
Oh! Death would take so much from us, how should we not fear?
2000s, To Live Beyond Our Fear (2007)
Context: Barack and I talked long and hard about this decision. You know, this wasn’t an easy decision for us, because we’ve got two beautiful little girls, and we have a wonderful life, and everything was going fine. And there was nothing that would have been more disruptive than a decision to run for President of the United States.
And as more people talk to us about it, I mean the question came up again and again. What people were most concerned about: they were afraid. It was fear. Fear, again, raising its ugly head, in one of the most important decisions we would make. Fear; fear of everything. Fear that we might lose. Fear that he might get hurt. Fear that this would be ugly. Fear that it would hurt our family. Fear.
But you know, the reason why I said yes was because I was tired of being afraid. I am tired of living in a country where every decision that we’ve made over the last ten years wasn’t for something, but it was because people told us we had to fear something. We had to fear people who looked different from us. Fear people who believed in things that were different from us. Fear of one another right here in our own backyards.
I am so tired of fear. And I don’t want my girls to live in a country, in a world, based on fear.
“Fear makes strangers of people who would be friends.”
Don't Fall Off the Mountain http://books.google.com/books?id=f6yc35pUhEwC&q=%22The+more+I+traveled+the+more+I+realized+that+fear+makes+strangers+of+people+who+should+be+friends%22&pg=PA160#v=onepage (1970)
Variant: The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.
“He who feared that he would not succeed sat still.”
Sedit qui timuit ne non succederet.
Book I, epistle xvii, line 37
Epistles (c. 20 BC and 14 BC)
“I used to fear that taking medication would change my personality; now I fear that it won’t.”
Humor in Psychotherapy (2007)
1770s, A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)
Context: Let those flatter who fear; it is not an American art. To give praise which is not due might be well from the venal, but would ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of human nature. They know, and will therefore say, that kings are the servants, not the proprietors of the people.