
“When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.”
"On The Spirit of Controversy," The Atlas (30 January 1830), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (1902-1904)
Letter to Robert Bridges (24 October 1883)
Letters, etc
Context: You do not mean by mystery what a Catholic does. You mean an interesting uncertainty: the uncertainty ceasing, interest ceases also... But a Catholic by mystery means an incomprehensible certainty: without certainty, without formulation there is no interest;... the clearer the formulation the greater the interest.
“When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.”
"On The Spirit of Controversy," The Atlas (30 January 1830), reprinted in The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (1902-1904)
“There are persons who, when they cease to shock us, cease to interest us.”
No. 20.
Aphorisms (1930)
The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Four, People Changing
Cory Doctorow on the Open Rights Group (Time: 3:25) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Cory_Doctorow_on_the_Open_Rights_Group.webm
Context: As someone once said, "Just because you're not interested in politics does not mean that politics won't be interested in you." And staying away from politics either because you think tech will make laws irrelevant or because there's no good way to influence laws just opens the field for people who don't cherish either of those illusions to make things very bad indeed.
Source: 1970s-1980s, The Limits Of Organization (1974), Chapter 2, Organization And Information, p. 34
"On Ambiguity" in Rational Meaning and Supplementary Essays (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1997).
The Fantastic Imagination (1893)
Context: "Suppose my child ask me what the fairytale means, what am I to say?"
If you do not know what it means, what is easier than to say so? If you do see a meaning in it, there it is for you to give him. A genuine work of art must mean many things; the truer its art, the more things it will mean. If my drawing, on the other hand, is so far from being a work of art that it needs THIS IS A HORSE written under it, what can it matter that neither you nor your child should know what it means? It is there not so much to convey a meaning as to wake a meaning. If it do not even wake an interest, throw it aside. A meaning may be there, but it is not for you. If, again, you do not know a horse when you see it, the name written under it will not serve you much.