“To make things 'perfectly clear' is reactionary and stupefying. The real is not perfectly clear.”

—  Avital Ronell

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "To make things 'perfectly clear' is reactionary and stupefying. The real is not perfectly clear." by Avital Ronell?
Avital Ronell photo
Avital Ronell 3
American philosopher 1952

Related quotes

“I want to make perfectly clear the act that the world is in the fringe, in the penumbra, of a tremendous Revolution, with a big R.”

Rufus M. Jones (1863–1948) American writer

What Will Get Us Ready (1944)
Context: I want to make perfectly clear the act that the world is in the fringe, in the penumbra, of a tremendous Revolution, with a big R. We have called it a war and the fighting has been with mechanized weapons, but we shall soon be face to face with awesome situations against which weapons are vain things, as ineffective as Canute’s futile attempts to stop the irresistible tides of the ocean. Nothing is ever going to be the same again and we cannot assume our Quakerism is to be unaffected by the euroclydon that is in front of us. The time has passed for “the complacent assumption of an unchanged world.” This situation which I see coming — though I am afraid most Americans are looking forward fondly to a new period of “normalcy” — this situation makes it more urgent than ever to have our Quaker Society inwardly prepared to be a purveyor of light and leading when the crisis comes. The Christian faith of the ages will be tested more severely than in any former Revolution, because it will be confronted with its supreme enemy, a completely economic, materialistic, and mechanistic interpretation of the word and of human life.

Dorothy Parker photo

“I'm never going to accomplish anything; that's perfectly clear to me.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

"The Little Hours" in Here Lies (1939)
Context: I'm never going to accomplish anything; that's perfectly clear to me. I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.

Byron Katie photo

“When I am perfectly clear, what is is what I want.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002)

Helen Oyeyemi photo

“You don’t return people’s smiles—it’s perfectly clear to you that people can smile and smile and still be villains.”

Helen Oyeyemi book Boy, Snow, Bird

Source: Boy, Snow, Bird

Terry Pratchett photo

“Never trust any complicated cocktail that remains perfectly clear until the last ingredient goes in, and then immediately clouds.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

alt.fan.pratchett (22 November 1993) http://www.lspace.org/ftp/words/pqf/pqf
Usenet

Kim Il-sung photo

“Socialism is a human ideal, an inevitable course of historical development, and therefore it is perfectly clear that socialism will rise again in the end.”

Kim Il-sung (1912–1994) President of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

With the century, vol. 7

Winston S. Churchill photo

“Make your minds perfectly clear that if ever you let loose upon us again a general strike, we will loose upon you — another "British Gazette."”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in the House of Commons, July 7, 1926 "Emergency Services" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1926/jul/07/emergency-services#column_2218 ; at this time, Churchill was serving as Chancellor of the Excheqer under Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.
Threatening the Labour Party and trade union movement with a return of the Government-published newspaper he edited during that May's General Strike.
Early career years (1898–1929)

Ernesto Che Guevara photo

“And then many things became very clear… we learned perfectly that the life of a single human being is worth millions of times more than all the property of the richest man on earth.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary
Blaise Pascal photo

“Rules for Axioms. I. Not to omit any necessary principle without asking whether it is admittied, however clear and evident it may be. II. Not to demand, in axioms, any but things that are perfectly evident in themselves.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

The Art of Persuasion

Yann Martel photo

“The moon was a sharply defined crescent and the sky was perfectly clear. The stars shone with such fierce, contained brilliance that it seemed absurd to call the night dark.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

Related topics