“This became Delacroix's theme: that the achievements of the spirit — all that a great library contained — were the result of a state of society so delicately balanced that at the least touch they would be crushed beneath an avalanche of pent-up animal forces.”

— Kenneth Clark

Source: The Romantic Rebellion (1973), Ch. 8: Delacroix

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Kenneth Clark 47

Art historian, broadcaster and museum director 1903–1983

Dril Twitter user

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Tweets by year, 2012

“These symposia may have been, as much as anything, occasions to release the pent-up anxieties of a society always at war”

Thomas Cahill (1940) American scholar and writer

Source: Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003), Ch. III The Poet: How to Party
Context: These symposia may have been, as much as anything, occasions to release the pent-up anxieties of a society always at war—"the father of all, the king of all," "always existing by nature," as the Greek philosophers expressed it.

“It is as though an immense wedge were being forced, not underneath society, but through society. Those who are above the point of separation are elevated, but those who are below are crushed down.”

Henry George book Progress and Poverty

Introductory : The Problem
Progress and Poverty (1879)
Context: It is true that wealth has been greatly increased, and that the average of comfort, leisure, and refinement has been raised; but these gains are not general. In them the lowest class do not share. I do not mean that the condition of the lowest class has nowhere nor in anything been improved; but that there is nowhere any improvement which can be credited to increased productive power. I mean that the tendency of what we call material progress is in nowise to improve the condition of the lowest class in the essentials of healthy, happy human life. Nay, more, that it is still further to depress the condition of the lowest class. The new forces, elevating in their nature though they be, do not act upon the social fabric from underneath, as was for a long time hoped and believed, but strike it at a point intermediate between top and bottom. It is as though an immense wedge were being forced, not underneath society, but through society. Those who are above the point of separation are elevated, but those who are below are crushed down.

“It is a curious paradox that several of the greatest and most creative spirits in science, after achieving important discoveries by following their unfettered imaginations, were in their later years obsessed with reductionist philosophy and as a result became sterile. Hilbert was a prime example of this paradox. Einstein was another.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

“"Is this really a Polar ship?" people asked;… our paper-supply which was in all respects as fine and elegant as it could be:… From one of the largest houses in Christiania we had a complete set of kitchen utensils and breakfast and dinner services, all of the best kind…. We carried an extraordinarily copious library; presents of books were showered upon us in great quantities. I suppose the Fram's library at the present moment contains at least 3,000 volumes.”

Roald Amundsen (1872–1928) Norwegian polar researcher, who was the first to reach the South Pole

Sydpolen (The South Pole) (1912)

“Was there nought better than to enjoy?
No feat which, done, would make time break,
And let us pent-up creatures through
Into eternity, our due?
No forcing earth teach heaven's employ?”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Dis aliter visum; or, Le Byron de nos Jours.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Some intellectuals’ downplaying of objective reality and enduring criteria extends beyond social, scientific, or economic phenomena into art, music, and philosophy. The one over-riding consistency across all these disparate venues is the self-exaltation of the intellectuals. Unlike great cultural achievements of the past, such as magnificent cathedrals, which were intended to inspire kings and peasants alike, the hallmark of self-consciously “modern” art and music is its inaccessibility to the masses and often even its deliberate offensiveness to, or mockery of, the masses.
Just as a physical body can continue to live, despite containing a certain amount of microorganisms whose prevalence would destroy it, so a society can survive a certain amount of forces of disintegration within it. But that is very different from saying that there is no limit to the amount, audacity and ferocity of those disintegrative forces which a society can survive, without at least the will to resist.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Source: 2010s, Intellectuals and Society (2010), Ch. 22 : The Influence of Intellectuals

“After the first proof [of 'Sphere Spirals'] my high expectations were, as always, greatly disappointed. I am now struggling on - with some feeling of despair - so that I at least achieve a passable result.”

M. C. Escher (1898–1972) Dutch graphic artist

Quote of Escher, c. 1958; as cited in Biography of M.C. Escher http://im-possible.info/english/articles/escher/escher.html
1950's

“We dig up what is left of life crushed to carbon beneath us, and we burn it: to make important things, really—hospital intensive care units, synthetically derived insulin and steel beams for the new high school library. But we burn it for nothing, too, really, for vanity and emptiness.”

Laurie Zoloth (1950) American ethicist

"Interrupting Your Life: An Ethics for the Coming Storm" (2014)

“Frankly, we doubt the veracity and seriousness of the United States in regard to achieving results that would be acceptable to both sides in Geneva.”

Dmitriy Ustinov (1908–1984) Soviet military commander and politician

Quoted in "Peace is Possible: The Politics of the Sermon on the Mount" - Page 94 - by Franz Alt - Political Science - 1985.

“This became Delacroix's theme: that the achievements of the spirit — all that a great library contained — were the result of a state of society so delicately balanced that at the least touch they would be crushed beneath an avalanche of pent-up animal forces.”

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Kenneth Clark 47

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