“Nothing that Shakespeare ever invented was to equal Lincoln's invention of himself and, in the process, us.”

—  Gore Vidal

"Lincoln and the Priests of Academe"
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Nothing that Shakespeare ever invented was to equal Lincoln's invention of himself and, in the process, us." by Gore Vidal?
Gore Vidal photo
Gore Vidal 163
American writer 1925–2012

Related quotes

Rutherford B. Hayes photo

“That's an amazing invention, but who would ever want to use one of them?”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

Reportedly to Alexander Graham Bell after a demonstration of the telephone, as quoted in Future Mind : The Microcomputer-New Medium, New Mental Environment (1982) by Edward J. Lias, p. 2 but author did not footnote or in any other way cite a source for the quotation, and the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center has found no primary-source evidence that Rutherford B. Hayes made the comment. The same article erroneously states that President Hayes had his first experience with the telephone in 1876 in a "trial conversation between Washington and Philadephia." Rutherford B. Hayes was president of the United States in the years 1877-1881. His well documented experience with the telephone occurred in 1877 while Hayes was in Rhode Island. Prior to becomng disputed here, this statement was treated as probably spurious in "Obama’s whopper about Rutherford B. Hayes and the telephone" in the Washington Post (16 March 2012) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamas-whopper-about-rutherford-b-hayes-and-the-telephone/2012/03/15/gIQAel6SFS_blog.html?wprss=fact-checker, which asserts Hayes installed a phone only months later, and that the Providence Journal (29 June 1877) reported his words during the demonstration as "That is wonderful!"
Disputed

Dorothy Thompson photo

“[P]rivate enterprise and initiative, willing to take risks in the hope of gain, allowed to function in freedom, have produced the greatest wealth ever know in the history of mankind. And that if you stop this process and turn everything over to government, the activity will slow down, inventiveness will cease, and we shall get not equalization of riches, but equalization of poverty.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
p. 27

Auguste Rodin photo

“I invent nothing, I rediscover.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

Source: Auguste Rodin: The Man, His Ideas, His Works, 1905, p. 60-61
Alternative translation:
I invent nothing, I rediscover. And the thing seems new because people have generally lost sight of the aim and the means of art ; they take that for an innovation which is nothing but a return to the laws of the great sculpture of long ago. Obviously, I think ; I like certain symbols, I see things in a synthetic way, but it is nature that gives me all that. I do not imitate the Greeks ; I try to put myself in the state of mind of the men who have left us the statues of antiquity. The schools copy their works, but what is of importance is to rediscover their methods. First I made close studies after nature, like "The Bronze Age." Later I understood that art required more breadth — exaggeration, in fact, and my aim was then, after the Burghers of Calais to find ways of exaggerating logically — that is to say, by reasonable amplification of the modeling. That, also consists in the constant reduction of the face to a geometrical figure, and the resolve to sacrifice every part of the face to the synthesis of its aspect. Look what they did in Gothic times. Take the Cathedral of Chartres as an example: one of its towers is massive and without ornamentation, having been neglected in order that the exquisite delicacy of the other could be better seen.
In: Andrew Carnduff Ritchie, ‎John Rewald (1945). Aristide Maillol: With an Introduction and Survey of the Artist's Work in American Collections. p. 19
Context: I invent nothing, I rediscover. And the thing seems new because people have generally lost sight of the aim and the means of art; they take that for an innovation which is nothing but a return to the laws of the great sculpture of long ago. Obviously, I think; I like certain symbols, I see things in a synthetic way, but it is nature that gives me all that. I do not imitate the Greeks; I try to put myself in the spiritual State of the men who hâve left us the antique statues. The 'Ecole' copies their works; the thing that signifies is to recover their method. I began by showing close studies from nature like The Age of Brass. Afterwards I came to understand that art required a little more largeness, a little exaggeration, and my whole aim, from the time of the Burghers, was to find a method of exaggerating logically : that method consists in the deliberate amplification of the modelling. It consists also in the constant reduction of the figure to a geometrical figure, and in the determination to sacrifice any part of a figure to the synthesis of its aspect. See what the Gothic sculptors did. Look at the cathedra! of Chartres; one of the towers is massive and without ornament : they sacrificed it to give value to the exquisite delicacy of the other tower.

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“The mechanism is ages old. Tyrants used it centuries before the word "psychology" was ever invented. It works, too.”

Revolt in 2100 (1953)
Context: Take sex away from people. Make it forbidden, evil. Limit it to ritualistic breeding. Force it to back up into suppressed sadism. Then hand the people a scapegoat to hate. Let them kill a scapegoat occasionally for cathartic release. The mechanism is ages old. Tyrants used it centuries before the word "psychology" was ever invented. It works, too.

Edith Sitwell photo

“Good taste is the worst vice ever invented.”

Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British poet

The Last Years of a Rebel (1967)

Jean-Claude Juncker photo

“Borders are the worst invention ever made by politicians.”

Jean-Claude Juncker (1954) Luxembourgian politician

To the European Forum Alpbach. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/national-borders-are-the-worst-invention-ever-says-ec-chief-jean-claude-juncker-a7204006.html (22 August 2016)
2016

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“Human subtlety…will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Richter II p. 126 no. 837 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=A7dUhbBfmzMC&pg=PA126
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting

Russell T. Davies photo

“Because it's the best idea ever invented in the history of the world!”

Russell T. Davies (1963) Screenwriter, former executive producer of Doctor Who

Russell T. Davies, responding to the question, "Why do you think people love Doctor Who so much?" on BBC Wales Today (20 July 2004)

Alfred North Whitehead photo

“The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention.”

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) English mathematician and philosopher

Source: 1920s, Science and the Modern World (1925), Ch. 6: "The Nineteenth Century"

Related topics