“On questions of taste there is notoriously the widest divergence of opinion./…/ if, from a survival point of view, one taste be as good as another, it is not the varieties in taste which should cause surprise so much as the uniformities. To be sure, the uniformities have often no deep aesthetic roots. They represent /…/ tendencies to agreement, which govern our social ritual, and thereby make social life possible.”

— Arthur James Balfour

Theism and humanism

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Arthur James Balfour 48

British Conservative politician and statesman 1848–1930

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Context: I think “taste” is a social concept and not an artistic one. I’m willing to show good taste, if I can, in somebody else’s living room, but our reading life is too short for a writer to be in any way polite. Since his words enter into another’s brain in silence and intimacy, he should be as honest and explicit as we are with ourselves.