“Because of the influence of the cinema, most reports or stories of violence are so pictorial that they lack content or meaning. The camera brings them to our eyes, but does not settle them in our minds, nor in time.”
"Jorge Luis Borges: Medallions", p. 178
The Myth Makers: European and Latin American Writers (1979)
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V.S. Pritchett 23
British writer and critic 1900–1997Related quotes
Introduction, Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (1979).
Context: Other areas were being mapped by anthropologists, who seemed to have some interest in my problem, but who were inclined (at that time) to say that what human beings had in common was not in the end very important; that the key to all the mysteries did lie in culture. This seemed to me shallow. It is because our culture is changing so fast, because it does not settle on everything that we need to go into these questions.
The Upcoming Iraq War Funding Bill http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2007/cr032007.htm (March 20, 2007).
2000s, 2006-2009
"On the Cryptic and the Elliptic"
All Things Considered (1908)
Context: For fear of the newspapers politicians are dull, and at last they are too dull even for the newspapers. The speeches in our time are more careful and elaborate, because they are meant to be read, and not to be heard. And exactly because they are more careful and elaborate, they are not so likely to be worthy of a careful and elaborate report. They are not interesting enough. So the moral cowardice of modern politicians has, after all, some punishment attached to it by the silent anger of heaven. Precisely because our political speeches are meant to be reported, they are not worth reporting. Precisely because they are carefully designed to be read, nobody reads them.
Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
Source: The Fabric of Reality (1997), Ch.3
La plupart des évènements ont des causes aussi petites. Nous les ignorons, parce que la plupart des historiens les ont ignorées eux-mêmes, ou parce qu’ils n’ont pas eu d’yeux pour les appercevoir. Il est vrai qu’à cet égard l’esprit peut réparer leurs omissions : la connoissance de certains principes supplée facilement à la connoissance de certains faits.
Essay III, Chapter I
De l'esprit or, Essays on the Mind, and Its Several Faculties (1758)
The Careful Use of Compliments, chapter 15.
The Sunday Philosophy Club series
“Forgiveness does not require us to close our eyes but rather to truly open them.”
Source: The Gift