“To shoot a man because one disagrees with his interpretation of Darwin or Hegel is a sinister tribute to the supremacy of ideas in human affairs — but a tribute nevertheless.”

— George Steiner

"Marxism and the Literary Critic," Encounter, XI (November 1958).
Language and Silence: Essays 1958-1966 (1967)

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 "To shoot a man because one disagrees with his interpretation of Darwin or Hegel is a sinister tribute to the supremacy …" by George Steiner?

George Steiner 74

American writer 1929–2020

Related quotes

“This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
If inscribed over human ashes,
Is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Inscription on the monument of a Newfoundland dog http://readytogoebooks.com/LB-dog63.htm (1808).
Context: Near this spot
Are deposited the Remains of one
Who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
And all the virtues of Man, without his Vices.
This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
If inscribed over human ashes,
Is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG

“Homo sapiens is a child of the most ancient humans, resulting from their self-survival. Therefore, a tribute to them is love for humankind.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

“We're paying the highest tribute you can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It's that simple.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“It was time to put a stop to the growing idea that England ought to pay tribute to India as a kind of apology for having conquered her: & you have done it effectively.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Source: Letter to Benjamin Disraeli (16 July 1875), quoted in Marvin Swartz, Politics of British Foreign Policy in the Era of Disraeli and Gladstone (1985), p. 17

“In tribute to The Matrix trilogy, artificial superintelligence is the disruptive red pill that will help us to transcend our human limitations in mind, body, and spirit.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Google It: Total Information Awareness, 2016

“Not that I'd grudge a tear
for any man gone down to meet his fate.
What other tribute can we pay to wretched men
than to cut a lock, let tears roll down our cheeks?”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

IV. 195–198 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)

“This reaction of man upon himself, is one of his noblest attributes; it offers, indeed, the finest field for the display of his activity. As a member of the social body, he is subjected every instant to the necessity of these causes, and pays them a regular tribute; but as a man, employing all the energy of his intellectual faculties, he in some measure masters these causes, and modifies their effects, thus constantly endeavouring to improve his condition.”

Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist

Introductory
A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties (1842)

“We have gone from Darwinism into neo-Darwinism, and, very recently, to ultra-Darwinism, which not only claims to be the sole custodian truth in regard to evolution, but to be evolution itself. Darwin himself did not display so much confidence when writing to one of his grandsons… Present-day ultra-Darwinism, which is so sure of itself, impresses incompletely informed biologists, misleads them, and inspires fallacious interpretations.”

Pierre-Paul Grassé (1895–1985) French zoologist

Grassé, Pierre Paul (1977); Evolution of living organisms: evidence for a new theory of transformation. Academic Press, p. 6
Evolution of living organisms: evidence for a new theory of transformation (1977)
Context: We have gone from Darwinism into neo-Darwinism, and, very recently, to ultra-Darwinism, which not only claims to be the sole custodian truth in regard to evolution, but to be evolution itself. Darwin himself did not display so much confidence when writing to one of his grandsons... Present-day ultra-Darwinism, which is so sure of itself, impresses incompletely informed biologists, misleads them, and inspires fallacious interpretations. The following is one of the numerous examples found in books today:
This text suggests that modern bacteria are evolving very quickly, thanks to their innumerable mutations. Now, this is not true. For millions, or even billions of years, bacteria have not transgressed the structural frame within which they have always fluctuated and still do.
It is a fact that microbiologists can see in their cultures species of bacteria oscillating around an intermediate form, but this does not mean that two phenomena, which are quite distinct, should be confused; the variation of the genetic code because of a DNA copy error and evolution. To vary and to evolve are two different things; this can never be sufficiently emphasized.

“One sole God;
One sole ruler, — his Law;
One sole interpreter of that law — Humanity.”

Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) Italian patriot, politician and philosopher

Life and Writings: Young Europe: General Principles. No. 1., reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1923), p. 318

“A shiver goes through me when I think of the proximity of my mother and sister to this man who despises me. Will always despise me. Because I outsmarted his sadistic Hunger Games, made the Capitol look foolish, and consequently undermined his control.
All I was doing was trying to keep myself and Peeta alive. Any act of rebellion was purely coincidental. But when the Capitol decrees that only one tribute can live and you have the audacity to challenge it, I guess that’s a rebellion in itself.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

Katniss Everdeen, p. 18
The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire (2009)

“To shoot a man because one disagrees with his interpretation of Darwin or Hegel is a sinister tribute to the supremacy of ideas in human affairs — but a tribute nevertheless.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

George Steiner 74

Related quotes

Related topics