“Not only has our generation lost faith in Providence but also in man himself, in his institutions and often in those who are nearest to him.”

— Isaac Bashevis Singer

Nobel lecture (1978)
Context: Not only has our generation lost faith in Providence but also in man himself, in his institutions and often in those who are nearest to him. In their despair a number of those who no longer have confidence in the leadership of our society look up to the writer, the master of words. They hope against hope that the man of talent and sensitivity can perhaps rescue civilization. Maybe there is a spark of the prophet in the artist after all.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 2, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Not only has our generation lost faith in Providence but also in man himself, in his institutions and often in those wh…" by Isaac Bashevis Singer?

Isaac Bashevis Singer photo

Isaac Bashevis Singer 39

Polish-born Jewish-American author 1902–1991

Related quotes

“A guide, on finding a man who has lost his way, brings him back to the right path—he does not mock and jeer at him and then take himself off.”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

Golden Sayings of Epictetus
Context: A guide, on finding a man who has lost his way, brings him back to the right path—he does not mock and jeer at him and then take himself off. You also must show the unlearned man the truth, and you will see that he will follow. But so long as you do not show it him, you should not mock, but rather feel your own incapacity. (63).

“Only straight discovering in the nearest stone or tree, sound or thought, the shelter of His often desecrated goodness, the treasury of His waiting form man's heart to affiliate with His will — this is the rapture of faith. It is an echo to a pleading voice, a reply to the inconceivable in all beauty.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

"The Holy Dimension", p. 331
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (1997)

“He who has lost only those of whose faith and truth he is sure, has not yet reached the depth of human desolation.”

Evelyn Beatrice Hall book The Friends of Voltaire

Source: The Friends of Voltaire (1906), Ch. 1 : D'Alembert: The Thinker, p.28

“The man who has many answers
is often found
in the theaters of information
where he offers, graciously,
his deep findings.

While the man who has only questions,
to comfort himself, makes music.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: A Thousand Mornings

“Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 4

“The man with the clear head is the man who frees himself from those fantastic "ideas" and looks life in the face, realises that everything in it is problematic, and feels himself lost. As this is the simple truth — that to live is to feel oneself lost — he who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look round for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life.”

José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses

Source: The Revolt of the Masses (1929), Chapter XIV: Who Rules The World?

“The merciful, kind, and generous man benefits himself for his deeds return to bless him, but he who is cruel and callous to the wants of others brings on himself retribution.”

book Bible

Source: Proverbs 11:17, AMP

“A man’s best things are nearest him,
Lie close about his feet.”

Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton (1809–1885) British politician and poet

The Men of Old.

“Organizations and institutions provide the general stimuli and attention-directors that channelize the behaviors of the members of the group, and that provide those members with the intermediate objectives that stimulate action.”

Herbert A. Simon book Administrative Behavior

Source: 1940s-1950s, Administrative Behavior, 1947, p. 100.

“We call that person who has lost his father, an orphan; and a widower that man who has lost his wife. But that man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence.”

Joseph Roux (1834–1905) French poet

Part 9, LIV
Meditations of a Parish Priest (1866)

Related topics