Gianfranco Fini (1952) Italian politician
La Stampa http://archivio.lastampa.it/LaStampaArchivio/main/History/tmpl_viewObj.jsp?objid=3435107, 23 January 2002, p. 7.
Jonas Sima interview <!-- pages 176-178 -->
Bergman on Bergman (1970)
Context: Today we say all art is political. But I'd say all art has to do with ethics. Which after all really comes to the same thing. It's a matter of attitudes. … All this talk about me standing aside, cutting myself off and so forth, has always amazed me... I've stated, firmly and clearly, that though as an artist I'm not politically involved, I obviously am an expression of the society I live in. Anything else would be grotesque. But I don't make propaganda for either one attitude or the other. No. As I told you, I vote for the Social Democrats. Their way of solving social problems comes closest to what I regard as decent. That I also find their actual solutions odd in many ways is another matter...
Gianfranco Fini (1952) Italian politician
La Stampa http://archivio.lastampa.it/LaStampaArchivio/main/History/tmpl_viewObj.jsp?objid=3435107, 23 January 2002, p. 7.
Jean Dubuffet book Prospectus et tous écrits suivants
Source: 1960-70's, Prospectus et tous écrits suivants, 1967, p. 206
Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer
Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art
Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author
Introduction to The Golden Man (1980)
Context: That was my problem then and it's my problem now; I have a bad attitude. In a nutshell, I fear authority but at the same time I resent it — the authority and my own fear — so I rebel. And writing SF is a way to rebel. … SF is a rebellious art form and it needs writers and readers and bad attitudes — an attitude of "Why?" or "How come?" or "Who says?"
Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician
Progress In Religion (2000)
Context: Our grey technology of machines and computers will not disappear, but green technology will be moving ahead even faster. Green technology can be cleaner, more flexible and less wasteful, than our existing chemical industries. A great variety of manufactured objects could be grown instead of made. Green technology could supply human needs with far less damage to the natural environment. And green technology could be a great equalizer, bringing wealth to the tropical areas of the world which have most of the sunshine, most of the human population, and most of the poverty. I am saying that green technology could do all these good things, bringing wealth to the tropics, bringing economic opportunity to the villages, narrowing the gap between rich and poor. I am not saying that green technology will do all these good things. "Could" is not the same as "will". To make these good things happen, we need not only the new technology but the political and economic conditions that will give people all over the world a chance to use it. To make these things happen, we need a powerful push from ethics. We need a consensus of public opinion around the world that the existing gross inequalities in the distribution of wealth are intolerable. In reaching such a consensus, religions must play an essential role. Neither technology alone nor religion alone is powerful enough to bring social justice to human societies, but technology and religion working together might do the job.
“Almost any interesting work of art comes close to saying the opposite of what it really says.”
Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer
"What I Know About Writing (in no particular order)", as quoted in Michael Swanwick, "The Wolf in the Labyrinth", Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 2007
Nonfiction
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book Lectures on the Philosophy of History
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History Vol 3 1837 translated by ES Haldane and Francis H. Simson) first translated 1896 P. 128
Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 3
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Source: 1910s, Proposed Roads To Freedom (1918), Ch. V: Government and Law, p. 75
“The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
"Why I Write," Gangrel (Summer 1946)