“The discovery that one cannot convince an opponent and that it is hopeless to go on trying involves a confession of subjectivity that deprives the world of meaning.”
Source: The Oasis (1949), p. 253
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Mary McCarthy 79
American writer 1912–1989Related quotes
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 259.
"Subjective and Objective," in Mortal Questions, Cambridge University Press, 1979, p. 196.
“I cannot be convinced that great artists are moralists. Art is first appearances, then meaning.”
Source: Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990), p. 166
Speech at the Innauguration of the Aga Khan Baug, Versova, India (17 January 1983) http://ismaili.net/speech/s830117.html <!-- ***Source: Selection of Speeches: 1976-1984
Source: Africa Ismaili, XIV, 2 (July 1983), pp. 20-22
Source: American Ismaili, (July 11, 1983), pp. 15-16 -->
Context: There are those... who enter the world in such poverty that they are deprived of both the means and the motivation to improve their lot. Unless these unfortunates can be touched with the spark which ignites the spirit of individual enterprise and determination, they will only sink back into renewed apathy, degradation and despair. It is for us, who are more fortunate, to provide that spark.
“Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery — what it all means…”
New York Times interview (1985)
Source: Everyday Irrationality: How Pseudo-Scientists, Lunatics, and the Rest of Us Systematically Fail to Think Rationally (2001), Chapter 6, “Three Specific Irrationalities of Probabilistic Judgment” (p. 99)
To My Fellow-Disciples at Saratoga Springs (1895)
Context: It is true— it has been already admitted— that the picture will not be universally recognized; but it has been suggested that the failure of recognition lies rather in the degeneracy of the faculty of seeing than in the misrepresentation of the vision to be seen. It may be also confessed that life often survives all the perversities of training. We cannot absolutely nullify the prodigality of nature, try as hard as we may. In spite of most careful management, untractable growths survive in the most provoking way, and intrude themselves into fields believed to be kept free from their presence. And sometimes it happens that the poor party managers have to accommodate themselves to the genius they curse.