“[T]here is a flaw in civilization from the instant it has to admit fear.”

Source: A Time in Rome (1960), Ch. I, p. 23

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 "[T]here is a flaw in civilization from the instant it has to admit fear." by Elizabeth Bowen?
Elizabeth Bowen photo
Elizabeth Bowen 17
Irish writer 1899–1973

Related quotes

Bob Dylan photo

“Fearing not that I'd become my enemy in the instant that I preach”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), My Back Pages
Context: In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand at the mongrel dogs who teach Fearing not that I'd become my enemy in the instant that I preach My existence led by confusion boats, mutiny from stern to bow.

Stephen Harper photo
Thomas Haynes Bayly photo

“Oh pilot, 't is a fearful night!
There's danger on the deep.”

Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797–1839) English poet, songwriter, dramatist, and writer

The Pilot, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Edgar Rice Burroughs photo
Allen C. Guelzo photo

“First, then, a woman will or won’t, depend on ’t;
If she will do ’t, she will; and there ’s an end on ’t.
But if she won’t, since safe and sound your trust is,
Fear is affront, and jealousy injustice.”

Aaron Hill (writer) (1685–1750) British writer

Epilogue (1735). Note: The following lines are copied from the pillar erected on the mount in the Dane John Field, Canterbury:
:Where is the man who has the power and skill
To stem the torrent of a woman’s will?
For if she will, she will, you may depend on ’t;
And if she won’t, she won’t; so there ’s an end on ’t.
The Examiner, (31 May 1829).
Zara (1735)

Elizabeth Gilbert photo
Albert Camus photo

“I start out here from the principle of his innocence.
That innocence is to be feared.”

The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), The Absurd Man
Context: There can be no question of holding forth on ethics. I have seen people behave badly with great morality and I note every day that integrity has no need of rules. There is but one moral code that the absurd man can accept, the one that is not separated from God: the one that is dictated. But it so happens that he lives outside that God. As for the others (I mean also immoralism), the absurd man sees nothing in them but justifications and he has nothing to justify. I start out here from the principle of his innocence.
That innocence is to be feared. "Everything is permitted," exclaims Ivan Karamazov. That, too, smacks of the absurd. But on condition that it not be taken in a vulgar sense. I don't know whether or not it has been sufficiently pointed out that it is not an outburst of relief or of joy, but rather a bitter acknowledgment of a fact.

Salman Rushdie photo

“I admit it: above all things, I fear absurdity.”

Source: Midnight's Children

Related topics