Truly it is a sad thing for a people, as for a man, to fall into Scepticism, into dilettantism, insincerity; not to know Sincerity when they see it. For this world, and for all worlds, what curse is so fatal? The heart lying dead, the eye cannot see.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Lecture (1840-05-22), “The Hero as King,” Home House, Portman Square, London
(Source)
The lecture notes were collected by Carlyle into On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History, Lecture 6 (1841).
Quotations about:
disengagement
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
The worst illiterate is the political illiterate. He hears nothing, sees nothing, takes no part in political life. He doesn’t seem to know that the cost of living, the price of beans, of flour, of rent, of medicines all depend on political decisions. He even prides himself on his political ignorance, sticks out his chest and says he hates politics. He doesn’t know, the imbecile, that from his political non-participation comes the prostitute, the abandoned child, the robber and, worst of all, corrupt officials, the lackeys of exploitative multinational corporations.
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) German poet, playwright, director, dramaturgist
(Attributed)
A chewy quote that is widely attributed to Brecht, but no actual citation has been found.
When I learn that husband and wife never quarrel, I know that indifference has set in, and after that — the deluge.
Minna Antrim (1861-1950) American epigrammatist, writer
Naked Truth and Veiled Allusions (1902)
(Source)
King Louis XV of France is attributed with saying, "Après moi, le déluge [After me, the flood]" to Madame Pompadour in 1757.
‘Tis for little Souls, that truckle under the Weight of Affairs, not to know how clearly to disengage themselves, and not to know how to lay them aside, and take them up again.
[C’est aux petites ames ensevelies du poix des affaires, de ne s’en sçavoir purement desmesler : de ne les sçavoir et laisser et reprendre.]Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
Essays, Book 3, ch. 13 (3.13), “Of Experience [De l’Experience] (1587) [tr. Cotton (1686)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:It is for base and pettie mindes, dulled and overwhelmed with the weight of affaires, to be ignorant how to leave them, and not to know how to free themselves from them; nor how to leave and take them againe.
[tr. Florio (1603)]’Tis for little souls, that truckle under the weight of affairs, not from them to know how clearly to disengage themselves, not to know how to lay them aside and take them up again.
[tr. Cotton/Hazlitt (1877)]It is for small souls, buried under the weight of affairs, not to know how to free themselves therefrom entirely; not to know how to leave them and return to them.
[tr. Ives (1925)]It is for little souls, buried under the weight of business, to be unable to detach themselves cleanly from it or to leave it and pick it up again.
[tr. Frame (1943)]It is for petty souls overwhelmed by the weight of affairs to be unable to disentangle themselves for them completely, not knowing how to drop them and then take them up again.
[tr. Screech (1987)]
Indifference is the acid of life. It erodes all the spirit that’s in us and makes us useless to anyone else. We all have to stand for something, or our souls cease to breathe.
Joan D. Chittister (b. 1936) American Benedictine nun, author and lecturer
In a High Spiritual Season (1995)
I know that the Bible is a special kind of book, but I find it as seductive as any other. If I am not careful, I can begin to mistake the words on the page for the realities they describe. I can begin to love the dried ink marks on the page more than I love the encounters that gave rise to them. If I am not careful, I can decide that I am really much happier reading my Bible than I am entering into what God is doing in my own time and place, since shutting the book to go outside will involve the very great risk of taking part in stories that are still taking shape. Neither I nor anyone else knows how these stories will turn out, since at this point they involve more blood than ink. The whole purpose of the Bible, it seems to me, is to convince people to set the written word down in order to become living words in the world for God’s sake. For me, this willing conversion of ink back to blood is the full substance of faith.
In the face of evil, detachment is a dubious virtue.
Barbara Grizzuti Harrison (1934-2002) American journalist, essayist, memoirist
“Budapest, Winter 1989,” The Astonishing World (1992)
(Source)
Like everything else in the world, however, there is a price to pay for love, for the more happiness we derive from the existence and companionship of other human beings, the more vulnerable we are when there is any cause for apprehension. It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who live generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) First Lady of the US (1933–1945), politician, diplomat, activist
Column (1939-04-01), “My Day”
(Source)
Written following the birth of her grandson, John Roosevelt Boettiger.
