Quotations about:
    self-expression


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Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.

Neil Postman (1931-2003) American author, media theorist, cultural critic
The Disappearance of Childhood, Introduction (1982)
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Added on 19-Jun-24 | Last updated 19-Jun-24
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Giving is more joyous than receiving, not because it is a deprivation, but because in the act of giving lies the expression of my aliveness.

Erich Fromm (1900-1980) American psychoanalyst and social philosopher
The Art of Loving, ch. 2, sec. 1 (1956)
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Added on 20-Oct-23 | Last updated 20-Oct-23
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Behavior is a mirror in which everyone displays his own image.

[Das Betragen ist ein Spiegel in welchem jeder sein Bild zeigt.]

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
Elective Affinities [Die Wahlverwandtschaften], Part 2, ch. 5, “From Ottilie’s Journal [Aus Ottiliens Tagebuche]” (1809) [tr. Hollingdale (1971)]
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(Source (German)). Alternate translation:

Behavior is a mirror in which every one shows his image.
[Niles ed. (1872)]

 
Added on 5-Dec-22 | Last updated 5-Dec-22
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Added on 21-Sep-22 | Last updated 21-Sep-22
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Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual, for the ideal: that longing which draws people to art. Modern art has taken the wrong turn in abandoning the search for the meaning of existence in order to affirm the value of the individual for his own sake.

Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) Russian film director, screenwriter, film theorist [Андрей Арсеньевич Тарковский]
Sculpting in Time (1986) [tr. Hunter-Blair]
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Added on 19-Sep-22 | Last updated 19-Sep-22
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KEATING: Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Don’t be resigned to that. Break out! Break out!

Tom Schulman (b. 1951) American screenwriter, director
Dead Poets Society (1989)
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See Thoreau.
 
Added on 1-Jul-22 | Last updated 1-Jul-22
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Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

Cyril Connolly (1903-1974) English intellectual, literary critic and writer.
“Miscellany: Last Words,” The New Statesman (25 Feb 1933)
 
Added on 29-Mar-22 | Last updated 29-Mar-22
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An author, like any other so-called artist, is a man in whom the normal vanity of all men is so vastly exaggerated that he finds it a sheer impossibility to hold it in. His overpowering impulse is to gyrate before his fellow men, flapping his wings and emitting defiant yells. This being forbidden by the police of all civilized countries, he takes it out by putting his yells on paper. Such is the thing called self-expression.

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“The Fringes of Lovely Letters,” Prejudices: Fifth Series (1926)
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Added on 12-Jan-22 | Last updated 12-Jan-22
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Another point of disagreement [over Lesser Evil Voting] is not factual but involves the ethical/moral principle […] sometimes referred to as the “politics of moral witness.” Generally associated with the religious left, secular leftists implicitly invoke it when they reject LEV on the grounds that “a lesser of two evils is still evil.” Leaving aside the obvious rejoinder that this is exactly the point of lesser evil voting — i.e. to do less evil, what needs to be challenged is the assumption that voting should be seen a form of individual self-expression rather than as an act to be judged on its likely consequences. […] The basic moral principle at stake is simple: not only must we take responsibility for our actions, but the consequences of our actions for others are a far more important consideration than feeling good about ourselves.

Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky (b. 1928) American linguist and activist
“An Eight Point Brief for LEV (Lesser Evil Voting)” (2016-06-15) [with John Halle]
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Added on 21-Oct-20 | Last updated 5-Nov-24
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Sing your song. Dance your dance. Tell your tale.

Frank McCourt (1930-2009) Irish-American teacher and writer
Angela’s Ashes (1996)

Also included in the dedication to Teacher Man (2006).
 
Added on 10-Sep-20 | Last updated 10-Sep-20
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I am sure that in nine out of ten cases the original wish to write is the wish to make oneself felt … the non-essential writer never gets past that wish.

Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973) Irish author
Letter to Graham Greene, quoted in Why Do I Write? (1948)

Ellipses in the original.
 
Added on 24-Aug-20 | Last updated 24-Aug-20
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