Lionel Trilling Professions : Literary critic Born : July 4, 1905 Died : November 5, 1975 Browse All Authors Top 48 quotes by Lionel Trilling Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal. Lionel Trilling cynical immature art Being a Jew is like walking in the wind or swimming: you are touched at all points and conscious everywhere. Lionel Trilling swimming conscious wind Where misunderstanding serves others as an advantage, one is helpless to make oneself understood. Lionel Trilling obscurity advantage understanding Some paradox of our natures leads us, when once we have made our fellow men the objects of our enlightened interest, to go on to make them the objects of our pity , then of our wisdom , ultimately of our coercion. Lionel Trilling fellow-man goes-on men We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian. Lionel Trilling cynical heart believe Ideology is not the product of thought; it is the habit or the ritual of showing respect for certain formulas to which, for various reasons having to do with emotional safety, we have very strong ties of whose meaning and consequences in actuality we have no clear understanding. Lionel Trilling emotional strong ideas What marks the artist is his power to shape the material of pain we all have. Lionel Trilling pain shapes artist The poet is in command of his fantasy, while it is exactly the mark of the neurotic that he is possessed by his fantasy. Lionel Trilling fantasy mark poet The definitions of humanism are many, but let us here take it to be the attitude of those men who think it an advantage to live in society, and, at that, in a complex and highly developed society, and who believe that man fulfills his nature and reaches his proper stature in this circumstance. The personal virtues which humanism cherishes are intelligence, amenity, and tolerance; the particular courage it asks for is that which is exercised in the support of these virtues. The qualities of intelligence which it chiefly prizes are modulation and flexibility. Lionel Trilling attitude men believe The function of literature, through all its mutations, has been to make us aware of the particularity of selves, and the high authority of the self in its quarrel with its society and its culture. Literature is in that sense subversive. Lionel Trilling mutation acceptance self Unless we insist that politics is imagination and mind, we will learn that imagination and mind are politics, and of a kind we will not like. Lionel Trilling kind imagination mind It is one thing, then, to say, "The Bible contains the religion revealed by God ," and quite another to say, "Whatever is contained in the Bible is religion, and was revealed by God." If the latter be accepted, metaphor and allegory become literal statements and the errors and absurdities of bibliolatry follow. Lionel Trilling accepted metaphor errors We live, understandably enough, with the sense of urgency; our clock, like Baudelaire's, has had the hands removed and bears the legend, "It is later than you think." But with us it is always a little too late for mind, yet never too late for honest stupidity; always a little too late for understanding, never too late for righteous, bewildered wrath; always too late for thought, never too late for naïve moralizing. We seem to like to condemn our finest but not our worst qualities by pitting them against the exigency of time. Lionel Trilling wrath hands thinking It is now life and not art that requires the willing suspension of disbelief. Lionel Trilling disbelief life art A theory of the middle class: that it is not to be determined by its financial situation but rather by its relation to government. That is, one could shade down from an actual ruling or governing class to a class hopelessly out of relation to government, thinking of government as beyond its control, of itself as wholly controlled by government. Somewhere in between and In gradations is the group that has the sense that gov't exists for it, and shapes its consciousness accordingly. Lionel Trilling government class thinking At the bottom of at least popular Marxism there has always been a kind of disgust with humanity as it is and a perfect faith in humanity as it is to be. Lionel Trilling kind humanity perfect The immature artist imitates. The mature artist steals. Lionel Trilling immature stealing artist This desire to fashion, to shape, a self and a life has all but gone from a contemporary culture whose emphasis, paradoxically enough, is so much on self. Lionel Trilling fashion self desire We properly judge a critic's virtue not by his freedom from error but by the nature of the mistakes he does make, for he makes them, if he is worth reading, because he has in mind something besides his perceptions about art in itself - he has in mind the demands that he makes upon life. Lionel Trilling reading mistake art Everything which the economist takes from you in the way of life and humanity, he restores to you in the form of money and wealth. Lionel Trilling wealth humanity way Similar Authors Bliss Perry literary-critic Irving Howe literary-critic Diana Trilling literary-critic Daphne Merkin literary-critic Henry Louis Gates literary-critic Harold Bloom literary-critic All Authors
