Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal. – Lionel Trilling
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
Every neurosis is a primitive form of legal proceeding in which the accused carries on the prosecution, imposes judgment and executes the sentence: all to the end that someone else should not perform the same process. – Lionel Trilling
Probably it is impossible for humor to be ever a revolutionary weapon. Candide can do little more than generate irony. – Lionel Trilling
How can you explain that you need to know that the trees are still there, and the hills and the sky? Anyone knows they are. How can you say it is time your pulse responded to another rhythm, the rhythm of the day and the season instead of the hour and the minute? No, you cannot explain. So you walk. – Author unknown, from New York Times editorial, “The Walk,” 25 October 1967