The study of history and philosophy, accompanied by some acquaintance with art and literature, should be for lawyers and engineers as well as for those who study in arts faculties. – Terry Eagleton
Poetry is the most subtle of the literary arts, and students grow more ingenious by the year at avoiding it. If they can nip around Milton, duck under Blake and collapse gratefully into the arms of Jane Austen, a lot of them will. – Terry Eagleton
For the liberal state to accommodate a diversity of beliefs while having few positive convictions is one of the more admirable achievements of civilization. – Terry Eagleton
Cynicism and naivety lie cheek by jowl in the American imagination if the United States is one of the most venal nations on Earth, it is also one of the most earnestly idealistic. – Terry Eagleton
WASP is the only ethnic term that is in fact a term of class, apart from redneck, which is another word for the same group but who are in the lower social strata, so its inexplicably tied up with social standing and culture and history in a way that the other hyphenations just are not. – Christopher Hitchens