Literature not only allows but encourages the interpenetration of the senses, the imagination, and the intellect — the "whole person," as we might say — in a way that our everyday texts (the advertisement, the obituary, the brochure from the computer company) do not. This integration of all the faculties of human nature at once, presented in a poem, becomes, as we internalize the poem, an integration of ourselves within ourselves.
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A Brief History of “Sex” and “Gender”
Is knowing the complex history of the words “sex” and “gender” going to solve the contemporary debates around sexual difference and society? Probably not. But words do matter. Knowing their history just might help avoid misunderstanding at the critical juncture of some important conversation. We could certainly do worse than begin such discussions with clear definitions.
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Solzhenitsyn on the Task of the Artist
The artist cannot set himself political aims, the aims of changing a political regime; it may come as a by-product of it, but to fight against untruth and falsehood, to fight against myths, or to fight against an ideology which is hostile to mankind, to fight for our memory, for our memory of what things were like—that is the task of the artist. A people which no longer remembers has lost its history and its soul.
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Dumbledore on Naming
Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.
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Dostoyevsky on the Love of Humanity
As soon as anyone is near me, his personality disturbs me and restricts my freedom. In twenty four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he's too long over his dinner, another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I hate men individually, the more I love humanity.
