"Anxiety destroys scale, and suffering makes us lose perspective."

Saul Bellow Literature See all quotes by Saul Bellow →

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“Apparently the rise of consciousness is linked to certain kinds of privation. It is the bitterness of self-consciousness that we knowers know best. Critical of the illusions that sustained mankind in earlier times, this self-consciousness of ours does little to sustain us now. The question is: which is disenchanted, the world itself or the consciousness we have of it?”

“No realistic, sane person goes around Chicago without protection.”

“We take foreigners to be incomplete Americans — convinced that we must help and hasten their evolution.”

“is by any standards a better writer than Saul Bellow, only MacDonald writes thrillers and Bellow is a human-heart chap, so guess who wears the top-grade laurels.”

“Any artist should be grateful for a naïve grace which puts him beyond the need to reason elaborately.”

“A millennial belief in a Holy God may have the effect of deepening the soul, but it is also obviously archaic, and modern influences would presently bring me up to date and reveal how antiquated my origins were. To turn away from those origins, however, has always seemed to me an utter impossibility. It would be a treason to my first consciousness to un-Jew myself.”

Resonant Thoughts

"For so many who had been driven from their office buildings, these five weeks were only the prelude to spending months cloistered in cramped and inadequate office space while they advised senators on …"

— Russ Feingold

Politics1953

#fear

"The core of the belief in progress is that human values and goals converge in parallel with our increasing knowledge. The twentieth century shows the contrary. Human beings use the power of scientific…"

— John Gray (philosopher)

Philosophy1948

#science

"What is it that distinguishes man from animals? It is not his upright posture. That was present in the apes long before the brain began to develop. Nor is it the use of tools. It is something altogeth…"

— Erich Fromm

Psychology1900–1980

#mind

"I like the idea of an international career, it appeals to me on a personal level. Absorbing different cultures make you a better actor. It makes you very ambiguous, which is how I describe myself."

— Amrita Acharia

Medicine1987

#family