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(1954). Tragic Sense of Life.
"To have recourse to those ambiguous words, 'optimism' and 'pessimism', does not assist us in any way, for frequently they express the very contrary of what those who use them mean to express. To ticket a doctrine with the label of pessimism is not to impugn its validity, and the so-called optimists are not the most efficient in action. I believe, on the contrary, that many of the greatest heroes, perhaps the greatest of all, have been men of despair and that by despair they have accomplished their mighty works." (p. 130)
(1954). The Social Psychology of Industry.
(1952). How to Work with Groups.
"Problems arise in groups when the personal touch goes out. When groups become so large that they are mechanical rather than personal the human being and his needs become secondary. Under such circumstances people are likely to feel frustrated, unwanted, and unimportant. They see no way to take hold, to be a real part of the group. They strike out and fight back against a system which does violence to their deep need to be important." (p. 139)
(1952). Player Piano.
"Strange business", said Lasher. "This crusading spirit of the managers and engineers, the idea of designing and manufacturing and distributing being sort of a holy war: all that folklore was cooked up by public relations and advertising men hired by managers and engineers to make big business popular in the old days, which it certainly wasn't in the beginning. Now the engineers and managers believe with all their hearts the glorious things their forebears hired people to say about them. Yesterday's snow job becomes today's sermon." (p. 93)
(1950). Neurosis and human growth: the struggle toward self-realization.
"If the word 'depersonalization' did not already have a specific psychiatric meaning, it would be a good term for what alienation from the self essentially is: it is a depersonalizing, and therefore a devitalizing process." (p. 161)
(1950). Theory of Sets.
(1949). 1984.
"But always—do not forget this, Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever."
(1922). The Brothers Karamazov: a novel in four parts and an epilogue.
"He did no one any harm, but 'Why do they think him so saintly?' And that question alone gradually repeated gave rise at last to an intense, insatiable hatred toward him. That I believe was why many people were extremely delighted at the smell of decomposition which came so quickly, for not a day had passed since his death." (p. 352)
(1908). The complete works of George Eliot....
"Perhaps here lay the secret of the hardness he had accused himself of; he had too little fellow-feeling with the weakness that errs in spite of foreseen consequences. Without this fellow-feeling, how are we to get enough patience and charity towards our stumbling, falling companions in the long and changeful journey? And there is but one way in which a strong, determined soul can learn it—by getting his heart-strings bound round the weak and erring, so that he must share not only the outward consequence of their error, but their inward suffering." (p. 309)
(1906). The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: Cape Cod and Miscellanies.
"If a man was tossed out of a window when an infant, and so made a cripple for life, or scared out of his wits by the Indians, it is regretted chiefly because he was thus incapacitated for — business! I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business." (p. 457)
(1871). Æsop's fables.
"A wolf, meeting with a lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea, which should justify to the lamb himself, his right to eat him. He then addressed him: 'Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me.' 'Indeed,' bleated the lamb in a mournful tone of voice: 'I was not then born.' Then said the wolf: 'You feed in my pasture.' 'No, good sir,' replied the lamb: 'I have not yet tasted grass.' Again said the wolf: 'You drink of my well.' 'No, exclaimed the lamb: I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother's milk is both food and drink to me.' Upon which the wolf seized him and ate him up, saying: 'Well! I won't remain supperless, even though you refute every one of my imputations.'
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny." (p. 2)
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny." (p. 2)
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