Reads tagged with “politics”
Thomas Mann on Justice, Human Dignity, and Why We Must Keep Revising and Renewing Our Ideals
“To come close to art means to come close to life, and if an appreciation of the dignity of man is the moral definition of democracy, then its psychological definition arises out of its determination to reconcile and combine knowledge and art, mind and life, thought and deed.”
Thoreau on the Long Cycles of Social Change and the Importance of Not Mistaking Politics for Progress
“The longer the lever the less perceptible its motion.”
Salvation by Words: Iris Murdoch on Language as a Vehicle of Truth and Art as a Force of Resistance to Tyranny
“Tyrants always fear art because tyrants want to mystify while art tends to clarify. The good artist is a vehicle of truth.”
In Praise of Idleness: Bertrand Russell on the Relationship Between Leisure and Social Justice
“Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle.”
The Loveliest Children’s Books of 2018
A “new” Maurice Sendak treasure, James Baldwin’s only children’s book, a celebration of history’s heroic women illustrated by Maira Kalman, a stunning serenade to the wilderness, and more.
These Truths: Jill Lepore on How the Shift from Mythology to Science Shaped the Early Dream of Democracy
“The past is an inheritance, a gift and a burden. It can’t be shirked. You carry it everywhere. There’s nothing for it but to get to know it.”
Romanian Philosopher Emil Cioran on the Courage to Disillusion Yourself
“The man who unmasks his fictions renounces his own resources and, in a sense, himself. Consequently, he will accept other fictions which will deny him, since they will not have cropped up from his own depths.”
Anatomy of Deception and Self-Delusion: Walter Lippmann on Public Opinion, Our Slippery Grasp of Truth, and the Discipline of Apprehending Reality Clearly
“If the connection between reality and human response were direct and immediate, rather than indirect and inferred, indecision and failure would be unknown.”
Favorite Books of 2018
The anatomy of feeling, the science of psychedelics, Ursula K. Le Guin’s final poetry collection, arresting essays by Zadie Smith, Rebecca Solnit, Anne Lamott, and Audre Lorde, a physicist’s lyrical meditation on science and spirituality, and more.
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