Here was a big constructive imagination; here was a mere doctor laying bare the origins of Greek drama as no classical scholar had... ever done, teaching the anthropologist what was really meant by his totem and taboo, probing the mysteries of sin, of sanctity, of sacrament--a man who, because he understood, purged the human spirit from fear. I have no confidence in psycho-analysis as a method of therapeutics ... but I am equally sure that for generations almost every branch of human knowledge will be enriched and illumined by the imagination of Freud.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There are two kinds of sex, classical and baroque. Classical sex is romantic, profound, serious, emotional, moral, mysterious, spo...ntaneous, abandoned, focused on a particular person, and stereotypically feminine. Baroque sex is pop, playful, funny, experimental, conscious, deliberate, amoral, anonymous, focused on sensation for sensation's sake, and stereotypically masculine. The classical mentality taken to an extreme is sentimental and finally puritanical; the baroque mentality taken to an extreme is pornographic and finally obscene. Ideally, a sexual relation ought to create a satisfying tension between the two modes (a baroque idea, particularly if the tension is ironic) or else blend them so well that the distinction disappears (a classical aspiration). Lovemaking cannot be totally classical unless it is also totally baroque, since you cannot abandon all restraints and so attain a classical intensity. In practice, however, most people are more inclined to one mode than to the other. A very classical person will be incompatible with a very baroque person unless each can bring out the other's latent opposite side. Two people who are very one-sided in the same direction can be extremely compatible but risk missing a whole dimension of experience unless they get so deeply into one mode that it becomes the other.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
My verse forms are relatively traditional (traditions alter). In general they have moved away from strict classical patterns in th...e direction of greater freedom--as is usual with most artists learning a trade. It takes courage, however, to leave all props behind, to cast oneself, like Matisse, upon pure space. I still await that confidence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In Woolstonecraft's page, BRIDGET BEARWELL was skill'd... And her fancy with novel inventions was fill'd But Bridget improv'd on Miss Wool- stonecraft's plan, And projected some small revolution in man. "Tis plain," she exclaim'd, "that the sexes should share, In each other's employments, amusements and care. I'm taught in man's duties and honors to join, And, therefore, let man be partaker of mine: Since to share with my husband in logic I'm fit In classical lore, mathematics, and wit; In return, he shall yield the pot, kettle, and ladle, And unite in the charge of the kitchen and cradle."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A classical education, or at any rate a very extensive acquaintance with English literature, ancient and modern, appears ...>to me quite indispensable for the person who would do any justice to your clergyman; and I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In general a thing is romantic when, as Aristotle would say, it is wonderful rather than probable; in other words, when it violate...s the normal sequence of cause and effect in favor of adventure. Here is the fundamental contrast between the words classic and romantic which meets us at the outset and in some form or other persists in all uses of the word down to the present day. A thing is romantic when it is strange, unexpected, intense, superlative, extreme, unique, etc. A thing is classical, on the other hand, when it is not unique, but representative of a class. In this sense, medical men may speak correctly of a classic case of typhoid fever, or a classic case of hysteria. One is even justified in speaking of a classic example of romanticism. By an easy extension of meaning a thing is classical when it belongs to a high class or to the best class.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Tyranny produces two results, exactly opposite in character, and which are symbolized in those two great types of the slave in cla...ssical times--Epictetus and Spartacus. The one is hatred with its evil train, the other meekness with its Christian graces.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In general, Machiavellism and Utopianism can be taken to be too sharply opposed; the one realistic and the other idealistic and dr...eamlike. Yet More's Utopia is an extraordinarily realistic book. It is, indeed, closer in attitude to The Prince than is generally conceded. More, like Machiavelli, was a statesman-writer who clearly perceived political reality and dealt with the actual problems of his time. He was also, like Machiavelli, a humanist who used classical models--in his case, Plato--as a means of going beyond the mirror-of-princes literature. He, too, tried to penetrate the causes of the political evils of his time and to offer concrete and carefully thought-out solutions in place of the conventional sentiments of the time. More's solutions, however, were vastly different from those of Machiavelli. They reflect the fact that he belonged to a different tradition from that of power politics followed by Machiavelli. More's tradition was one which, with its roots deep in Eng lish literature, went back to Chaucer and Langland. It is characterized by two traits: an intimate concern with the suffering of the common people, and a feeling that the state exists for its members.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We were soundly taught and the curriculum carried no hint that we were young women and not young men. We were not corrupted by hom...e economics or dressmaking or cookery or any such soft substitute for hard thinking. We were compelled to take sciences whether we liked them or not, and mathematics and Latin were emphasized and excellently administered. Each year the student body petitioned for a course in home economics, for in that day no girl thought it possible that she might not marry, and each year the faculty sternly refused to yield to the request.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We should not leave Shopping World without questioning our initial assumption, that here we are in the modern agora. The agora of ...the classical Greek city was similar, in being the market-place and yet serving as much more, indeed as the most important public space. When a citizen left the privacy of his home, wishing to engage in public life, most likely he went to the agora. Shopping World at its most general is a public space. It answers to one of the most basic of human needs, that for society in the sense of a defined space among people in which to see and be seen, in which to move and to meet, to linger and to evade, a space at the same time in which to conduct some of life's important business--in this case shopping. The Greek agora, however, was different in one crucial respect, a difference that highlights a momentous development in modern life. It was surrounded by civic buildings and temples; it served as the daily centre not only of commerce, but also of religious, political, judicial, and indeed general social life. To be in public in ancient Athens meant to be a citizen, and likely enough to be engaged in civic duties. In modern life, by contrast, the areas of political action have become so remote that to be in public for a person has lost all connotation of being a responsible citizen with duties to his community.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »