The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even--if you will--eccentricity. ...That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned imposter couldn't be happy with.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As to you, sir, treacherous to private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in p...ublic life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an imposter, whether you have abandoned good principles or whether you ever had any.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sow seed--but let no tyrant reap; Find wealth--let no imposter heap;... Weave robes--let not the idle wear; Forge arms--in your defence to bear.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The double nature of the comic hero is symbolized in these two: Falstaff and Socrates. They are of opposite disposition, yet not s...o unlike as we might think. The essential character of the eiron is incarnate in Socrates, who was "ignorant" and who also had the disposition of the "buffoon" or "fool," the features of the comic spirit itself, the coarse, ugly mask of the satyr or clown. The Socratic method is a tactic of winning victory by professing ignorance, by merely asking questions of the "imposters," the so-called "wise" men of Athens.... We must remember that Falstaff the buffoon and imposter used the same sort of interrogation Socrates the ironist used. He asks the same sort of question: What is honor? Socrates asked: What is justice? Socrates, like Falstaff, is both ironist and buffoon; he is the questioner using a philosophic buffoonery to seek the truth.... He has a double or triple character, for he is, as Falstaff was, both victor and victim--a victim, eventually, of the unthinking Athenians who refused to have their creed unsettled. He was finally condemned to drink the hemlock because he asked too many impious questions. And Falstaff is rejected by King Hal.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »