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Quote by Laura Riding

“All literature is written by the old to teach the young how to express themselves so that they in turn may write literature to teach the old how to express themselves. All literature is written by mentally precocious adolescents and by mentally precocious senescents.”

Quote by Laura Riding

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Laura Riding
Laura Riding

Laura Riding, an influential American poet, was born on January 16, 1901, and passed away on September 2, 1991. Her poetry is known for its unique style and profound emotional expression, considered a significant voice in 20th-century American poetry. more

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“The anthology meets with two different kinds of reactions in living poets. They will either write toward the anthology or away from it. Anti-anthology poets often overreach themselves, inflicting protective distortions on their work - as parents in old Central Europe often deliberately maimed their sons to save them from compulsory military service.”

WritingKindTwoDifferentParentMilitarySonPoetEuropeReactionsDifferent KindsProtectiveDistortionAnthologyCompulsoryMilitary Service
Author:Laura Riding
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“Daisy was a consciously happy young woman without any of the usual endowments that make for conscious happiness, money apart. She was not pretty, she was not clever, she had no friends, no talents, nor even an imagination to make her think she was happy when she was really miserable. As she was never miserable, she had no need of an imagination.”

ThinkingNeedsYoungImaginationTalentConsciousCleverMiserableUsualYoung WomenDaisiesNo FriendsEndowmentNot Pretty
Author:Laura Riding
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“Politics have always covered two distinct kinds of problems: problems of administrative routine, and those that may be called 'questions of the moment.' A question of the moment is, indeed, a substitute for some notion, such as the idea of God, or hereditary monarchy, or national glory, that has hitherto acted as a symbol of human co-ordination. It provides no new positive certainty to replace the discredited certainty, but is what the name implies: the raising of a question which the old certainty no longer answers.”

HumansKindMayTwoIdeasMomentsProblemNamesAnswersGloryNotionSymbolsCertaintySubstitutesCoveredRoutineMonarchyAdministrativeHereditaryOrdination
Author:Laura Riding
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“Euripides seems to have felt that the dignified perfection of Sophocles could be challenged only by novelty and irresponsibility. The religious conditions of the Dionysian festival kept him within certain bounds. But within the imposed limits Euripides was as profane as he dared to be, making melodrama of the divine realities which his predecessors accepted religiously, using the stage merely as a convenience for popularizing his own eccentric values.”

RealitySeemsCertainValuesFeltReligiousConditionsStageDivineLimitsPerfectionBoundsAcceptedFestivalsNoveltyConvenienceEccentricPredecessorsProfaneMelodramaIrresponsibility
Author:Laura Riding
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