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Quote by George Steiner

“We are still waging Peloponnesian wars. Our control of the material world and our positive science have grown fantastically. But our very achievements turn against us, making politics more random and wars more bestial.”

Quote by George Steiner

Book:The death of tragedy

Work

The death of tragedy

This work delves into the historical and philosophical aspects of tragedy, analyzing its significance and the factors contributing to its perceived decline in modern times. more

Author

George Steiner is an esteemed literary critic, born on April 23, 1929. His work spans a wide range of literary fields, including novels, poetry, drama, and philosophy. more

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“When the modern scholar cites from a classic text, the quotation seems to burn a hole in his own drab page.”

Seems Modern Pages Holes Classic Scholar Quotations Citing

Book:George Steiner: A Reader

Source: George Steiner: A Reader

“Literary criticism has about it neither rigour nor proof. Where it is honest, it is passionate, private experience seeking to persuade.”

Honest Criticism Passionate Seeking Proof Literary Criticism Rigour

Book:George Steiner: A Reader

Source: George Steiner: A Reader

“The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men's genius.”

Men Writing Play Hands Given Novel Grace Genius Criticism Critics Second Hand

Book:Language and Silence

Source: Language and Silence

“If future society assumes the contours foretold by Marxism, if the jungle of our cities turns to the polis of man and the dreams of anger are made real, the representative art will be high comedy. Art will be the laughter of intelligence, as it is in Plato, in Mozart, in Stendhal.”

Ifs Men Art Made Real Dream Turns Cities Comedy Laughter Assuming Representatives Plato Jungle Marxism Polis Future Society

Book:Language and silence: essays on language, literature, and the inhuman

Source: Language and silence: essays on language, literature, and the inhuman

“There are three intellectual pursuits, and, so far as I am aware, only three, in which human beings have performed major feats before the age of puberty. They are music, mathematics, and chess.”

Humans Age Three Human Beings Majors Intellectual Mathematics Chess Pursuit Feats Puberty

Book:George Steiner: A Reader

Source: George Steiner: A Reader

“Monotheism at Sinai, primitive Christianity, messianic socialism: these are the three supreme moments in which Western culture is presented with what Ibsen termed "the claims of the ideal." These are the three stages, profoundly interrelated, through which Western consciousness is forced to experience the blackmail of transcendence.”

Moments Culture Three Consciousness Christianity Stage Ideals Claims Western Supreme Socialism Primitive Transcendence Western Culture Blackmail Monotheism Sinai Ibsen

Author:George Steiner

“When it turned on the Jew, Christianity and European civilization turned on the incarnation - albeit an incarnation often wayward and unaware - of its own best hopes.”

Christianity Civilization Jew Incarnation Hoping For The Best

Book:In Bluebeard's Castle: Some Notes Towards the Redefinition of Culture

Source: In Bluebeard's Castle: Some Notes Towards the Redefinition of Culture

“Nothing in the next-door world of Dachau impinged on the great winter cycle of Beethoven chamber music played in Munich. No canvases came off museum walls as the butchers strolled reverently past, guide-books in hand.”

World Book Hands Past Next Doors Wall Winter Guides Cycles Museums Chamber Butchers Munich Chamber Music Dachau

Author:George Steiner

“A good deal of classical music is, today, the opium of the good citizen.”

Today Deals Citizens Music Is Classical Music Opium Good Citizen

Book:In Bluebeard's Castle: Some Notes Towards the Redefinition of Culture

Source: In Bluebeard's Castle: Some Notes Towards the Redefinition of Culture

“The private reader of listener can become an executant of felt meaning when he learns the poem or the musical passage by heart. To learn by heart is to afford the text or music an indwelling clarity and life-force.”

Heart Force Felt Reader Musical Clarity Passages Listeners

Book:Real Presences: Is There Anything in What We Say?

Source: Real Presences: Is There Anything in What We Say?