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Quote by Nikolai Gogol

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Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was a prominent 19th-century Russian dramatist and novelist. His works are known for their sharp satire and humor, which have had a profound impact on Russian literature. more

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“That it does not matter what a man believes is a statement heard on every side today. ... What he believes tells him what the world is for. How can men who disagree about what the world is for agree about any of the minutiae of daily conduct? The statement really means that it does not matter what a man believes so long as he does not take his beliefs seriously.”

MenWorldBelieveMeanLongDoeMatterTodayBeliefSidesHeardAgreeStatementsDisagreeReally MeanMinutiae
Book:Ideas Have Consequences: Expanded Edition
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“It is characteristic of the barbarian ... to insist upon seeing a thing "as it is." The desire testifies that he has nothing in himself with which to spiritualize it; the relation is one of thing to thing without the intercession of the imagination. Impatient of the veiling with which the man of higher type gives the world imaginative meaning, the barbarian and the Philistine, who is the barbarian living amid culture, demands the access of immediacy. Where the former wishes representation, the latter insists upon starkness of materiality, suspecting rightly that forms will mean restraint.”

MenWorldGivingMeanFormDesireCultureWishImaginationSeeingHe ManTypeHigherDemandRelationAccessFormerCharacteristicsLatterRepresentationRestraintImaginativeImpatientBarbariansIntercessionImmediacyPhilistinesMateriality
Author:Richard M. Weaver
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“The member of a culture ... purposely avoids the relationship of intimacy; he wants the object somehow depicted and fictionalized. ... He is embarrassed when this is taken out of its context of proper sentiments and presented bare, for he feels that this is a reintrusion of that world which his whole conscious effort has sought to banish. Forms and conventions are the ladder of ascent. And hence the speechlessness of the man of culture when he beholds the barbarian tearing aside some veil which is half adornment, half concealment.”

MenWorldWantFeelsWholeFormCultureEffortHalfTakenObjectsHe ManMembersConsciousIntimacySentimentsConventionsEmbarrassedVeilsLaddersBarbariansAscentConcealmentAdornment
Author:Richard M. Weaver
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