Home / Quotes / Quote by Terry Eagleton

Quote by Terry Eagleton

“In the end, the humanities can only be defended by stressing how indispensable they are; and this means insisting on their vital role in the whole business of academic learning, rather than protesting that, like some poor relation, they don't cost much to be housed.”

Quote by Terry Eagleton

Author

Terry Eagleton is a renowned British literary critic, known for his research on Marxist literary theory. His work spans a wide range of literary and theoretical topics, influencing cultural studies and political commentary as well. more

You May Also Like

“Irish fiction is full of secrets, guilty pasts, divided identities. It is no wonder that there is such a rich tradition of Gothic writing in a nation so haunted by history.”

Writing Past Nations Secret Fiction Wonder Rich Identity Tradition Guilty Divided Gothic

Author:Terry Eagleton

“It is easy to see why a diversity of cultures should confront power with a problem. If culture is about plurality, power is about unity. How can it sell itself simultaneously to a whole range of life forms without being fatally diluted?”

Ifs Should Whole Problem Form Culture Easy Diversity Sells Unity Range

Author:Terry Eagleton

“It is in Rousseau's writing above all that history begins to turn from upper-class honour to middle-class humanitarianism. Pity, sympathy and compassion lie at the centre of his moral vision. Values associated with the feminine begin to infiltrate social existence as a whole, rather than being confined to the domestic sphere.”

Writing Whole Lying Values Turns Social Existence Compassion Moral Vision Class Middle Pity Middle Class Feminine Honour Sympathy Spheres Centre Humanitarianism Confined Upper Class

Author:Terry Eagleton

“It is true that some liberals and humanists, along with the laid-back Danes, deny the existence of evil. This is largely because they regard the word 'evil' as a device for demonising those who are really nothing more than socially unfortunate.”

Evil Existence Regard Deny Devices Unfortunate Laid Back

Author:Terry Eagleton

“Most students of literature can pick apart a metaphor or spot an ethnic stereotype, but not many of them can say things like: 'The poem's sardonic tone is curiously at odds with its plodding syntax.”

Literature Students Picks Metaphor Spots Tone Odds Stereotype Syntax Sardonic Ethnic Stereotypes

Author:Terry Eagleton

“Nations sometimes flourish by denying the crimes that brought them into being. Only when the original invasion, occupation, extermination or usurpation has been safely thrust into the political unconscious can sovereignty feel secure.”

Feels Has Beens Sometimes Political Nations Crime Originals Secure Unconscious Occupation Sovereignty Invasion Thrust Extermination Usurpation

Author:Terry Eagleton

“Poetry is the most subtle of the literary arts, and students grow more ingenious by the year at avoiding it. If they can nip around Milton, duck under Blake and collapse gratefully into the arms of Jane Austen, a lot of them will.”

Ifs Years Art Grows Students Arms Subtle Poetry Is Ducks Collapse Avoiding Jane Ingenious Blake Austen Milton Literary Art

Author:Terry Eagleton

“The British are supposed to be particularly averse to intellectuals, a prejudice closely bound up with their dislike of foreigners. Indeed, one important source of this Anglo-Saxon distaste for highbrows and eggheads was the French revolution, which was seen as an attempt to reconstruct society on the basis of abstract rational principles.”

Important Principles Source Revolution Bases Prejudice Bounds British Rational Supposed To Be Abstract Dislike Foreigners French Revolution Distaste Anglo Saxon Eggheads

Author:Terry Eagleton

“The conversion of agnostic High Tories to the Anglican church is always rather suspect. It seems too pat and predictable, too clearly a matter of politics rather than faith.”

Matter Seems Church Conversion Suspects Agnostic Predictable

Author:Terry Eagleton

“The German philosopher Walter Benjamin had the curious notion that we could change the past. For most of us, the past is fixed while the future is open.”

Past Notion Philosopher Curious Fixed German Philosopher

Author:Terry Eagleton