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Quote by Robert Penn Warren

“We can grant, too, that for social problems to be diagnosed, some detachment from society is necessary…But social problems are rarely to be solved by men totally outside of society – certainly not by men not merely outside of a particular society but outside of the very concept of society. For if all institutions are “dirty,” why really bother to amend them? Destruction is simpler, purer, more logical, and certainly more exciting. Conscience without responsibility – this is truly the last infirmity of noble mind.”

Quote by Robert Penn Warren

Book:The Legacy of the Civil War
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Work

The Legacy of the Civil War

This comprehensive study delves into the long-term effects of the Civil War, examining its influence on political, social, and cultural aspects of American life. more

Author

Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren

Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic. His works are known for their profound social insight and unique portrayal of Southern culture. Warren's poetry and novels have won numerous literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1947 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1955. more

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Book:The Heroes
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“No culture exists within which everyone does not feel "different" from others and does not consider such "differences" to be legitimate and necessary. Far from being radical and progressive, the current glorification of difference is merely the abstract expression of an attitude common to all cultures. There exists in every individual a tendency to think of himself not only as different from others but as extremely different, because every culture entertains this feeling of difference among the individuals who compose it.”

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Book:The Scapegoat
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“There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one's grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the future as from the past. He cares as little for what will be as for what has been; he cares only for what ought to be. And for my present purpose I specially insist on this abstract independence. If I am to discuss what is wrong, one of the first things that are wrong is this: the deep and silent modern assumption that past things have become impossible. There is one metaphor of which the moderns are very fond; they are always saying, "You can't put the clock back." The simple and obvious answer is "You can." A clock, being a piece of human construction, can be restored by the human finger to any figure or hour. In the same way society, being a piece of human construction, can be reconstructed upon any plan that has ever existed.”

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Author:G.K. Chesterton
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“Meanwhile the wineglasses had flushed yellow and flushed crimson; had been emptied; had been filled. And thus by degrees was lit, halfway down the spine, which is the seat of the soul, not that hard little electric light which we call brilliance, as it pops in and out upon our lips, but the more profound, subtle and subterranean glow, which is the rich yellow flame of rational intercourse. No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself. We are all going to heaven and Vandyck is of the company--in other words, how good life seemed, how sweet its rewards, how trivial this grudge or that grievance, how admirable friendship and the society of one's kind, as, lighting a good cigarette, one sunk among the cushions in the window-seat.”

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Book:A Room of One’s Own
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