Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by George Steiner

Quote by George Steiner

“«No se trata solo de que los vehículos convencionales de la civilización —las universidades, las artes, el mundo del libro— fueran incapaces de presentar resistencia apropiada a la brutalidad política; a veces se levantaron para acogerla y tributarle sus ceremonias y su apología. ¿Por qué? ¿Cuáles son los nexos, hasta ahora apenas conocidos, entre las pautas intelectuales, psicológicas, del alto saber literario y las tentaciones de lo inhumano.» Steiner, G. (2006) Lenguaje y silencio: Ensayos sobre la literatura, el lenguaje y lo inhumano. Sevilla: Editorial Gedisa (trabajo original publicado en New York, 1976), p. 12.”

Quote by George Steiner

Work

Language & Silence: Essays on Language, Literature, and the Inhuman

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

George Steiner
George Steiner

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

You May Also Like

“During the whole of the fucking Middle Ages, the place where they had it off most of all was the cemeteries!...people don't face up these odd little sides of things, leave a lot of naughty little facts in the dark out of human decency! A mistake! wrong!...human decency never holds up!...with me it's my enemas! the toilet! after two weeks without an enema I have nothing against dying...and they give it to me so hot that I scream... --And in Claunau? [i.e. Dachau] --You're right, you're right! I whimper, but I'm spoiled! but were you there, in Claunau?...My ass you were! doesn't stop you from screeching your fucking lungs out as if you were the first one in and the last one out!”

“In the interrogation room, silence was used as torture. But it was an invisible cruelty. No law prohibited. A few hours earlier, in the same place where Michael Ivanovich had been, Simon Berish was now locked up. Unlike the others who had passed through the room, he knew the reason why the white walls were covered with sound-absorbing material. The principle was that of an "anechoic chamber," where sounds cannot penetrate. The body compensates for the absence by creating artificial noises—tinnitus, ringing. As time passes, one becomes less and less able to distinguish reality, from the imagination.”

“Imagine a crown of thorns, twisted, dark and unreflective, grown too thickly tangled to ever rest on any human head. Put it in orbit around a failed star whose own reflected half-light does little more than throw its satellites into silhouette. Occasional bloody highlights glinted like dim embers from its twists and crannies; they only emphasized the darkness everywhere else. Imagine an artefact that embodies the very notion of torture, something so wrenched and disfigured that even across uncounted lightyears and unimaginable differences in biology and outlook, you can't help but feel that somehow, the structure itself is in pain. Now make it the size of a city”

“The margins of the space were bright without illuminating anything or casting shadows, sharp and terrible. It reminded her of the way schizophrenics and people suffering migraines would describe light as assaulting and dangerous. And within that boundary, darkness swirled. It was more than an absence. She could sense a structure within it, layers interpenetrating, like shadows casting shadows. It throbbed with an inhuman power, tidal and deep and painful. Look at this too long, Elvi thought, and I will lose my mind in it. She took a step toward it, feeling the structures in the blackness respond to her. She felt as if she could see the spaces between molecules in the air, like atoms themselves had become a thin fog, and for the first time she could see the true shape of reality looming up just beyond her reach.”