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Quote by Annie Dillard

“Get to work. Your work is to keep cranking the flywheel that turns the gears that spin the belt in the engine of belief that keeps you and your desk in midair.”

Quote by Annie Dillard

Work

The Writing Life

This book delves into the various facets of the writing process, including the challenges and rewards of crafting literature. It offers insights into the writer's journey, from the initial spark of inspiration to the final publication of a work. more

Author

Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard is an American author known for her unique writing style and profound observations of nature. Born on April 30, 1945, she has written several notable works, including 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek' and 'Under the Sun'. more

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“It is easy to see, however,―as has been indicated more than once by anarchist writers, and lately by the French professor, V. Basch, in an interesting work, Anarchist Individualism: Max Stirner (1904, in French)―that this sort of individualism, aiming as it does at the "full development," not of all members of society, but of those only who would be considered as the most gifted ones, without caring for the right of full development for all―is merely a disguised return towards the now-existing education-monopoly of the few. It simply means a "right to their full development" for the privileged minorities. But, as such monopolies cannot be maintained otherwise than under the protection of a monopolist legislation and an organized coercion by the State, the claims of these individualists necessarily end in a return to the state idea and to that same coercion which they so fiercely attack themselves. Their position is thus the same as that of Spencer, and of all so-called "Manchester school" of economists, who also begin by a severe criticism of the State and end in its full recognition in order to maintain the property monopolies, of which the State is the necessary stronghold.”

“If there is much to be said for the virtues of the free market, for its role in encouraging hard work, innovation, and economic growth--and argument that seems nearly beyond dispute at this point--then it must also be acknowledged as equally indisputable that organizing an economic system around self-interest and competition tends to produce a multitude of so-called neighborhood effects. No one has yet to solve the conundrum of the ecological costs associated with economic growth without conceiving of some role of state intervention. Thus far, the notion that unrestrained capitalism can make the United States fabulously wealthy and save the planet too remains little more than a pipe dream.”

“A judgment is conscious of its own validity. This shows that the measure of validity to which it refers itself in this consciousness is inherent in the nature of judgment: a judgment is subject to this measure not in virtue of any circumstance in which it may find itself, but simply as judgment. Now when we think of an act simply as a judgment, we refer it to the power as an act of which it is a judgment: the power of judgment. Hence, the measure of validity of judgment is nothing other than the power of judgment. A judgment, being conscious of its validity, refers itself to the power from which it springs (as, e.g., St. Thomas Aquinas observes).”

“We had learned from the native Onondaga tribe, who dwelled on the land long before Silas Marble was unjustly granted it for serving in the war, that believing yourself a possessor of the land is a damaging practice. I believe them. My ownership of the apple grove or barn or brick is an illusion that I chiefly entertain as a societal formality; or rather, my ownership does not mean what you think it means. The land I live on is not mine to have, but mine to nurture. I am responsible […] This is okay. I have known that my devotion to this place rests on my willingness to release any pretense that it belongs to me more than it is making me. Ask me what I'm made of and I'll tell you to look down.”

“A Black woman I admire once drew me into a line from Jeremiah 9:20 that says, ‘Hear, O women ... teach to your daughters a dirge, and each to her neighbour a lament.’ When she told me this, two things occurred to me. The first: Lament is intergenerational. The second: It is something that can be taught.”