Skip to content

I am a passionate admire of Sappho, but that has to be one of the stupidest sentences I have ever seen in a scholarly book.

— Camille Paglia Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992)

Another quote →

Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: p. 204, on John Winkler’s claim that “Sappho’s consciousness is a larger circle enclosing the smaller one of Homer,” in Winkler’s Constraints of Desire.
Work: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays, 1992
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

More by Camille Paglia

Feminism, coveting social power, is blind to women’s cosmic sexual power.

Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992)

Sappho and Emily Dickinson are the only woman geniuses in poetic history.

Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992)

Everyone of my generation who preached free love is responsible for AIDS.

Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992)

Imperialism and slavery are no white male monopoly, but are everywhere from Egypt, Assyria, and Persia to India, China and Japan.

Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992)

The Sixties attempted a return to nature that ended in disaster.

Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992)

I subscribe to Jung's theory of synchronicity.

Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990)

The book of Genesis is a male declaration of independence from the ancient mother-cults. Its challenge to nature, so sexist to modern ears, marks one of the crucial moments in western history.

Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990)

It is in the best interests of the human race, and of women themselves, for men to be strong.

Vamps and Tramps (1994)

All Camille Paglia quotes →

Topics

Books

More quotes by Camille Paglia

Even the best critical writing on Emily Dickinson underestimates her. She is frightening.

Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990)

Running to Mommy and Daddy on the campus grievance committee is unworthy of strong women.

Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992)

Nefertiti is like Athena born from the brow of Zeus, a head-heavy armored goddess. She is beautiful but desexed.

Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990)

The mystique of the femme fatale cannot be perfectly translated into male terms.

Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990)

Art is a vast, ancient interconnected web-work, a fabricated tradition. Overconcentration on any one point is a distortion.

Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992)

All Camille Paglia quotes →

You may also like

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science, and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge.

Albert Pike Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.

Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

Logan Pearsall Smith Afterthoughts (1931)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Camille Paglia (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.