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The primal and perennial work of social organization is not to fix the bounds of behavior as permanent lines, which would make all evolutionary process impossible, but to retrieve the vital balance every time some act, public or private, has upset it.

— Susanne Langer Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling (1967)

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More quotes by Susanne Langer

If we would have new knowledge, we must get us a whole world of new questions.

Philosophy in a New Key (1942)

Art is the objectification of feeling, and the subjectification of nature.

Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling (1967)

Art is the creation of forms symbolic of human feeling.

Feeling and Form (1953)

The seeds of civilization are in every culture, but it is city life that brings them to fruition.

Philosophical Sketches (1962)

Common-sense knowledge is prompt, categorical, and inexact.

Philosophy in a New Key (1942)

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Attribution

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