Skip to content

Our culture peculiarly honors the act of blaming, which it takes as the sign of virtue and intellect.

— Lionel Trilling The Liberal Imagination (1950)

Another quote →

Topics

Character

More quotes by Lionel Trilling

It is now life and not art that requires the willing suspension of disbelief.

We are all ill; but even a universal sickness implies an idea of health.

The Liberal Imagination (1950)

No literature has ever been so shockingly personal as that of our time — it asks every question that is forbidden by polite society.

The poet is in command of his fantasy, while it is exactly the mark of the neurotic that he is possessed by his fantasy.

The Liberal Imagination (1950)

Everything which the economist takes from you in the way of life and humanity, he restores to you in the form of money and wealth.

Sincerity and Authenticity (1972)

All Lionel Trilling quotes →

You may also like

Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves.

Étienne de La Boétie Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.

George Bernard Shaw Man and Superman (1903)

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins.

Horace Mann Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

Attribution

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