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What disturbed the advocates of the dances most profoundly was the discovery of a fathomless paradox at the bottom of their friends' thinking: in following the crowd, against their own will and judgment, they were following themselves, i.e., nobody.

— Mary McCarthy The Groves of Academe (1952)

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Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: Ch. II, p. 307
Work: The Groves of Academe, 1952
Source quality: Precise citation Points to a specific work with a page, chapter, date or similar locator, so you can look it up.

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Attribution

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