It is not the conscious innovations of men of learning or genius that really transform a civilization: it is the unconscious innovations of the anonymous multitude.
Characters formed within one society and living in circumstances where their dispositions are no longer needed — characters in time of great social change — are likely to be tragic. Their virtues lie useless or even foiled; they are no longer recognized for what they are; their motives and actions are misunderstood. The magnanimous man in a petty bourgeois society is seen as a vain fool; the energetic and industrious man in a society that prizes elegance above energy is seen as a bustling boor; the meditative person in an expansive society is seen as melancholic.
3mo ago
We accept the verdict of the past until the need of the present voices a demand for change; and even then we rarely have the courage to deny that the past was right, we merely claim that it was right for another age.
3mo ago
We accept the verdict of the past until the need of the present voices a demand to the contrary. But when a considerable number of people shall say they do not believe in the verdict of the past, we have reached a time of change.
In the past, showing that you were a good American — waving the flag, joining the army, speaking perfect English, and so on — was good enough to reassure most conservatives that you weren't an invader bent on overthrowing America's culture and replacing it with something alien. Nowadays, that's not enough.
5mo ago
We are not makers of history. We are made by history.
I'd learned by this time that the highfalutin ideals of American democracy often fell far short of what their originators hoped for. Here was an experiment I and my children could be part of.
6mo ago
Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.
