Terry Eagleton Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• Any attempt to define literary theory in terms of a distinctive method is doomed to failure.

  Terry Eagleton

  Literary Theory, Method, Term

  Terry Eagleton (2011). “Literary Theory: An Introduction”, p.172, John Wiley & Sons

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• Most poetry in the modern age has retreated to the private sphere, turning its back on the political realm.

  Terry Eagleton

  Political, Age, Spheres

  "Milton's republic" by Terry Eagleton, www.theguardian.com. December 8, 2008.

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• Evil is often supposed to be without rhyme or reason.

  Terry Eagleton

  Evil, Reason, Rhyme

  Terry Eagleton (2010). “On Evil”, p.3, Yale University Press

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• It is true that too much belief can be bad for your health.

  Terry Eagleton

  Too Much, Belief

  "Cloudy outlook" by Terry Eagleton, www.theguardian.com. August 22, 2008.

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• History works itself out by an inevitable internal logic.

  Terry Eagleton

  Logic, Inevitable, Internals

  "Why Marx Was Right". Book by Terry Eagleton, 2011.

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• If there are indeed any iron laws of history, one of them is surely that in any major crisis of the capitalist system, a sector of the liberal middle class will shift to the left, and then shift smartly back again once the crisis has blown over.

  Terry Eagleton

  Law, Class, Iron

  1993 In the London Review of Books, 2 Dec

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• Americans use the word "dream" as often as psychoanalysts do.

  Terry Eagleton

  Dream, Use

  "Age of innocence" by Terry Eagleton, www.theguardian.com. July 25, 2008.

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• Historical determinism is a recipe for political quietism.

  Terry Eagleton

  Political, Historical, Recipes

  Terry Eagleton (2011). “Why Marx Was Right”, p.46, Yale University Press

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• The political currents that topped the global agenda in the late 20th century - revolutionary nationalism, feminism and ethnic struggle - place culture at their heart.

  Terry Eagleton

  Struggle, Heart, Political

  "Culture conundrum" by Terry Eagleton, www.theguardian.com. May 20, 2008.

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• Cynicism and naivety lie cheek by jowl in the American imagination; if the United States is one of the most venal nations on Earth, it is also one of the most earnestly idealistic.

  Terry Eagleton

  Lying, Imagination, United States

  "Age of innocence" by Terry Eagleton, www.theguardian.com. July 25, 2008.

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• Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech.

  Terry Eagleton

  Everyday, Ordinary, Literature

  Terry Eagleton (2011). “Literary Theory: An Introduction”, p.2, John Wiley & Sons

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• It is in Rousseau's writing above all that history begins to turn from upper-class honour to middle-class humanitarianism. Pity, sympathy and compassion lie at the centre of his moral vision. Values associated with the feminine begin to infiltrate social existence as a whole, rather than being confined to the domestic sphere.

  Terry Eagleton

  Sympathy, Lying, Writing

  "What would Rousseau make of our selfish age?" by Terry Eagleton, www.theguardian.com. June 27, 2012.

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• All communication involves faith; indeed, some linguisticians hold that the potential obstacles to acts of verbal understanding are so many and diverse that it is a minor miracle that they take place at all.

  Terry Eagleton

  Communication, Miracle, Understanding

  Terry Eagleton (2014). “Reason, Faith, & Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate”, p.117, Yale University Press

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• There is no way in which we can retrospectively erase the Treaty of Vienna or the Great Irish Famine. It is a peculiar feature of human actions that, once performed, they can never be recuperated. What is true of the past will always be true of it.

  Terry Eagleton

  Past, Vienna, Peculiar

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• One side-effect of the so-called war on terror has been a crisis of liberalism. This is not only a question of alarmingly illiberal legislation, but a more general problem of how the liberal state deals with its anti-liberal enemies.

  Terry Eagleton

  War, Enemy, Sides

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• For Aristotle, goodness is a kind of prospering in the precarious affair of being human.

  Terry Eagleton

  Kind, Affair, Being Human

  "Ideas for modern living: virtue" by Terry Eagleton, www.theguardian.com. September 11, 2010.

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• For the liberal state to accommodate a diversity of beliefs while having few positive convictions is one of the more admirable achievements of civilization.

  Terry Eagleton

  Civilization, Diversity, Achievement

  "The liberal supremacists" by Terry Eagleton, www.theguardian.com. April 24, 2009.

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• Yahweh is presented in the Jewish Bible as stateless and nationless. He can’t be used as a totem or fetish in that way.

  Terry Eagleton

  Yahweh, Way, Totems

  "Religion for radicals: An interview with Terry Eagleton". Interview with Nathan Schneider, blogs.ssrc.org. September 17, 2009.

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• Evil may be 'unscientific' but so is a song or a smile.

  Terry Eagleton

  Song, Evil, May

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• All propaganda or popularization involves a putting of the complex into the simple, but such a move is instantly deconstructive. For if the complex can be put into the simple, then it cannot be as complex as it seemed in the first place; and if the simple can be an adequate medium of such complexity, then it cannot after all be as simple as all that.

  Terry Eagleton

  Moving, Simple, Adequate

  "Against The Grain". Book by Terry Eagleton, 1986.

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• As far as belief goes, postmodernism prefers to travel light: it has beliefs, to be sure, but it does not have faith

  Terry Eagleton

  Light, Doe, Have Faith

  Terry Eagleton (2008). “The Meaning of Life: A Very Short Introduction”, p.16, OUP Oxford

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• It is easy to see why a diversity of cultures should confront power with a problem. If culture is about plurality, power is about unity. How can it sell itself simultaneously to a whole range of life forms without being fatally diluted?

  Terry Eagleton

  Diversity, Unity, Culture

  "Those in power are right to see multiculturalism as a threat" by Terry Eagleton, www.theguardian.com. February 20, 2007.

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• Language always pre-exists us: it is always already 'in place', waiting to assign us our places within it.

  Terry Eagleton

  Waiting, Language

  Terry Eagleton (2011). “Literary Theory: An Introduction”, p.151, John Wiley & Sons

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• It is true that some liberals and humanists, along with the laid-back Danes, deny the existence of evil. This is largely because they regard the word 'evil' as a device for demonising those who are really nothing more than socially unfortunate.

  Terry Eagleton

  Evil, Laid Back, Deny

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• It is capitalism, not Marxism, that trades in futures.

  Terry Eagleton

  Literary Theory, Marxism, Trade

  "Why Marx Was Right". Book by Terry Eagleton, 2011.

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