Adversaria 24
‘I read because reading was order, harmony, the promise of a third act where everything would come together, where everything would make sense’ —Federico Falco (The Plains, trans. Jennifer Croft, p.109)
‘Crude and arrogant writers defend their works even against just criticisms and reasonable corrections; others, faint of heart perchance, fill themselves with the favorable judgments of their works, and, by reason of these, take no steps to perfect them’ —Giambattista Vico (Autobiography, trans. Max Harold Fisch and Thomas Goddard Bergin, Continuation, 1731, p. 193)
‘Triumph belongs to the attainment of maturity by growth process. Triumph does not belong to the false maturity based on a facile impersonation of an adult. Terrible facts are locked up in this statement’ —D.W. Winnicott (Playing and Reality, p. 147)
‘“Americanism” was a form of Modernism which had arisen from the American spirit upholding democracy, human progress, education uncontrolled by the Church, unfettered human reason, and the natural virtues of honor, courage and trustfulness. The heresy had been promulgated by Father Hecker…’ —David Christie-Murray (A History of Heresy, p. 197)
‘Investigators here have proceeded according to instinct, and their words do not correspond to what they have actually sensed’ —V. Propp (Morphology of the Folktale, trans. Laurence Scott, p. 6)
‘In many jobs, censorship is a perk of office; the censor will no more forgo it, even if it is quite ineffectual, than the man who is entitled to a second biscuit with his tea will forgo that, even if he dislikes biscuits’ —Brigid Brophy (‘The British Museum and Solitary Vice’, in Don’t Never Forget, p. 102)
‘Even if the whole of the occult arts are without scientific or metaphysical basis, even if they should one day turn out to be nothing more than an illusion without substance, they would still stand as very good examples of psychological aids in that lend to the individual a focus that he might not normally have. Anything that aids the individual in centering on himself, causing him to consider his frailties and enhance his potentials, cannot be considered useless’ —Charles Poncé (The Game of Wizards, p. 209)
‘…one cannot call one’s brother in the Spirit a heretic even if one disagrees with his views’ —David Christie-Murray (A History of Heresy, p. 216)
‘Among the semi-learned or pseudo-learned, the more shameless called him a fool, or in somewhat more courteous terms they said that he was obscure or eccentric and had odd ideas’ —Giambattista Vico (Autobiography, trans. Max Harold Fisch and Thomas Goddard Bergin, Continuation, 1731, p. 199f.)