“ Orwell clung with a kind of wry, grim pride to the old ways of the last class that had ruled the old order. He must sometimes have wondered how it came about that he should be praising sportsmanship a… Lionel Trilling
“ We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us. Lionel Trilling
“ Probably it is impossible for humor to be ever a revolutionary weapon. Candide can do little more than generate irony. Lionel Trilling
“ Every neurosis is a primitive form of legal proceeding in which the accused carries on the prosecution, imposes judgment and executes the sentence: all to the end that someone else should not perform… Lionel Trilling
“ The poet may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather. Lionel Trilling
“ The function of literature, through all its mutations, has been to make us aware of the particularity of selves, and the high authority of the self in its quarrel with its society and its culture. Lit… Lionel Trilling
“ Literature is the human activity that takes the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty. Lionel Trilling
“ There is no connection between the political ideas of our educated class and the deep places of the imagination. Lionel Trilling
“ In the most secret heart of every intellectual ... there lies hidden ... the hope of power, the desire to bring his ideas to reality by imposing them on his fellow man. Lionel Trilling
“ At the behest of the criterion of authenticity, much that was once thought to make up the very fabric of culture has come to seem of little account, mere fantasy or ritual, or downright falsification.… Lionel Trilling
“ Consistent affection for his characters is what sets Tolstoy apart. Flaubert is equally “objective,” he says, but “Flaubert’s objectivity is charged with irritability and Tolstoy’s with affection. For… Lionel Trilling
