Sensibility Quotes
More Sensibility Quotes
Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue.
Henry James— Henry James, The Art of Fiction (1884).
In the seventeenth century a dissociation of sensibility set in from which we have never recovered; and this dissociation, as isnatural, was dueto the influence of the two most powerful poets of the century, Milton and Dryden.
— 1921Selected Essays (1932),'The Metaphysical Poets'.
The people which ceases to care for its literary inheritance becomes barbaric; the people which ceases to produce literature ceases to move in thought and sensibility.
— 1933 The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism.
While Socrates empties the cup of poison with unshaken soul, Christ exclaims, "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me." Christ in this respect is the self-confession of human sensibility.
Ludwig Feuerbach— Das Wesen des Christentums (1841). Translated by Mary Anne Evans (pen name: George Eliot) as "The Essence of Christianity," 1854.
Experience isnever limited, and it isnever complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching everyair-borne particle in its tissue.
Henry James— 1884 'The Art of Fiction', collected in Partial Portraits (1888).
Dear sensibility! Source inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows!
Laurence Sterne— 1768 A SentimentalJourney,'The Bourbonnois'.
When a man has his heart in the right place and good taste, he can not only do well in politics but is even predetermined for it. If someone is modest and does not yearn for power, he is certainly not ill-equipped to engage in politics; on the contrary, he belongs there. What is needed in politics is not the ability to lie but rather the sensibility to know when, where, how and to whom to say things.
václav havel— International Herald Tribune (29 October 1991)
— Variant translation: If your heart is in the right place and you have good taste, not only will you pass muster in politics, you are destined for it. If you are modest and do not lust after power, not only are you suited to politics, you absolutely belong there.
These days there are painters that go inside a factory in order to be inspired by the noise of machines, so that it affects their works. Of course, artists need sensibility; sensibility towards their environment and their community, but when they are stirred enough by their experiences in their society they can create their art in small studios.
guity novin— p. 57 (Negin (1971))
What is a Poet?...He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the Universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them.
william wordsworth— Preface (Lyrical Ballads (1798-1800))
A man may be as much a fool from the want of sensibility as the want of sense.
— Mrs. Jameson, Studies, Detached Thoughts, p. 122.
Social advance depends quite as much upon an increase in moral sensibility as it does upon a sense of duty ...
jane addams— Ch. 15 (Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910))
The contradictions in Renan , his feminine sensibility, coquetry, unavowed egotism, and sudden emotional outbursts, all indicate a soul deliberately using distraction as a means of evasion. The perpetual equivocation bears witness to God in the same way as the twisting and turning of a hunted animal indicates the presence of an unseen hunter.
Georges Bernanos— p.152 (L'imposture (The Impostor), 1927)
"Artists have a sensibility that others don't have. They have a way of reading into the future."
john elkann— "All in the family", TIME, 06-25-2006
There is, I think, no more nutritive or suggestive truth... than that of the perfect dependence of the "moral" sense of a work of art on the amount of felt life concerned in producing it. The question comes back thus, obviously, to the kind and the degree of the artist's prime sensibility, which is the soil out of which his subject springs.
Henry James— The Portrait of a Lady
Medieval and ancient sensibility now dominates our time as acoustic and multisensory awareness displaces the merely visual.
Marshall McLuhan— p. 225 ("The Agenbite of Outwit")
Certain bedrock principles arguably a true conservative mindset dictate a respect for life. A life-conserving sensibility means that guns are meant for self-defense, not for needless killing[…] This gun owner is no gun nut; but a right-to-self-defense fanatic.
ilana mercer— "Just a girl with a gun; not a gratuitous killer", Praag.org, November 25, 2013.
The modern sensibility attempts to drain the contents of experience; these Greek poets strive to state the fact so poignantly that it becomes an ever-flowing spring as Sappho says, "More real than real, more gold than gold."
kenneth rexroth— The Greek Anthology (p. 59)
The aim of every authentic artist is not to conform to the history of art but to release himself from it, in order to replace it with his own history. However the historical pattern is drawn, it will not fit the developing sensibility of the individual.
Harold Rosenberg— "Olitski, Kelly, Hamilton: Dogma and Talent" (pp. 64-65)
We shall be remembered in history as the most cruel, and therefore the most unwise, generation of men that ever yet troubled the earth: the most cruel in proportion to their sensibility, the most unwise in proportion to their science. No people, understanding pain, ever inflicted so much: no people, understanding facts, ever acted on them so little.
john ruskin— Lecture II, section 35.
Since liberalism has become a kind of official party line, we have been enjoined against saying things about races, religions or national groups, for after all, there is no categorical statement without its implication of value, and values begin divisions among men. We must not define, subsume, or judge; we must rather rest on the periphery and display “sensibility toward the cultural expressions of all lands and peoples.” This is a process of emasculation.
richard weaver— p. 59 (Ideas have Consequences (1948))
Her eyes were not soft, as Mrs. Wordsworth's, nor were they fierce or bold; but they were wild and startling, and hurried in their motion. Her manner was warm and even ardent; her sensibility seemed constitutionally deep; and some subtle fire of impassioned intellect apparently burned within her.
dorothy wordsworth— Thomas De Quincey Recollections of the Lakes and the Lake Poets (Harmondsworth, 1970) p. 131.
A genuinely democratic society requires a secular ethos: one that does not equate morality with religion, stigmatize atheists, defer to religious interests and aims over others or make religious belief an informal qualification for public office. Of course, secularism in the latter sense is not mandated by the First Amendment. It's a matter of sensibility, not law.
— Ellen Willis, "Freedom from Religion", The Nation (February 19, 2001)
In consequence of the sensibility with which they are endowed, they ought to partake of natural right; so that mankind is subjected to a kind of obligation even toward the brutes. It appears, in fact, that if I am bound to do no injury to my fellow-creatures, this is less because they are rational than because they are sentient beings: and this quality, being common both to men and beasts, ought to entitle the latter at least to the privilege of not being wantonly ill-treated by the former.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau— Discourse on Inequality (1754), preface.
Certain bedrock principles arguably a true conservative mindset dictate a respect for life. A life-conserving sensibility means that guns are meant for self-defense, not for needless killing[…] This gun owner is no gun nut; but a right-to-self-defense fanatic.
— "Just a girl with a gun; not a gratuitous killer", Praag.org, November 25, 2013.
A genuinely democratic society requires a secular ethos: one that does not equate morality with religion, stigmatize atheists, defer to religious interests and aims over others or make religious belief an informal qualification for public office. Of course, secularism in the latter sense is not mandated by the First Amendment. It's a matter of sensibility, not law.
— Ellen Willis, "Freedom from Religion", The Nation (February 19, 2001)
I'm all those things, even though I don't want to, in the confuse depth of my fatal sensibility.
— Original: Sou todas essa coisas, embora o não queira, no fundo confuso da minha sensibilidade fatal.
— Ibid., p. 58
Our best destiny, as planetary cohabitants, is the development of what has been called "species consciousness" something over and above nationalisms, blocs, religions, ethnicities. During this week of incredulous misery, I have been trying to apply such a consciousness, and such a sensibility. Thinking of the victims, the perpetrators, and the near future, I felt species grief, then species shame, then species fear.
— Martin Amis in "Fear and loathing" - The Guardian (18 September 2001)
