"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

posted in imagination

Terry Eagleton quote about imagination: "Cynicism and naivety lie cheek by jowl in the American imagination if the United States is one of th..."

Other Quotes

Discover more inspiring quotes from our collection

"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

"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

sympathyView Quote

"The British are supposed to be particularly averse to intellectuals, a prejudice closely bound up with their dislike of foreigners. Indeed, one important source of this Anglo-Saxon distaste for highbrows and eggheads was the French revolution, which was seen as an attempt to reconstruct society on the basis of abstract rational principles."

-Terry Eagleton

societyView Quote

"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

positiveView Quote

"The conversion of agnostic High Tories to the Anglican church is always rather suspect. It seems too pat and predictable, too clearly a matter of politics rather than faith."

-Terry Eagleton

politicsView Quote

"Poetry is the most subtle of the literary arts, and students grow more ingenious by the year at avoiding it. If they can nip around Milton, duck under Blake and collapse gratefully into the arms of Jane Austen, a lot of them will."

-Terry Eagleton

poetryView Quote

Same Category

More quotes in this category

"Television contracts the imagination and radio expands it."

-Terry Wogan

imaginationView Quote

"Imagination is not something apart and hermetic, not a way of leaving reality behind it is a way of engaging reality."

-Irving Howe

imaginationView Quote

"Personality is more important than beauty, but imagination is more important than both of them."

-Laurette Taylor

imaginationView Quote

"With the brush we merely tint, while the imagination alone produces colour."

-Theodore Gericault

imaginationView Quote

"Anyone who lives within his means suffers from a lack of imagination."

-Lionel Stander

imaginationView Quote

"One lifetime is never enough to accomplish one's horticultural goals. If a garden is a site for the imagination, how can we be very far from the beginning?"

-Francis Cabot Lowell

imaginationView Quote