Stephen Vizinczey famous quotes

When you close your eyes to tragedy, you close your eyes to greatness.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Eye #Greatness #Tragedy

Consistency is a virtue for trains.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Consistency #Virtue #Train

Art experts are unfailingly opposed to Art for the simple reason that they are interested in Art - but Art is not interested in Art. Art is interested in life.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Art #Simple #Experts

Thou shalt not let a day pass without rereading something great.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Greatness #Rereading

Perhaps in a book review it is not out of place to note that the safety of the state depends on cultivating the imagination.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Book #Imagination #Safety

All great power has to do to destroy itself is persist in trying to do the impossible.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Trying #Impossible #Great Power

The war against Vietnam is only the ghastliest manifestation of what I'd call imperial provincialism, which afflicts America's whole culture-aware only of its own history, insensible to everything which isn't part of the local atmosphere.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#War #America #Atmosphere

Whenever you hear the word "inevitable", watch out! An enemy of humanity has identified himself.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Creative #Humanity #Enemy

Dictatorship is a constant lecture instructing you that your feelings, your thoughts and desires are of no account, that you are a nobody and must live as you are told by other people who desire and think for you
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Thinking #People #Feelings

Like all wage slaves, he had two crosses to bear: the people he worked for and the people he worked with
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Two #People #Wages

The only virtue a character needs to possess between hardcovers, even if he bears a real person's name, is vitality: if he comes to life in our imaginations, he passes the test.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Real #Character #Names

The truth is that our race survived ignorance; it is our scientific genius that will do us in.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Ignorance #Race #Genius

Powerful men in particular suffer from the delusion that human beings have no memories. I would go so far as to say that the distinguishing trait of powerful men is the psychotic certainty that people forget acts of infamy as easily as their parents birth
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Memories #Powerful #Men

As a rule, the most dangerous ideas are not the ones that divide people but those on which they agree.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Work #Ideas #People

Most bad books get that way because their authors are engaged in trying to justify themselves. If a vain author is an alcoholic, then the most sympathetically portrayed character in his book will be an alcoholic. This sort of thing is very boring for outsiders.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Book #Character #Writing

We now have a whole culture based on the assumption that people know nothing and so anything can be said to them.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#People #Culture #Assumption

Is it possible that I am not alone in believing that in the dispute between Galileo and the Church, the Church was right and the centre of man's universe is the earth?
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Believe #Men #Church

You tell me your favorite novelists and I'll tell you whom you vote for, or whether you vote at all.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Novelists #Vote #Your Favorite

Consistency is a virtue for trains: what we want from a philosopher is insights, whether he comes by them consistently or not.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Consistency #Want #Philosopher

Great writers are not those who tell us we shouldn’t play with fire, but those who make our fingers burn.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Play #Fire #Fingers

Strange as it may seem, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it.
-- Stephen Vizinczey

#Stupid #Silly #May