"Dilettantism is the sort of thing one must avoid."

-- Leon Wieseltier

“The most successful ideological effects are those which have no need for words, and ask no more than complicitous silence.”

Source : Pierre Bourdieu (1977). “Equisse D'une Théorie de la Pratique”, p.188, Cambridge University Press
“When men make themselves into brutes it is just to treat them like brutes.”
“I distrust pious phrases, especially when they issue from my mouth. I try militantly never to be affected by the pious language of the faithful but it is always coming out when you least expect it. In contrast to the pious language of the faithful, the liturgy is beautifully flat.”
“The theory of numbers is particularly liable to the accusation that some of its problems are the wrong sort of questions to ask. I do not myself think the danger is serious; either a reasonable amount of concentration leads to new ideas or methods of obvious interest, or else one just leaves the problem alone. "Perfect numbers" certainly never did any good, but then they never did any particular harm.”

Source : John Edensor Littlewood, Béla Bollobás (1986). “Littlewood's Miscellany”, p.74, Cambridge University Press
“Aimee Parkison offers a distinct new voice to contemporary fiction. Her seductive stories explore childhood as a realm of sorrows, and reveal the afflictions of adults who emerge from this private geography.”
“No matter what's happening in the Middle East - the Arab Spring, et cetera, the economic challenges, high rates of unemployment - the emotional, critical issue is always the Israeli-Palestinian one.”
“For too long already we have talked about man; let us finally talk about God again.”
“Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.”

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