Lionel Trilling Quotes

Lionel Trilling — American Critic born on July 04, 1905, died on November 05, 1975

Lionel Mordecai Trilling was an American literary critic, author, and teacher. When Diana Rubin left Paris in 1929 after an extended stay with her childhood friend, Margaret Lefranc, an artist who later received the Governor's Award for painting, Diana married Lionel Trilling the same year. With wife Diana Trilling, he was a member of the New York Intellectuals and contributor to the Partisan Review. He was one of the leading U.S. critics of the twentieth century who traced the contemporary cultural, social, and political implications of literature... (wikipedia)

Where misunderstanding serves others as an advantage, one is helpless to make oneself understood.

The poet may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather.

Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.

We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us.

We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian.

Lionel Trilling Quotes

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