Europe, in legend, has always been the home of subtle philosophical discussion; America was the land of grubby pragmatism.
— Daniel Bell
The most memorable Daniel Bell quotes that are glad to read
The intellectual takes as a starting point his self and relates the world to his own sensibilities; the scientist accepts an existing field of knowledge and seeks to map out the unexplored terrain.
One simply turns to the ideological vending machine, and out comes the prepared formulae.
When theology erodes and organization crumbles, when the institutional framework of religion begins to break up, the search for a direct experience which people can feel to be religious facilitates the rise of cults.
Art is the aesthetic ordering of experience to express meanings in symbolic terms.
But in action, one defies one's character.
... Art is a soaring exercise of the human imagination.
Wise men still seek Him today.
I am too weary to listen, too angry to hear.
Art is an end in itself; its values are intrinsic.
The impulse of the journalist is to be novel, yet to relate his curiosities to the urgencies of the moment; the philosopher seeks what he conceives to be true, regardless of the moment.
Technology, like art, is a soaring exercise of the human imagination.
Art is the reordering of nature - the qualities of space and time - in new perceptual and material form.
