Successful revolutions are those which end up by erasing all traces of themselves. — Terry Eagleton Copy Share Image
The most compelling confirmation of Marx's theory of history is late capitalist society. There is a sense in which this case is… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share Image
If history moves forward, knowledge of it travels backwards, so that in writing of our own recent past we are continually meeting… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share Image
Modern capitalist nations are the fruit of a history of slavery, genocide, violence and exploitation every bit as abhorrent as Mao's China… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share Image
Irish fiction is full of secrets, guilty pasts, divided identities. It is no wonder that there is such a rich tradition of… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share Image
The study of history and philosophy, accompanied by some acquaintance with art and literature, should be for lawyers and engineers as well… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share Image
If history, philosophy and so on vanish from academic life, what they leave in their wake may be a technical training facility… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share Image
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… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share Image
If there are indeed any iron laws of history, one of them is surely that in any major crisis of the capitalist… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share Image
“One of the most moving narratives of modern history is the story of how men and women languishing under various forms of… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share Image
“The ‘healthy’ sign, for Barthes, is one which draws attention to its own arbitrariness—which does not try to palm itself off as… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share Image
“There is, in fact, no need to drag politics into literary theory: as with South African sport, it has been there from… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share Image
Nations sometimes flourish by denying the crimes that brought them into being. Only when the original invasion, occupation, extermination or usurpation has been safely… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share
Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech. If you approach me at a bus stop and murmur Thou still unravished… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share
The study of history and philosophy, accompanied by some acquaintance with art and literature, should be for lawyers and engineers as well as for… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share
To claim that science and religion pose different questions to the world is not to suggest that if the bones of Jesus were discovered… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share
Virtue is something you have to get good at, like playing the trombone or tolerating bores at parties. Being a virtuous human being takes… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share
All propaganda or popularization involves a putting of the complex into the simple, but such a move is instantly not constructive. For if the… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share
Reading is not a straightforward linear movement, a merely cumulative affair: our initial speculations generate a frame of reference within which to interpret what… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share
“What it means to be a ‘better person’, then, must be concrete and practical — that is to say, concerned with people’s political situations… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share
“What we consume now is not objects or events, but our experience of them. Just as we never need to leave our cars, so… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share
“The theatre can teach us some truth, but it is the truth of the illusory nature of our existence. It can alert us to… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share
“What we have witnessed in our own time is the death of universities as centres of critique. Since Margaret Thatcher, the role of academia… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share
We face a conflict between civilisation and culture, which used to be on the same side. Civilisation means rational reflection, material wellbeing, individual autonomy… — Terry Eagleton Copy Share
