“Keeping an eye on the way the world ought to be, while never losing sight of the way it is, requires permanent, precarious balance. It requires facing squarely the fact that you never get the world you want, while refusing… — Susan Neiman Copy Share Image
“Sometimes realism seems to mean no more than the advice to plan ahead before you start a war. Sometimes realism means the recognition that… — Susan Neiman Copy Share
“Ordinary goodness is fraught with veins of vanity and self-interest and above all with pleasure--because goodness makes you feel more alive.” — Susan Neiman Copy Share
One great function of the arts is to keep ideals alive in a culture that does not yet realize them. — Susan Neiman Copy Share
“The dangers of sophistry and scholasticism are present in the possibility of philosophy itself.” — Susan Neiman Copy Share
In the most general terms, the Enlightenment goes back to Plato's belief that truth and beauty and goodness are connected; that truth and beauty,… — Susan Neiman Copy Share
“The claim that there is no alternative but perdition to a worldview that shows how everything fits together and makes perfect sense is a… — Susan Neiman Copy Share
“When education is overwhelmed by hypermedia, travel facile or ruinous, and work a blurred mixture of more dependence and less meaning, it’s harder than… — Susan Neiman Copy Share
“Vitality is not the denial of mortality, but the grown-up way of facing it.” — Susan Neiman Copy Share
“Negotiating small differences is part of being a grownup; no one can tell you in advance where to put your foot down.” — Susan Neiman Copy Share
“how can human beings behave in ways that so thoroughly violate both reasonable and rational norms?” — Susan Neiman Copy Share
“It’s a matter of logical structure: what is, just is, and any claim about what ought to be is a claim about our own… — Susan Neiman Copy Share
“Kitsch is much more than a question of style; it's a preference for consolation over truth. Disney's version of reality is not just cleaned… — Susan Neiman Copy Share
“What drives pure reason to efforts that seem to have neither end nor result?” — Susan Neiman Copy Share
“What we rarely see receive is a picture of adulthood that represents it as the ideal it should be. (...) What better way to… — Susan Neiman Copy Share
“If life is a gift, then the more you partake in it, the more you show thanks.” — Susan Neiman Copy Share
