Century Quote by Pankaj Mishra

“I still prefer going to the classical writers, the modernists and the nineteenth century writers. Much of what has been done since then has just been repetition. A lot of it is marvelous but the forms haven't changed.”

Pankaj Mishra

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Century Changed Done Form Has beens Havens Marvelous Nineteenth century Repetition Stills Writing

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Freedom of speech doesn't guarantee great literature.

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“As Keynes wrote, with devastating understatement, ‘The age of economic internationalism was not particularly successful in avoiding war.”

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“Voltaire was soon turned, with Catherine’s encouragement, into a patron saint for the secular Russian aristocracy. Voltairianism, vaguely signifying rationalism, scepticism and reformism, became…

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“Today, the belief in progress, necessary for life in a Godless universe, can no longer be sustained, except, perhaps, in the Silicon Valley mansions…

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We are always boosting or trying to prop up the ego by fulfilling some desire or other, and always craving affirmation from the outside.

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“Marx reproduced medieval and Reformation millenarian expectations in his utopia of a classless, stateless society.”

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Explore all 147 Pankaj Mishra quotes

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