Banality Quote by Teju Cole

... In contrast to the "banality of evil," which posits that ordinary people can be responsible for the most despicable acts of cruelty and…

— Philip Zimbardo

To the modern spirit, disillusioned, or at least unillusioned, the great evil to be avoided is sentimentality.

— Irwin Edman

“If there is a "problem of evil" there is also a "problem of good." Wherever we look we see not only confusion but beauty.…

— Kallistos Ware

The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pendants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is…

— Anonymous

Sentimentality works by our seeing only what we want to see.

— Howard Jacobson

“Misery is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues…

— Edgar Allan Poe

Sentimentality is the emotional promiscuity of those who have no sentiment.

— Norman Mailer

“Emotion has the power to obscure and falsify knowledge: that the whole world assumes a smiling aspect when we have reason to rejoice, and…

— Irvin D. Yalom

“Upon the whole, here was an undoubted testimony that there was scarce any condition in the world so miserable but there was something negative…

— Daniel Defoe

“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is…

— Ursula K. Le Guin

“It will be said that a rational person accepts the world as mixed of good and evil with decent satisfaction and decent endurance. But…

— G.K. Chesterton

“It is noted that from 1967 to 1995 essays on negative emotions far outnumbered those on positive emotions in the psychological literature. The ratio…

— Rob Brezsny