Loose Attachment

     The danger of the crowd, of this "completely uncultivated" public of which Goethe spoke, is due not only to its lack of culture, so that it can be too easily flattered, but also to its very bigness.... How good it is for the artist to know whom he is addressing! No longer knowing this, in our own day, the artist either breaks with his age and seals himself off, as has happened to the best; counting on posterity to compensate for the present, he flatters ideally an unknown public, vaguely dispersed in the future, or else (but does he still deserve the name of artist?) flatters a crowd hit or miss. The resulting works I will not name but you know them.
— Andrè Gide, from "Four Lectures," Pretexts, p. 57.

    Need we console ourselves by saying that they were weaklings? Let us say rather: true education is for the strong alone. Taking root is for the weak, sinking into the hereditary habit that will keep them from the cold. But for those who are not weak, who do not put comfort above all else, uprooting is called for in proportion to their strength, to their virtue — the pursuit of the unfamiliar setting that will require of them the maximum of virtue. And perhaps we could measure the worth of a man by the degree of displacement (physical or intellectual) to which he can adjust....
— Andrè Gide, from "The Barre's Problem," in Ibid., pp. 78-79.

     One morning Wilde had me read an article in which a rather obtuse critic congratulated him on "his ability to invent pretty stories to better clothe his thought."
     "They think," began Wilde, "that all thoughts are born naked. They do not understand that I cannot think except through stories. The sculptor does not seek to translate his thought into marble; he thinks in marble, directly.
— Andrè Gide, from "In Memoriam Oscar Wilde," in Ibid., p. 142.

     "There are," he would say, "two kinds of artists: some bring answers, the others bring questions. You must know if you are of those who answer or of those who question; for the one who questions is never the one who answers. There are works that wait and are not understood for a long time: they brought answers to questions not yet asked; for the question often comes a terribly long time after the answer."
— Andrè Gide, Ibid., pp. 142-143.

     But for some reason I feel it is wicked to use a calculated means to get what I want, for instance to end up in bed with some one, though I do not disapprove what I want. I will not use such means, and I do not get what I want.
     I do not diapprove my vices, but I disapprove a calculated plan to succeed in satisfying them. As I will say it later, happiness must happen, be a proof that we live in paradise, or why bother?
     Yet the concrete is at least real, even if really lousy. The abstract wish is usually delusory and the calculated means don't work anyway. Goethe again, "Beware what you wish for in your youth, for you will end up getting it in your middle age."
— Paul Goodman, Little Prayers & Finite Experience, p. 23.

     The weakness of "my" anarchism is that the lust for freedom is a powerful motive for political change, whereas autonomy is not. Autonomous people protect themselves stubbornly but by less strenuous means, including plenty of passive resistence.
     The pathos of oppressed people, however, is that, if they break free, they don't know what to do. Not having been autonomous, they don't know what it's like, and before they learn, they have new managers who are not in a hurry to abdicate. The oppressed hope for too much from New Society, instead of being vigilant to live their lives....
— Paul Goodman, Ibid., p. 47.

     Shaakamuni was quite indifferent to criticism or derision. He didn't think anything of it. Someone, curious about this, said to him, "World-honored One, you are so indifferent to the criticism and derision of others. It is hard to understand your feelings. Please explain."
     Then Shakamuni said, "Well, I will tell you by simile: Suppose someone placed filth on their hands and offered it to you. Will you receive it?"
     "If it is filth, I certainly will not accept it!"
     "Just so. Whatever other people say, I don't accept it; so I do not get angry."
     Whatever people say, if one does not accept it, then one does not get angry. You accept, therefore you worry about it. If you do not accept, there is no problem; you will not be controlled by anyone. It's free and easy. Worry in itself is not bad, but to create worries is bad.
— Haya Akegarasu, The Fundamental Spirit of Buddhism, Gyomay Kubose (tr.), p. 74.