"The Autonomous. In the case of someone like Bertrand Russell or Toscanini, one feels an essential aliveness of spirit that reflexively keeps the body alive too, in the face of the inevitable physiological catabolisms. … Such men are not necessarily “balanced” or “well-adjusted” people: they may … get along well with very few people, or prefer the “company” of dead people. … One can see in such cases a passionate interest or preoccupation which has remained alive since childhood—though perhaps newly justified or rediscovered in middle life. … Such individuals are fairly immune to cultural changes, or to cultural definitions of their own physical changes: they carry their preservative, their “spirits,” within. … As long as the body does not actively prevent, these men are immortal because of their ability to renew themselves."
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Lawyers from the United StatesEducators from the United StatesJews from the United StatesPeople from PhiladelphiaSociologists from the United States
Original Language: English
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“Clinical and Cultural Aspects of the Aging Process,” pp. 484-485
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Riesman
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David Riesman
1909 – 2002
US-amerikanischer Soziologe
19 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by David Riesman →
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