"There...is the necessity for freedom of speech and the arts. We have to scrutinize all the advances of society to judge whether they are cruel or frustrate cruelty, and for that purpose we must hear the evidence of all persons affected by their operation and of all persons qualified by experience or learning or speculative gifts to form an interesting opinion on what those operations might be. It is therefore necessary that all classes of men should be given the fullest opportunity to express themselves without constraint, not only out of admiration for an abstraction , but as a practical measure toward human survival. It is also necessary that the artist, of whatsoever kind, should be free to anatomize the spirit, so that we can comprehend the battlefield that is this life, and which are the troops of light and which of darkness, and what light may be, and darkness."
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Academics from EnglandEssayists from EnglandLiterary criticsWomen academics from EnglandCritics from England
Original Language: English
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Sources
"I Believe", in I Believe : The Personal Philosophies of Certain Eminent Men and Women Of Our Time (1939), edited by Clifton Fadiman
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rebecca_West
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Rebecca West
1892 – 1983
irische Schriftstellerin
38 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Rebecca West →
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