Lionel Trilling Quotes

What marks the artist is his power to shape the material of pain we all have.

Lionel Trilling

Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.

Lionel Trilling

A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.

Lionel Trilling

We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us.

Lionel Trilling

Every neurosis is a primitive form of legal proceeding in which the accused carries on the prosecution, imposes judgment and executes the sentence: all to the end that someone else should not perform the same process.

Lionel Trilling

The poet may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather.

Lionel Trilling