Engaged Enemy

Famous quotes containing the words engaged and/or enemy:

“The mystical nature of American consumption accounts for its joylessness. We spend a great deal of time in stores, but if we don’t seem to take much pleasure in our buying, it’s because we’re engaged in the acts of sacrifice and self-definition. Abashed in the presence of expensive merchandise, we recognize ourselves ... as supplicants admitted to a shrine.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)

“Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over- influence. The literature of every nation bear me witness. The English dramatic poets have Shakespearized now for two hundred years.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)