Frieda Vizel

“In a society in which the dream of success has been drained of any meaning beyond itself, men have nothing against which to measure their achievements except the achievements of others.”
― Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations

“I really do believe that our attitudes are shaped much more by our social groups than they are by facts on the ground. We are not great reasoners. Most people don't like to think at all, or like to think as little as possible. And by most, I mean roughly 70 percent of the population. Even the rest seem to devote a lot of their resources to justifying beliefs that they want to hold, as opposed to forming credible beliefs based only on fact.”
― Steven Sloman, The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone

“Members of the educated elite upheld open-mindedness as the supreme political virtue but refused to debate their own idea of the good life, perhaps because they suspected that it could not withstand exposure to more vigorous ideas.”
― Christopher Lasch, The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics

“It's just, people throwing around fashionable lingo think they're so hip and imaginative. But you can't be hip and imaginative. You can be unhip and imaginative, or hip and conformist.”
― Lionel Shriver, The Motion of the Body Through Space