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“Happily, solving problems by intensifying production and increasing complexity does not always yield catastrophic results.”
― Joseph A. Tainter

“The notion of literature as only one of several avenues to a single type
of propositional knowledge is, of course, hardly the winning ticket in lit-crit today. More typical are sentiments that see such a notion as not even admissible, if at all desirable. The world of these academic refuseniks is, however, a bleak and sterile place. Disarmed by their own epistemic fiat, scholars cannot assert anything since they deny the idea of objective rationality. If they arrive at an insight whose truth they wish to defend – for example that truth and rationality are passé – they can’t do so because truth and rationality are constructed to be constructed.”
― Peter Swirski, Of Literature and Knowledge: Explorations in Narrative Thought Experiments, Evolution, and Game Theory

“The old phrases crack and meaning shakes out wet and new.”
― Nadine Gordimer

“Every other science presupposes intelligence as already existing and complete: the philosopher contemplates it in its growth, and as it were represents its history to the mind from its birth to its maturity.”
― Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria: Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life & Opinions