The way forward does not lie in amateur and comically timeless linguistic sociology which takes 'forms of life ' for granted (and this is what philosophy has been recently), but in the systematic study of forms of life which does not take them for granted at all. It hardly matters whether such an inquiry is called philosophy or sociology.
Before I became a film major, I was very heavily into social science, I had done a lot of sociology, anthropology, and I was playing in what I call social psychology, which is sort of an offshoot of anthropology/sociology - looking at a culture as a living organism, why it does what it does.
To possess dignity is to be worthy of respect. Worthy of high esteem. Absorb this: you are worthy of respect.
The facts which our senses present to us are socially performed in two ways: through the historical character of the object perceived and through the historical character of the perceiving organ. Both are not simply natural; they are shaped by human activity, and yet the individual perceives himself as receptive and passive in the act of perception.
Love that does not know of suffering is not worthy of the name.
A great country worthy of the name does not have any friends.
He that works and does some Poem, not he that merely says one, is worthy of the name of Poet.
Abandoned by philosophy, politics, and sociology, historical determinism continues to hold out in formalist art criticism.
It is not wealth, it is not station, it is not social standing and ambition which can make us worthy of the Jewish name, of the Jewish heritage. To be worthy of them, we must live up to and with them. We must regard ourselves their custodians.
The only virtue a character needs to possess between hardcovers, even if he bears a real person's name, is vitality: if he comes to life in our imaginations, he passes the test.
Man, having an ideal before him of that which he ought to be, and is not, and acting as though he possessed the character he ought to have, but has not, comes, by the very virtue of his aspiration, to possess the character he imagines.
I do have two data identities. I have my name, Bruce Sterling, which is my public name under which I write novels. I also have my other name, which is my legal name under which I own property and vote.
Where does a character come from? Because a character, at the end of the day, a character will be the combination of the writing of the character, the voicing of the character, the personality of the character, and what the character looks like.
Art does not imitate nature, but founds itself on the study of nature, takes from nature the selections which best accord with its own intention, and then bestows on them that which nature does not possess, viz: The mind and soul of man.
We have gotten away from this double aspect of either putting the character back into historical events or of making a historical event of his very life.
We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.