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The modern state appeals to morality, to religion, and to natural law as the ideological foundation of its existence. At the same time it is prepared to infringe any or all of these in the interest of self-preservation.
J. M. Coetzee
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J. M. Coetzee
Age: 84
Born: 1940
Born: January 1
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Cape Town
South Africa
John Maxwell Coetzee
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Modern
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State
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Morality
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Natural
More quotes by J. M. Coetzee
If you were blind you would hardly have fallen in love in the first place. But now, do you truly wish to see the beloved in the cold clarity of the visual apparatus? It may be in your better interest to throw a veil over the gaze, so as to keep her alive in her archetypal, goddesslike form.
J. M. Coetzee
All creatures come into the world bringing with them the memory of justice.
J. M. Coetzee
Was it serious? I don't know. It certainly had serious consequences.
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There are works of literature whose influence is strong but indirect because it is mediated through the whole of the culture rather than immediately through imitation. Wordsworth is the case that comes to mind.
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Restoration is a skilled profession. You might even call it an art in its own right, except that it is frowned on to be original. First rule of restoration: follow the intention of the artist. Never try to improve on him.
J. M. Coetzee
In order to be cruel we have to close our hearts to the suffering of the other.
J. M. Coetzee
The barbarians come out at night.
J. M. Coetzee
In my experience poetry speaks to you either at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation and a flash of response. Like lightning. Like falling in love.
J. M. Coetzee
The devil is everywhere under the skin of things, searching for a way into the light.
J. M. Coetzee
I say that I represent this movement because my intellectual allegiances are clearly European, not African.
J. M. Coetzee
His mind has become a refuge for old thoughts, idle, indigent, with nowhere else to go. He ought to chase them out, sweep the premises clean. But he does not care to do so, or does not care enough(72).
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Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?
J. M. Coetzee
I must not fall asleep in the middle of my life. Out of the blankness that surrounds me I must pluck the incident after incident after incident whose little explosions keep me going.
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When we are stirred to lament the loss of the gods, it is more than likely the gods who are doing the stirring.
J. M. Coetzee
The most important of all rights is the right to life, and I cannot foresee a day when domesticated animals will be granted that right in law.
J. M. Coetzee
She gives him what he can only call a sweet smile. 'So you are determined to go on being bad. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know. I promise, no one will ask you to change.
J. M. Coetzee
From one seed a whole handful: that was what it meant to say the bounty of the earth.
J. M. Coetzee
Perhaps but I am a difficult person to live with. My difficulty consists in not wanting to live with other people.
J. M. Coetzee
I don't think we are ready to die, any of us, not without being escorted.
J. M. Coetzee
We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.
J. M. Coetzee
