What Would Remain of Our Tragedies If a Literate Insect Were To Offer Us Hers?

Emil M. Cioran? W. H. Auden? Louis Kronenberger? Richard Howard? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Humans experience many tragedies, but contemplating the extreme hardships faced by other creatures provides a sobering perspective. The Romanian and French literary figure Emil M. Cioran said something like the following: What would be left of our tragedies if an insect …

The Existence of Forgetting Has Never Been Proved

Friedrich Nietzsche? Thomas De Quincey? W. H. Auden? Louis Kronenberger? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A provocative comment about human memory has been attributed to the controversial philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: The existence of forgetting has never been proved: we only know that some things do not come to mind when we want them. This statement suggests …