quote · Words worth keeping
It required all his delicate Epicurean education to prevent his doing something about it; he had to repeat over to himself his favorite notions: that the injustice and unhappiness in the world is a constant; that the theory of progress is a delusion; that the poor, never having known happiness, are insensible to misfortune. Like all the rich he could not bring himself to believe that the poor (look at their houses, look at their clothes) could really suffer. Like all the cultivated he believed that only the widely read could be said to know that they were unhappy.
It required all his delicate Epicurean education to prevent his doing something about it; he had to repeat over to himself his favorite notions: that the injustice and unhappiness in the world is a constant; that the theory of progress is a delusion; that the poor, never having known happiness, are insensible to misfortune. Like all the rich he could not bring himself to believe that the poor (look at their houses, look at their clothes) could really suffer. Like all the cultivated he believed that only the widely read could be said to know that they were unhappy.
Approximate author period: c. 1936 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- Thornton Wilder
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1936 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1897 to 1975; Wikidata Q155087, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q155087 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 24457; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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