Tag Archives: literary oddities

“Morality is a disease which progresses in three stages: virtue—boredom—syphilis.”

Karl Kraus

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

“University: A place in which a civilization’s knowledge is divided up into exclusive territories.

The principal occupation of the academic community is to invent dialects sufficiently hermetic to prevent knowledge from passing between territories. By maintaining a constant flow of written material among the specialists of each group they are able to assert the acceptable technique of communication intended to prevent communications. This in turn establishes a standard which allows them to dismiss those who seek to communicate through generally accessible language as dilettantes, deformers, or popularizers.”

Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.