#modernit

Miss Millick wondered just what had happened to Mr. Wran. He kept making the strangest remarks when she took dictation. Just this morning he had quickly turned around and asked, "Have you ever seen a ghost, Miss Millick?" And she had tittered nervously and replied, "When I was a girl there was a thing in white that used to come out of the closet in the attic bedroom when you slept there, and moan. Of course it was just my imagination. I was frightened of lots of things." And he had said, "I don't mean that traditional kind of ghost. I mean a ghost from the world today, with the soot of the factories in its face and the pounding of machinery in its soul. The kind that would haunt coal yards and slip around at night through deserted office buildings like this one. A real ghost. Not something out of books." And she hadn't known what to say. ("Smoke Ghost") ↗

— Fritz Leiber

#ghosts #horror #industry #modernity #imagination

Indeed, the idea that doubt can be heroic, if it is locked into a structure as grand as that of the paintings of Cezanne's old age, is one of the keys to our century. A touchstone of modernity itself. ↗

— Robert Hughes

#modernity #age

One would love nonetheless to know how to be a man, how to be a woman before God, in the mirror of one's own conscience, in the looks of those who surround us. One would wish to find the strength to beautify one's thoughts and to purify one's heart. It is everyone's hope and expectation to live in serenity and to plod along in transparency: the palms of the hands patiently directed towards heaven, at the heart of all this modernity. ↗

— Tariq Ramadan

#modernity #love

Alors que ce mauvais siècle approche de sa fin, le pressentiment se répand que l’idée de faire histoire n’était qu’un prétexte. Le sujet décisif de la modernité, c’est de faire nature. ↗

— Peter Sloterdijk

#modernité #nature #nature

I distrust every idea that doesn’t seem obsolete and grotesque to my contemporaries. ↗

— Nicolás Gómez Dávila

#modernity #philosophy #ideology

The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned. ↗

— Antonio Gramsci

#challenge #disillusioned #illusions #live #modernity

And Shanghai is amazing. I'm a fan of science fiction so when you're there in the night with all the lights and all this modernity, it's like a set in a movie. ↗

— Berenice Marlohe

#fan #fiction #i #lights #like

I really enjoyed 'Casino Royale' because suddenly something changed with this modernity and with Daniel bringing life to James Bond in a very new way. ↗

— Berenice Marlohe

#bond #bringing #casino #changed #daniel

Modernity, though, is often surprisingly difficult to "locate." Certainly modernity cannot be defined as the surpassing of earlier forms of brutality. Perhaps it can be claimed that modernity should be equated with the possession of superior technology. But this response may itself reflect the modern fetishization of technology, which make it a magical solution for human problems. ↗

— Alexander Edmonds

#fetishization #modernity #plastic-surgery #plastica #beauty