Unforbidden Pleasures Quotes

“It is, of course, Wilde’s point that socialism interferes with sociability.”
― Adam Phillips, Unforbidden Pleasures

“We are never as good as we should be; and neither, it seems, are other people. Indeed, a life without a so-called critical faculty would seem an idiocy, though quite what kind of idiocy is not entirely clear. What are we,after all, but our powers of discrimination, our taste, the violence of our preferences? Our insufficiency is patent (though we do need to bear in mind that to feel not good enough is to have already consented to the standard we are being judged by). Clearly, self-criticism, and the self as critical, are essential to our sense, our picture, of our so-called selves.”
― Adam Phillips, Unforbidden Pleasures: Rethinking Authority, Power, and Vitality