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Samizdata quote of the day

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I am not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.
– Lord Acton

June 20th, 2006 |

7 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Ed Lud
    June 20, 2006 at 4:03 pm

    Hmm. A pleasing sentiment but then, didn’t Andrew Carnegie have to bail Acton out at the end of his life? I seem to recall something about Acton being forced into selling his library to pay debts, and Carnegie stepped in to help him…

  • dearieme
    June 20, 2006 at 4:10 pm

    Being “driven” tends to corrupt, being a “driven artist” corrupts absolutely?

  • Russell Whitaker
    June 20, 2006 at 7:01 pm

    Typical aristocratic conceit.

  • Lexington Green
    June 21, 2006 at 5:25 am

    I am certain that is not a quote from Lord Acton.

    I see it on the net attributed to someone identified as “Beene, Geoffrey – Fashion Designer”. That sounds more plausible. I am very familiar with Lord Acton’s life and work. I just finished rereading his Lectures on Modern History. This sounds absolutely nothing like him, in terms of phrasing or of sentiment. And he never referred to himself as an artist — he was a historian. And he did not talk about his work as being “beautiful”.

    This is just totally and obviously wrong.

    I think they should teach people at Miskatonic University to more carefully check their cites.

  • Lexington Green
    June 21, 2006 at 5:37 am

    Here is a real Lord Acton quote:

    Now liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. It is not for the sake of a good pubic administration that it is required, but for security in the pursuit of the highest objects of civil society, and of private life.

  • kentuckyliz
    June 21, 2006 at 11:26 am

    I think anyone who is driven is interesting, because they are filled with passion and enthusiasm for their particular pursuit, whatever it is. Business, art, science, sport, music, etc. Apathetic people who are not driven about anything are just plain boring.

    Whoever originated this quote, it sounds like a traditional English or European classist attitude that sneers down its nose at the “merchant class” and prefers the upper class who won’t dirty its hands in such commercial pursuits. So it’s believable that an English Lord would sneeringly deny being driven about business and focus on beautiful little gewgaws instead.

    I think we can also see that ugly things make money and crude, perverted things make money.

  • W. E. Messamore
    June 22, 2006 at 4:11 am

    Apathetic people who are not driven about anything are just plain boring.

    Let us not talk of them; but look thou and pass’ These innumerable seekers of safety first, and last, who take no risk either of suffering in a good cause or of scandal in a bad one, are here manifestly, nakedly, that which they were in life, the waste and rubbish of the universe, of no account to the world, unfit for Heaven and barely admitted to Hell. They have no need to die, for they ‘never were alive.–Dante Alighieri

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