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Forgot a Classic Quote about Evil Reinventing Itself

Normally it is pretty easy to insert a quote from a classic book when I write a post. But last time, I dropped the ball. It finished as:
Of course Gandhi-on-Wheels gets his compensation by visualizing Mobility as a consumer good and status symbol, and then by falling in love with the insatiability of mobility.  So it really is just a re-incarnation of the very thing he thinks he is rebelling against.
I forgot to pull in a quote from Edmund Burke, in his classic "Reflections on the Revolution in France": 
Seldom have two ages had the same pretexts and the same modes of mischief. Wickedness is a little more inventive...The very same vice assumes a new body. The spirit transmigrates; and, far from losing its principle of life from its change of appearance, it is renovated in its new organs with the fresh vigor of a juvenile activity.
By the way, somebody recently asked me, What is a classic book or movie? My answer was similar to what a Supreme Court justice said about pornography: 'He couldn't exactly define it, legally, but he could recognize it when he saw it.'

Comments

Anonymous said…
"'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read." — Mark Twain
An ironic statement by an author who is considered classic by some people. I don't care for him that much. He was trying too hard to be an entertainer.
John V said…
I don't know....I think Animal House and Blazing Saddles are classics. Since it's the holidays, I'll also submit Die Hard and Bad Santa.