Source identified
“The world is a perpetual caricature of itself.”
Social appearances repeatedly exaggerate or contradict reality, making ordinary life look like an ongoing parody of its own pretensions.
Source note: Soliloquies in England, “Dickens”; Santayana uses caricature to describe the gap between living reality and conventional masks.
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“ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.”
Voice: Narrator voice · Narrator
The narrator uses irony to show how not knowing enough can make almost anything seem plausible, widening speculation rather than understanding.
Source note: Daniel Deronda; narrator’s ironic observation while Gwendolen speculates about Grandcourt, represented from Project Gutenberg #7469.
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“Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things.”
James resists treating every possible intellectual mistake as catastrophic, because an excessive fear of error can itself prevent inquiry, experience and the possibility of gaining truth.
Source note: The Will to Believe, essay “The Will to Believe”; Project Gutenberg #26659. James is contrasting the risk of being mistaken with the cost of refusing every uncertain intellectual venture.
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“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
Emerson attacks rigid consistency when it prevents people from revising judgment in the light of new thought.
Source note: Essay “Self-Reliance”; Emerson criticizes rigid adherence to past opinions when fresh judgment requires revision.
Source identified
“To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.”
Voice: Fictional character · Lord Goring
The paradox mocks social performance: even “being natural” can become a carefully maintained pose when people are conscious of appearances.
Source note: An Ideal Husband; Lord Goring turns naturalness itself into a social pose.
Source identified
“Nothing so strong, nothing so persuasive, as simplicity!”
Wagner argues that direct expression can carry persuasive force precisely because it removes ornament and lets the underlying idea stand more clearly.
Source note: The Simple Life, Chapter IV, “Simplicity of Speech,” Mary Louise Hendee translation, Project Gutenberg #23092; the claim is rhetorical advice about plain expression.