On Justification

"What choice can we claim over the writing, or the voice — sometimes it is manifested in a phrase — that carries conviction for us? It is not much help to say: Conviction should not be taken seriously that is not justified by argument. That sounds more like a threat (in my hearing it has typically been more than that) than like part of an argument. And then there lingers the feeling that those who recommend the look of argumentation often regard themselves as already knowing the conclusions for which they are inclined to argue. Where is the intellectual adventure, or advance, in that?"

— Stanley Cavell, Little Did I Know: Excerpts from Memory, 344

Temporary Victory

"The worst thing about such rhetorical devices, about any of the mechanisms and patented insights that make up so much of a style, is that they are habit-forming, something the style demands in ever-increasing quantities. The poet learns subtle variations or extensions he once would have thought unlikely or impossible; but he permits himself excesses, both quantitative and qualitative, that once would have appalled him. This is how styles and more than styles degenerate. Our victories are temporary victories; and nothing makes us more susceptible to a vice than the knowledge that we have already overcome it. (The fact that one once used an argument somehow seems to give one the right to ignore it.)"

— Randall Jarrell, Randall Jarrell on W.H. Auden, 50