American philosopher (1897-1993)
It is deplorable, but not tragic, simply to be a victim of circumstance, for there is an important distinction between destiny and sheer victimization.
KENNETH BURKE
A Grammar of Motives
As for bravery: dead on the fields are millions who would have feared to wear a hat in inappropriate season, so I judged that brave warriors are dirt cheap as compared with untimid civilians.
KENNETH BURKE
Towards a Better Life
Since the taking of nourishment involves a transubstantiation of external elements into elements within, we might treat nutritive substance as a combination of the contextual and familial sufficiently notable to deserve a separate designation. Just as an organism dies when deprived of all food, so it will die in parts when certain strategic ingredients are absent from its food. Thus, though one might not want to contend that a sufficiency of iodine will make men wise, we can say that a deficiency of iodine will greatly prod them to be stupid.
KENNETH BURKE
A Grammar of Motives
I have seen you grow brutal under a vocabulary of love. If you wanted to thieve, your code would expand to embrace the act of thieving. Feeling no need to drink, you will promptly despise a drunkard.
KENNETH BURKE
Towards a Better Life
This is the process embodied in tragedy, where the agent's action involves a corresponding passion, and from the sufferance of the passion there arises an understanding of the act, an understanding that transcends the act. The act, in being an assertion, has called forth a counter-assertion in the elements that compose its context. And when the agent is enabled to see in terms of this counter-assertion, he has transcended the state that characterized him at the start.
KENNETH BURKE
A Grammar of Motives