Faulkner, more than most men, was aware of human strength as well as of human weakness.
Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1962)
Kontext: Humanity has been passing through a gray and desolate time of confusion. My great predecessor, William Faulkner, speaking here, referred to it as a tragedy of universal fear so long sustained that there were no longer problems of the spirit, so that only the human heart in conflict with itself seemed worth writing about.
Faulkner, more than most men, was aware of human strength as well as of human weakness. He knew that the understanding and the resolution of fear are a large part of the writer's reason for being.
This is not new. The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.
„Die Starken brauchen die Schwachen, um menschlicher und mitfühlender zu werden.“
„Von den menschlichen Schwächen ist die Obsession die gefährlichste und die dümmste.“
„Leichtgläubigkeit ist eines Mannes Schwäche und eines Kindes Stärke.“
Essays
Credulity is the man's weakness, but the child's strength. - Witches, and Other Night Fears. In: The London Magazine, Oct. 1821, p. 385 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=FsAYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA385&dq=credulity
„Der ganze Krieg setzt menschliche Schwäche voraus, und gegen sie ist er gerichtet.“
Vom Kriege, 4. Buch, 10. Kapitel
Vom Kriege (postum 1832-1834)
„Ein schwacher Mann in einer Ecke ist gefährlicher als ein starker Mann. (Inspektor Miller)“
über Heinrich Heine, in ihrem Tagebuch; zitiert nach Joseph A. Kruse: "Heinrich Heine. Leben und Werk in Daten und Bildern", Frankfurt am Main, 1983, S.11
