Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas. March 27, 2007.

Confidence
189 I admire the assurance and confidence everyone has in himself, whereas there is hardly anything that I am sure I know or that I dare give my word that I can do. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

Conflict
279 ...[Kennedy] had called on Americans to renounce the proposition that ‘we should enter every military conflict as a moral crusade requiring the unconditional surrender of the enemy.’ Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

69 Arthur Koestler: Conflict thus always reveals a paradox in the human condition…each of the conflicting characters or ideas must be right within its own terms of reference [and]…the audience should be compelled to accept both conflicting fields as valid…. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

23 …we were reaching a danger point of the spirit, when…a trifle becomes the occasion for the explosion…. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

767 At every stage he [Kennedy] gave his adversary time for reflection, and reappraisal, taking care not to force him into ‘spasm’ reactions or to cut off his retreat. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

Conscience
132 Faulkner: ...the three men in Moby Dick, who represent the trinity of conscience: knowing nothing, knowing but not caring, knowing and caring. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

473 Johnson: Conscience is nothing more than a conviction felt by ourselves of something to be done, or something to be avoided…. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

Consciousness
507 …how much of seemingly rational life was controlled by the unconscious. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).

462 But many quite irrelevant and inappropriate thoughts sometimes occur even to a prisoner when he is being led out to execution. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

652 At the most terrible moments of man’s life, for instance when he is being led to execution, he remembers just such trifles…will forget anything but some green roof that has flashed past him on the road, or a jackdaw on a cross—that he will remember. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

Conservatism
92 …justifies the conservative in believing that all permanent change is gradual. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.

274 Lincoln: “I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our Fathers did…to do so would be to discard all the lights of current experience—to reject all progress--all improvement.” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years.

77 He [the conservative] goes to the past for reassurance about the present: “I wanted the sense of continuity, the assurance that our contemporary blunders were endemic in human nature, that our new fads were very ancient heresies….” John Buchan, Pilgrim’s Way. 1940. Hoffer, The True Believer

173 The two parties which divide the state, the party of conservatism and that of innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made. Emerson. The Conservative.

183 ...as...there is no pure reformer, so it is to be considered that there is no pure conservative, no man who from the beginning to the end of his life maintains the defective institutions. Emerson, The Conservative.

185 He [the radical] legislates for man as he ought to be...but he makes no allowance for friction.... Emerson, The Conservative.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas. March 26, 2007

Communism
132 [Communism] proved to be a medicine more dangerous than the disease…. Pope John Paul II, Threshold

43 …when everything belongs to everybody nobody will take care of anything. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.

Comparison
157 Johnson: A fly, sir, may sting a stately horse, and make him wince; but one is an insect and the other is a horse still. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

280 Johnson: “…I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it.” Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

287 Johnson: “Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs…not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

343 In comparing these two writers [Richardson and Fielding], he [Johnson] used this expression: ‘'that there was as great a difference between them, as between a man who knew how a watch was made, and a man who could tell the hour by looking on the dial-plate.” Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

370 Johnson: I do not know, Sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

610 Johnson: It is as unreasonable for a man to go into a Carthusian convent for fear of being immoral, as for a man to cut off his hands for fear he should steal…for though it is out of his power to steal, yet he may all his life be a thief in his heart. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

Competence
224 The most steadily attractive of all human qualities is competence…good at his trade…understands its technique thoroughly,…surmounts its difficulties with ease…. Mencken, Minority Report.

Competition and Cooperation
54 It is increasingly important to be able to compete and cooperate at the same time but that calls for a lot of maturity. Gates, The Road Ahead.

Complaints
105 Hindu proverb: I had no shoes--and I murmured until I met a man who had no feet. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

Compromise
69 The Quaker was haunted by fear that every compromise was a defeat, that to modify anything might be to lose everything. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Computer
220 But simple is difficult. [computer software] Gates, The Road Ahead.

255 Alan Turing in 1950 suggested what has come to be called the Turing Test: If you are able to carry on a conversation with a computer and another human, both hidden from your view, and were uncertain about which was which, you would have a truly intelligent machine. Gates, The Road Ahead.

Conceit
70 ...the self-conceit of a weak head.... Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

Concentration
982 Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short, in all management of human affairs. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Power.

Concise Expression
294 A Frenchman once asked Hegel to put his philosophy into one sentence; and he did not succeed so well as the monk who, asked to define Christianity while standing on one foot, said, simply, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Hegel.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas. March 25, 2007.

Communication
111 …she answered to what was implied, rather than expressed. Hawthorne, Fanshawe.

93 They [Larry O’Brien and Ken O’Donnell] shared that common understanding which abbreviates communication to swift phrases and imperceptible changes in facial expression. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

258 JFK: It is not that [Alan] Dulles is not a man of great ability...but I have never worked with him, and therefore I can’t estimate his meaning when he tells me things. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

388 Schlesinger: At the very least, each [Presidential] message should be (a) in English, (b) clear and trenchant in style, (c) logical in its structure and (d) devoid of gobbledygook. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

514 He [Kennedy] wanted to find out how foreign leaders saw their problems, to get them to understand something of his own problems and to establish personal relations which could be continued by correspondence. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

515 He [Kennedy] would mention personalities and issues, cite facts and statistics and comment on past or present in a way which led some of his guests to say afterward that the American president knew more about their countries than they did themselves. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

635 Their [Bobby and Jack] communication was virtually telepathic. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

787 The talks with Thorneycroft were a Pinero drama of misunderstanding: Thorneycroft expecting McNamara to propose Polaris, McNamara expecting Thorneycroft to request it. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

824 JFK: To move toward peace would “require increased understanding between the Soviets and ourselves…increased contact and communication." Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

147 But men will chatter and you and I will still shout our futilities to each other across the stage until the last silly curtain falls plump! upon our bobbing heads. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

277 JFK: Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us. Sorenson, Kennedy

417 [Kennedy] kept his own comments to a minimum and often cut short others, no matter how important or friendly, who were dealing with generalities or repeating the obvious. Sorenson, Kennedy

302 I talked to the Russians a good deal, just to be friendly, and they talked to me from the same motive; I am sure that both enjoyed the conversation, but never a word of it either of us understood. Twain, Innocents Abroad.

391 …the failure to establish communication had been his fault rather than the patient’s, because he had begun with preconceived notions about the case…. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).

153 Simenon: The fact that we are I don’t know how many millions of people, yet communication, complete communication, is completely impossible between two of these people is to me one of the biggest tragic themes in the world. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

29 John Hersey: Oceans, boundaries, iron curtains; local prejudices, nationalisms, class lines; special interests, hardened traditions, intransigent beliefs—all these tend to block the flow of ideas and images between man and man. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

587 How sincere and confidential we can be, saying all that lies in the mind, and yet go away feeling that all is yet unsaid, from the incapability of the parties to know each other, although they use the same words! Emerson, Nominalist and Realist.

75 About Harriman: He had taught all his protégés always to be brief when talking to a president; they have so little time, everyone is always telling them things, keep it short and simple, and brevity above all…one idea, a few brief sentences. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.

30 Robert Creeley: So communication is mutual feeling with someone, not a didactic process of information. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

490 No pleasure has any savor for me if I cannot communicate it. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 24, 2007

Colonialism
471 “…inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence….” [Resolution on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.] Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

Comedy
108 ‘True comedy,’ said Voltaire, ‘is the speaking picture of the follies and foibles of a nation.’ E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

220 Robertson Davies: …comedy is fully as revealing in its probing of human problems as is tragedy. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

220 Stanley Elkin: There can be no consequences in comedy. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

2 The figures of comedy, historical or invented, are familiar contemporary types…. Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Aristophanes.

7 The tragic poet might explore large questions of the ways of god to man; the comic poet told his audiences what was wrong with foreign policy or politicians, or how educationists were corrupting sound learning or neoteric poets corrupting good taste, and he invited immediate action, not merely a change in attitude. Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Aristophanes.

11 …New Comedy represents the relationships and problems of Everyman, and is therefore the most exportable of all ancient dramatic forms. Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Aristophanes.

369 Johnson on comedy vs. farce: It is comedy, which exhibits the character of a species, as that of a miser gathered from many misers; it is a farce which exhibits individuals. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

Committees
xviii Ten thousand committees could never produce the Sistine ceiling. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Common Sense
285 I never understood what common sense meant applied to complicated problems—unless it means that a general practitioner can perform a better operation than a specialist. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

48 Einstein: …common sense is actually nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind prior to the age of eighteen [and] every new idea one encounters in later years must combat this accretion of “self-evident” concepts. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

133 On some bright tomorrow, so I hope and pray, someone will write a history of common sense. Mencken, Minority Report.

198 It would no doubt surprise the average man, even the average intelligent man, to learn that he harbors [within him] an epistemology…the epistemology of common sense. Mencken, Minority Report.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 23, 2007

Class (Social)
932 An Englishman shows no mercy to those below him in the social scale, as he looks for none from those above him: any forbearance from his superiors surprises him, and they suffer in his good opinion. Emerson, English Traits.

518 …and if the people should destroy class after class, until two men only were left, one of these would be the leader, and would be involuntarily served and copied by the other. Emerson, Manners.

161 In Rosamond’s romance it was not necessary to imagine much about the inward life of the hero, or of his serious business in the world: of course, he had a profession and was clever, as well as sufficiently handsome; but the piquant fact about Lydgate was his good birth, which distinguished him from all Middlemarch admirers, and presented marriage as a prospect of rising in rank…. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

222 Even when Caleb Garth was prosperous, the Vincys were on condescending terms with him and his wife, for there were nice distinctions of rank in Middlemarch; and though old manufacturers could not any more than dukes be connected with none but equals, they were conscious of an inherent social superiority which was defined with great nicety in practice, though hardly expressible theoretically. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

535 No matter what a man is--I wouldn’t give two pence for him...whether he was the prime minister or the rick-thatcher, if he didn’t do well what he undertook to do. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

83 …unlike the English, they [the French] just took you for what they were; they did not trouble themselves with the painful preliminaries of deciding whether they were your superiors or your inferiors. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Classic
xix A classic is, of course, among other things, a work which retains some of its initial freshness upon being reread and which continues to have an illuminating relevance to the themes it treats. Sidney Hook. Hoffer, The True Believer.

7 All the classic poets were looked upon and looked upon themselves as serious teachers…. Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Aristophanes.

Clinton
62 The Dole adviser said, “It is not so much a feeling of ‘I can’t believe I am losing to this guy’ as it is ‘I can’t believe a guy who is this much a phony and who has this sheer magnitude of ethical scandals all around him is going to pull this election off.’” The New Yorker, Nov. 11, 1996. Michael Kelly, “Ire in the Belly.”

Cliques
520 Passengers invariably divide up into cliques, on all ships. Twain, Innocents Abroad.

Clouds
164 Clouds …piled up blossoms of the sky…. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

Cocktail Parties
40 The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath: already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

Cold War
329 Churchill: “From Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the continent… certainly not the liberated Europe we fought to build up[;] nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace. March 5, 1946, Fulton, Missouri. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg.

College
178 American college president...combined the academic and the man of business; he was supposed to apply learning to current affairs and to use business judgment for the world of learning...no counterpart in the Old World, he was the living symbol of the breakdown of the cloistered walls. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

181 The primary aim of the American college was not to increase the continental stock of cultivated men, but rather to supply its particular region with knowledgeable ministers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, and political leaders. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas. March 22, 2007

Citizenship
64 If men had to earn [the right to vote] by some reasonably useful service to society, it would be much greater esteemed than it is now, and exercising it in a reckless or selfish way would become more or less shameful. Mencken, Minority Report.

1116 The majority of the people of that time paid no attention to the broad trend of the nation’s affairs, and were only influenced by their private concerns. Tolstoi, War and Peace

Civil Rights
873 MLK: “’Wait’ has always meant ‘Never.’” Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

531 Simple justice requires this program, he [Kennedy] would tell the Congress in concluding his Civil Rights message of June 19, 1963, “not merely for reasons of economic efficiency, world diplomacy and domestic tranquility—but, above all, because it is right.” Sorenson, Kennedy


Civil War
23 The men who fought for self-determination at Gettysburg were not the federals but the Confederates. Mencken, Minority Report.

Civility
277 JFK: ...civility is not a sign of weakness. Sorenson, Kennedy

Civilization
89 [Civilization] ...is a matter of imponderables, of delight in the things of the mind, of love of beauty, of honor, grace, courtesy, delicate feeling. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

113 “Here where there are only bones asleep in their million-year long rotting, where the events of the Pliocene seem more real than those of civilization--that overnight fungus….” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley

354 Merlyn: What I meant by civilization when I invented it, was simply that people ought not to take advantage of weakness…. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

3 ...at certain epochs man has felt conscious of something about himself--body and spirit--which was outside the day-to-day struggle for existence and the night-to-night struggle with fear; and he has felt the need to develop these qualities of thought and feeling so that they might approach as nearly as possible to the ideal of perfection--reason, justice, physical beauty, all of them in equilibrium. Clark, Civilization.

3 ...however complex and solid [civilization] seems, it is actually quite fragile [and] can be destroyed. Clark, Civilization.

136 Sometimes of late years I find myself thinking the most beautiful sight in the world might be the birds taking over New York after the last man has run away to the hills. [civilization] Eiseley, The Immense Journey

315 Delacroix valued civilization all the more because he knew that it was fragile…. Clark, Civilization.

3 [Enemies of civilization]: Fear--fear of war, fear of invasion, fear of plague and famine, that makes it simply not worthwhile constructing things, or planting trees or even planning next year’s crops. Clark, Civilization.

4 ...[civilization] requires confidence--confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy, belief in its laws, and confidence in one’s own mental powers. Clark, Civilization.

4 Vigor, energy, vitality: all the great civilizations...have had a weight of energy behind them. Clark, Civilization.

4 So if one asks why the civilization of Greece and Rome collapsed, the real answer was that it was exhausted. Clark, Civilization.

14 Civilization means something more than energy and will and creative power...a sense of permanence. Clark, Civilization.

18 All great civilizations, in their early stages, are based on success in war. Clark, Civilization.

163 …the first requisites of civilization are intellectual energy, freedom of mind, a sense of beauty and a craving for immortality…. Clark, Civilization.

167 [According to the Protestant critics of Catholicism]…no society based on obedience, repression and superstition can be really civilized. Clark, Civilization.

204 If, as I suppose, sympathy with all sorts and conditions of men and tolerance of human diversity can be an attribute of civilized life. Clark, Civilization.

212 All the greatest exponents of civilization, from Dante to Goethe, have been obsessed by light. Clark, Civilization.

251 I think it absolutely essential to civilization that the male and female principles be kept in balance. Clark, Civilization.

290 The periods in which men can work together happily inspired by a single aim last only a short time—it’s one of the tragedies of civilization. Clark, Civilization.

320 Balzac, with his prodigious understanding of human motives, scorns conventional values, defies fashionable opinion, as Beethoven did, and should inspire us to defy all those forces that threaten to impair our humanity: lies, tanks, tear-gas, ideologies, opinion polls, mechanization, planners, computers—the whole lot. Clark, Civilization.

346 I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. Clark, Civilization.

347 I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. Clark, Civilization.

347 On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. Clark, Civilization.

347 I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven’t changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history [which is] ourselves. Clark, Civilization.

347 …I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people’s feelings by satisfying our own egos. Clark, Civilization.

347 …I think we should remember that we are part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature [and that] all living things are our brothers and sisters. Clark, Civilization.

347 Above all, I believe in the God-given genius of certain individuals, and I value a society that makes their existence possible. Clark, Civilization.

347 …it is lack of confidence, more than anything else, that kills a civilization[;] we can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs. Clark, Civilization.

3 …Rousseau…argued that nature is good, and civilization bad; that by nature all men are equal, becoming unequal only by class-made institutions; and that law is an invention of the strong to chain and rule the weak. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.

284 Kant: …nations will not really be civilized until all standing armies are abolished. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.

284 Kant: If we compare the barbarian instances of inhospitality…with the inhuman behavior of the civilized…and the injustice practiced by them even in their first contact with foreign lands and people fills with horror…America, the Negro lands…the Spice Islands, the Cape of Good Hope, etc., on being discovered, were treated as countries that belonged to nobody; for the aboriginal inhabitants were reckoned as nothing…and all this has been done by nations who make a great ado about their piety…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.

21 No one really cares what the private morals of the other fellow may be, but there must be some confidence that he will react in ordinary situations according to the familiar patterns and without too much aberration. Mencken, Minority Report.

145 ...fifth-century Greece and twelfth-century Chartres and early fifteenth-century Florence got on very well without [printing] and who shall say that they were less civilized than we are. Clark, Civilization.

323 I have tried throughout this series to define civilization in terms of creative power and the enlargement of human faculties; and from that point of view slavery is abominable. Clark, Civilization.

123 Civilizations…are transmitted from one generation to another in invisible puffs of air known as words…. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

380 Spencer: Until war is outlawed and overcome, civilization is a precarious interlude between catastrophes. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Herbert Spencer.

95 The society he [Plato] introduces us to is eminently civilized, of men delighting to use their minds, loving beauty and elegance...keenly alive to all the amenities of life, and, above all, ever ready for a talk on no matter how abstract and abstruse a subject. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas. March 21, 2007.

Christmas
221 It [Christmas dinner] is an annual gathering of all the accessible members of the family, young or old, rich or poor; and all the children look forward to it, for two months beforehand, in a fever of anticipation; formerly it was held at grandpapa’s; but grandpapa is getting old, and grandmama is getting old too, and rather infirm, they have given up house-keeping, and domesticated themselves with Uncle George, so the party always takes place at Uncle George’s house, but grandmama sends in most of the good things, and grandpapa always will toddle down, all the way to Newgate Market to buy the turkey, which he engages a porter to bring home behind him in triumph, always insisting on the man’s being rewarded with a glass of spirits, over and above his hire, to drink “a merry Christmas and a happy new year to Aunt George.” Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

CIA
134 The agency’s (CIA) continuing problem is that a big part of its mission runs counter to the best of American ideals. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

512 [Lyndon] Johnson to John McCone of the CIA: “I thought you guys had people everywhere, that you knew everything, and now you don’t even know anything about a raggedy-ass little fourth-rate country.” Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest

Circumstances
299 Thus do all things preach the indifferency of circumstances. Emerson, Compensation.

Cities
47 [London]: The last drunken man, who shall find his way home before sunlight, has just staggered heavily along, roaring out the burden of the drinking song of the previous night: the last houseless vagrant whom penury and police have left in the streets, has coiled up his chilly limbs in some paved corner, to dream of food and warmth. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

71 [London]: In addition to the numerous groups who are idling about the gin-shops and squabbling in the center of the road, every post in the open space has its occupant, who leans against it for hours, with listless perseverance…one class of men in London appear to have no enjoyment beyond leaning against posts…idea of a man dressing himself in his best clothes to lean against a post all day. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

72 Now anybody who passed through the Dials on a hot summer’s evening, and saw the different women of the house gossiping on the steps would be apt to think that all was harmony among them…Alas! the man in the shop ill-treats his family; the carpet-beater extends his professional pursuits to his wife; the one-pair front has an undying feud with the two-pair front, in consequence of the two-pair front persisting in dancing over his (the one-pair front’s) head, when he and his family have retired for the night; the two-pair back will interfere with the front kitchen’s children; the Irishman comes home drunk every other night, and attacks everybody; and the one-pair back screams at everything…animosities spring up between floor and floor…Mrs. A. “smacks” Mrs. B’s child for “making faces”; Mrs. B. forthwith throws cold water over Mrs. A’s child for “calling names.” Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

607 JFK: …to take people already confused by broken homes, overcrowded schools, hostile communities and fill them with such desperate resentment that, to affirm their own impalpable identities, they could not stop short of violence and murder. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

69 The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

261 Johnson on London: It is not in the…buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

261 Johnson on London: But the intellectual…is struck with it [London], as comprehending the whole of human life in all its variety, the contemplation of which is inexhaustible. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

57 At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others—poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner—young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.
Christmas
221 It [Christmas dinner] is an annual gathering of all the accessible members of the family, young or old, rich or poor; and all the children look forward to it, for two months beforehand, in a fever of anticipation; formerly it was held at grandpapa’s; but grandpapa is getting old, and grandmama is getting old too, and rather infirm, they have given up house-keeping, and domesticated themselves with Uncle George, so the party always takes place at Uncle George’s house, but grandmama sends in most of the good things, and grandpapa always will toddle down, all the way to Newgate Market to buy the turkey, which he engages a porter to bring home behind him in triumph, always insisting on the man’s being rewarded with a glass of spirits, over and above his hire, to drink “a merry Christmas and a happy new year to Aunt George.” Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

CIA
134 The agency’s (CIA) continuing problem is that a big part of its mission runs counter to the best of American ideals. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

512 [Lyndon] Johnson to John McCone of the CIA: “I thought you guys had people everywhere, that you knew everything, and now you don’t even know anything about a raggedy-ass little fourth-rate country.” Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest

Circumstances
299 Thus do all things preach the indifferency of circumstances. Emerson, Compensation.

Cities
47 [London]: The last drunken man, who shall find his way home before sunlight, has just staggered heavily along, roaring out the burden of the drinking song of the previous night: the last houseless vagrant whom penury and police have left in the streets, has coiled up his chilly limbs in some paved corner, to dream of food and warmth. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

71 [London]: In addition to the numerous groups who are idling about the gin-shops and squabbling in the center of the road, every post in the open space has its occupant, who leans against it for hours, with listless perseverance…one class of men in London appear to have no enjoyment beyond leaning against posts…idea of a man dressing himself in his best clothes to lean against a post all day. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

72 Now anybody who passed through the Dials on a hot summer’s evening, and saw the different women of the house gossiping on the steps would be apt to think that all was harmony among them…Alas! the man in the shop ill-treats his family; the carpet-beater extends his professional pursuits to his wife; the one-pair front has an undying feud with the two-pair front, in consequence of the two-pair front persisting in dancing over his (the one-pair front’s) head, when he and his family have retired for the night; the two-pair back will interfere with the front kitchen’s children; the Irishman comes home drunk every other night, and attacks everybody; and the one-pair back screams at everything…animosities spring up between floor and floor…Mrs. A. “smacks” Mrs. B’s child for “making faces”; Mrs. B. forthwith throws cold water over Mrs. A’s child for “calling names.” Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

607 JFK: …to take people already confused by broken homes, overcrowded schools, hostile communities and fill them with such desperate resentment that, to affirm their own impalpable identities, they could not stop short of violence and murder. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

69 The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

261 Johnson on London: It is not in the…buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

261 Johnson on London: But the intellectual…is struck with it [London], as comprehending the whole of human life in all its variety, the contemplation of which is inexhaustible. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

57 At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others—poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner—young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 20, 2007

Christ and Christianity
x “I believe in Christ in every man who dies to contribute to a life beyond his life.” Eiseley, The Immense Journey.

242 [Voltaire] pictures Christ among the sages, weeping over the crimes that have been committed in his name. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

80 This is he [Christ], as I think, the only soul in history who has appreciated the worth of a man. Emerson, Divinity College Address.

364 Collins [a clergyman]: You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing. Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

112 Professor K.S. LaTourette, a very Christian historian, has to admit that “however incompatible the spirit of Jesus and armed force may be, and however unpleasant it may be to acknowledge the fact, as a matter of plain history, the latter has often made it possible for the former to survive.” Hoffer, The True Believer

156 For even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian idea, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardor of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of men and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

214 To my thinking, Christ-like love for men is a miracle impossible on earth; He was god…we are not gods. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

215 One can love one’s neighbors in the abstract, or even at a distance, but at close quarters it’s almost impossible. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

207 Voltaire: Here [in England] was the boldest sect of all, the Quakers, who astonished all Christendom by behaving like Christians. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

237 Voltaire: Subtleties of which not a trace can be found in the Gospels are the source of the bloody quarrels of Christian history. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

280 Kant: The real church is a community of people, however scattered and divided, who are united by devotion to the common moral law…real church which [Christ] held up in contrast to the ecclesiasticism of the Pharisees. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.

148 The idea at the bottom of the Christian Eucharist is precisely the idea at the bottom of cannibalism…the devotee believes that he will acquire something of the psychological quality of the creature by devouring its body. Mencken, Minority Report.

47 F. Mauriac: Observe that for the novelist who has remained Christian, like myself, man is someone creating himself or destroying himself…not an immobile being, fixed, cast in a mold once and for all. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

86 ...that...historical Christianity destroys the power of preaching, by withdrawing it from the exploration of the moral nature of man, where the sublime is, where are the resources of astonishment and power. Emerson, Divinity College Address.

88 The true Christianity--a faith like Christ’s in the infinitude of man--is lost. Emerson, Divinity College Address.

409 We can never see Christianity from the Catechism: --from the pastures, from a boat in the pond, from amidst the songs of wood-birds, we possibly may. Emerson, Circles.

496 Mary Garth: I used to think of Mr. Crowse, with his empty face and neat umbrella and mincing little speeches[:] What right have such men to represent Christianity? George Eliot, Middlemarch.

xiii …the confounding of Christianity with any class of persons who, in the words of Swift, have just enough religion to make them hate, and not enough to make them love, one another. Preface. Dickens, Pickwick.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 19, 2007

Childhood and Children
55 That was their pleasure! to quarrel who should hold a heap of warm hair [a dog], and each began to cry because both after struggling to get it, refused to take it. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

151 Catherine: I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

205 Barely past her childhood, it required but a glance to discover that she was one of those children, born and bred in neglect and vice, who have never known what childhood is…have entered at once upon the stern realities and miseries of life…tell them of hunger and the streets, beggary and stripes, the gin-shop, the station-house, and the pawn broker’s, and they will understand you. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

107 Thornton wilder: Yet I am convinced that, except in a few extraordinary cases, one form or another of an unhappy childhood is essential to the formation of exceptional gifts. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

107 Thornton Wilder: ...the egocentric monsterhood of infancy.... Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

224 Katharine Anthony on biography: Few persons can relate the story of their childhood without idealizing, or distorting, or overdramatizing the facts. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

35 Medea: A person of sense ought never to have his children/ Brought up to be more clever than the average;/ For, apart from cleverness bringing them no profit/ It will make them objects of envy and ill will. Euripides, Medea.

60 Chorus: The childless, who never discover/ Whether children turn out as a good thing/ Or as something to cause pain, are spared/ Many troubles in lacking this knowledge. Euripides, Medea.

239 Someone must be intelligent for a child until it is ready to be intelligent for itself. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

197 M.L. Robinson on children's literature: Only as we give the children the truth about life can we expect any improvement in it. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

433 Johnson: Correction, in itself, is not cruel; children, being not reasonable, can be governed only by fear. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

51 In her mind, editing a book like David’s was somewhat like raising her two children: while they were growing up, the world was full of possibilities for them; now that they were out in the world—one a painter, the other an actress—they faced intense struggles and slender prospects of making their ways. “Maxwell Gherkin.” Gross, ed. Editors on Editing.

197 M.L. Robinson on children's literature: We deny youth the privilege of sadness or tragedy unless it is located as far back as Shakespeare. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 18, 2007

Character (concluded)
139 Achilles: I hate/ as I hate Hell’s own gate that man who hides/ one thought within him while he speaks another. Homer, Iliad.

15 [Lincoln] stands for decency, honest dealing, plain talk, and funny stories. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years

16 To be true to all truth the world denies,/ Not tongue-tied by its gilded lies;/ Not always right in all men’s eyes,/ But faithful to the light within. --Feb. 12, 1959. Congressional Record. Carl Sandburg’s address to a joint session of Congress commemorating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years

39 In the making of him [Lincoln], the element of silence was immense. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years

424 Praxagora: Always suspecting those that most do love you,/ Always smiling on those that smile to hurt you. Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae.

447 Citizen: He’d rather sit/ For thirty days acquiring piles on the stool. Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae.

266 ...vegetable-diet sort of man...a kind of being who seemed to be an essential part of the desk at which he was writing, and to have as much thought or sentiment. Dickens, Pickwick.

339 Mr. Jinks, who was busily engaged in looking as busy as possible. Dickens, Pickwick.

404 Above all, he saw that men like himself, who snarled at the mirth and cheerfulness of others, were the foulest weeds on the fair surface of the earth. Dickens, Pickwick.

406 They are fine fellows...with judgments matured by observation and reflection; tastes refined by reading and study. Dickens, Pickwick.

428 When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good for other people. Dickens, Pickwick.

471 The silence awoke Mr. Justice Starleigh, who immediately wrote down something with a pen without any ink in it, and looked unusually profound, to impress the jury with the belief that he always thought most deeply with his eyes shut. Dickens, Pickwick.

799 Some men like bats or owls, have better eyes for the darkness than for the light. Dickens, Pickwick.

xv How Mr. Winkle, instead of shooting at the pigeon and killing the crow, shot at the crow and wounded the pigeon. Chapter VII. Table of Contents. Dickens, Pickwick.

793 Everything English is a fusion of distant and antagonistic elements. Emerson, English Traits.

807 [The Saxons] have the taste for toil, a distaste for pleasure or repose, and the telescopic appreciation for distant gain. Emerson, English Traits.

831 An Englishman understates, avoids the superlative, checks himself in compliments…. Emerson, English Traits.

834 The Englishman who visits Mount Etna will carry his tea kettle to the top. Emerson, English Traits.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 17, 2007

Character (continued)
767 That cold tendency, between instinct and intellect, which made me pry with a speculative interest into people’s passions and impulses, appeared to have gone far towards unhumanizing my heart. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

792 The man had laid no real touch on any mortal’s heart. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

793 In truth, it was Fauntleroy’s fatality to behold whatever he touched dissolve. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

377 …the torpid recluse, looking forward to the cold, sunless, stagnant calm of a day that is to be like innumerable yesterdays. Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables.

255 Anatole was not quick-witted, nor ready or eloquent in conversation, but he had the faculty, so invaluable for social purposes, of composure and imperturbable assurance. Tolstoi, War and Peace.

507 What impressed Prince Andrei as the leading trait of Speransky’s mentality was his absolute and unshakable belief in the power and authority of reason…that he had never known doubt, never asked himself, “Might not everything I think and believe be nonsense?” Tolstoi, War and Peace.

649 She [Julie] affected the air of one who has suffered a great disappointment, like a girl who has either lost her lover or been cruelly deceived by him…though nothing of the kind had happened to her…. Tolstoi, War and Peace.

699 ‘Yes there goes a true sage,’ said Pierre to himself, ‘…sees nothing beyond the enjoyment of the moment…nothing worries him…always cheerful, satisfied and serene.’ Tolstoi, War and Peace.

761 He [Pfuhl] was ridiculous, he was disagreeable with his sarcasm, yet he inspired an involuntary feeling of respect by his boundless devotion to an idea. Tolstoi, War and Peace.

144 I mean those honest gentlemen that are always exposed to the wit and raillery of their well-wishers and companions; that are pelted by men, women, and children, friends, and foes, and, in a word, stand as butts in conversation, for every one to shout at that pleases. Addison, 4/24/1711. The Spectator.

333 …he ruined everybody that had anything to do with him, but never said a rude thing in his life. Steele, 7/5/1711. The Spectator.

108 …I’ve never encountered any genuinely, consistently detestable human beings in all my life. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

131 They [Custom-House officers] spent a good deal of time, also, asleep in their accustomed corners, with their chairs tilted back against the wall; awaking, however, once or twice in a forenoon, to bore one another with the several thousandth repetition of old sea stories, and moldy jokes, that had grown to be pass-words and countersigns among them. Introductory: “The Custom House.” Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.

135 The chief tragic event of the old man’s life, so far as I could judge, was his mishap with a certain goose, which lived and died some twenty or forty years ago; a goose of most promising figure, but which, at table, proved so inveterately tough that the carving knife would make no impression on its carcass; and it could only be divided with an axe and a handsaw. Introductory: “The Custom House.” Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.

277 She [Pearl] wanted--what some people want [need] throughout life--a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanize and make her capable of sympathy. Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.

304 No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true. Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.

68 It is often commented that Peter Gomes was born an old man and has since grown progressively younger. The New Yorker. Nov. 11, 1996. Robert S. Boynton, “God and Harvard” about Harvard’s Peter Gomes.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 16, 2007

Character (continued)
890 “My lady Teresa says more than she thinks,” said the page. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Part Two: 1615.

311 [About Dean Rusk]: You played by the rules of the game and the rules were very strict, you did not indulge the whim of your own personality, you served at the whim and will of those above you. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.

314 [About Dean Rusk]: There were always difficulties and hardships, but they were the kind that could be dealt with, so that there would develop in the grown man a belief that any obstacle could be overcome, that hard work made no challenge insurmountable. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.

321 When Commander Albrecht concluded his presentation of the case against Goering with a line from Byron, “He was the mildest mannered man who ever slit a throat or scuttled a boat,” Lawrence ruled him out of order and directed the comment stricken from the record. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg.

511 Wilhelm Scheidt: You have to consider that Hitler was really an actor, and an actor with many variations, and he really tried to deceive people about his intentions. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg.

590 He [Bulstrode] was simply a man whose desires had been stronger than his theoretic beliefs, and who had gradually explained the gratification of his desires into satisfactory agreement with those beliefs. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

670 Our deeds still travel with us from afar,/ And what we have been makes us what we are. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

677 Who can represent himself just as he is, even in his own reflections? George Eliot, Middlemarch.

730 Lydgate on Dorothea: This young creature has a heart large enough for the Virgin Mary. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

549 To learn that we have said or done a foolish thing, that is nothing; we must learn that we are nothing but fools, a much more extensive and important lesson. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

906 Miriam to Hilda: Your judgments are often terribly severe, though you seem all made up of gentleness and mercy. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

932 You mistake your own will for an iron necessity.... Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

946 ...a kind of cage, the iron bars of which are made of her own thoughts. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

949 ...some nameless machine in human shape. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

958 …as implacable as stone, and cruel as fire. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

1025 Miriam to Hilda: As an angel, you are not amiss; but, as a human creature, and a woman among earthy men and women, you need a sin to soften you. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

1180 …the mystery which they bear about with them, and the sense that there is an acknowledged sinfulness as the nucleus of it. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

653 …if ever I did deserve to be soundly cuffed by a fellow mortal…it must have been while I was striving to prove myself ostentatiously his equal…. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

693 Of Hollingsworth: …those men who have surrendered themselves to an over-ruling purpose…have no heart, no sympathy, no reason, no conscience. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

721 I detested this kind of man, and all the more, because a part of my own nature showed itself responsive to him. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

750 Coverdale to Hollingsworth: “And will you cast off a friend, for no unworthiness, but merely because he stands upon his right, as an individual human being, and looks at matters through his own optics, instead of yours?” Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 15, 2007

Character (continued)
481 Johnson: …he who is chopping off his own fingers may soon proceed to chop off those of other people. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

628 Johnson: Depend upon it, Sir, vivacity is much an art, and depends greatly on habit. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

947 In certain men, digestion and sex absorb the vital force, and the stronger these are, the individual is so much weaker. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Fate.

958 But every jet of chaos which threatens to exterminate us is convertible by intellect into wholesome force. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Fate.

960 A man must thank his defects, and stand in some terror of his talents. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Fate.

1025 He [man of the world] does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Culture.

1044 A calm and resolute bearing, a polished speech, an embellishment of trifles, and the art of hiding all uncomfortable feelings, are essential to the courtier. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Behavior.

1199 James Nayor: “There is a spirit which I feel…that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure all things…its hope…to outlive all wrath and contention…exultation and cruelty…sees to the end of all temptations…bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in…any other…if… betrayed… bears it….” Emerson, Uncollected Prose.

576 The men of fine parts protect themselves by solitude, or by courtesy, or by satire, or by an acid worldly manner, each concealing, as best he can, his incapacity for useful association, but they want either love or self-reliance. Emerson, Nominalist and Realist.

693 …human strength is not in extremes, but in avoiding extremes. Emerson, Representative Men: Montaigne, or The Skeptic.

754 Goethe: “I have never heard of any crime which I might not have committed.”

836 [The English] …believe that where there is no enjoyment of life, there can be no vigor and art in speech or thought: that your merry heart goes all the way, your sad one tires in a mile. Emerson, English Traits.

842 …Of Baron Vere: “Had one seen him returning from a victory, he would by his silence have suspected that he had lost the day; and, had he beheld him in retreat, he would have [thought] him a conqueror by the cheerfulness of his spirit.” Emerson, English Traits.

62 Character is higher than intellect. Emerson, The American Scholar.

76 He who does a good deed is ennobled. Emerson, Divinity College Address.

76 He who does a mean deed is by the action itself contracted. Emerson, Divinity College Address.

77 ...the least attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance--will instantly vitiate the effect. Emerson, Divinity College Address.

77 So much benevolence as a man hath, so much life hath he. Emerson, Divinity College Address.

413 The difference between talents and character is adroitness to keep the old and trodden ground, and power and courage to make a new road to new and better goals. Emerson, Circles.

495 He conquers, because his arrival alters the face of affairs. Emerson, Character.

315 Sancho: That’s the sort of love I’ve heard them preach about, and they add that we ought to love our Lord for Himself alone, without being driven to it by hope of glory or the fear of punishment; but speaking for myself, I’m all for serving him for what he can do for me. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Part One: 1605.

754 Don Quixote to the Ecclesiastic: My intentions are always directed toward virtuous ends, to do good to all and evil to none…[and] if he who so intends, so acts, and so lives deserves to be called an idiot…. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Part Two: 1615.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 14, 2007

Character (Continued)
331 Brunel…remained all his life in love with the impossible. Clark, Civilization.

8 She [his aunt Elizabeth running for assessor] had virtually no campaign funds--just a mouth full of caustic comments. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

222 Wallace Stegner on “Big Bill” Stewart: Robust, aggressive, contentious, narrow, self-made, impatient of ‘theorists,’ irritated by abstract principles, a Nevada lawyer, miner, Indian-killer; a fixer, a getter done, an indefatigable manipulator around the whiskey and cigars, a dragon whose cave was the smoke-filled room, Big Bill Stewart was one to delight the caricaturist and depress a patriot…in his way, a man of faith: he believed in Western “development” and he believed in the right of men—himself among them—to get rich by this “development.” Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

Because they [the Scotch-Irish] are the people who settled the first American frontier, it is easy to romanticize their toughness, self-reliance, earthiness, sheer drive, and loyalty to one another, but alongside these attributes lay the intolerance toward people different from their kind, the violence that became an act of first resort and a storied virtue, the dispassionate pursuit of self-interest, the unwillingness to think beyond region, and the pettiness, vindictiveness, and score-settling that colored their self-image and dominated their relationships…President Andrew Jackson was the epitome of Scotch-Irish country success. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

360 Robert Kennedy seemed to have a deeper level of conviction, a fuller capacity for love, a keener perception of evil…a more complete understanding of the fragility of life than most political candidates. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

313 Schopenhauer : Character lies in the will, and not in the intellect; character too is continuity of purpose and attitude; and these are will. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer.

359 He [Spencer] was so busy analyzing and describing life that he had no time to live it. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Herbert Spencer.

401 [Nietzche] was accustomed to denounce those who had most influenced him…his unconscious way of covering up his debts. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Nietzche.

403 …all his [Nietzche’s] life long he was to seek physical and intellectual means of hardening himself into an idealized masculinity. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Nietzche.

529 Durant: We have drawn to us from Europe, and selected for survival and imitation among ourselves, rather the initiative individualist and the acquisitive pioneer than the meditative and artistic souls. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy.

177 Frank O’Connor on character: At some moment he’s going to reveal himself unconsciously…. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

179 Interviewer: O’Faolin on Hemingway: …trying to isolate his hero in time—trying to isolate him to one moment, when he is put to the test. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

264 Angus Wilson: I attack…only people who are set in one way of thinking. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

276 Wm. Styron: I sometimes feel that the characters I’ve created are not much more than …projected facets of myself. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

132 Then she went on slowly to the end of the chapter, and with her hands clasped together on the Bible she fell into a reverie, and the tears came into our eyes as we watched her look of perfect content: through all her clouded years the promises of God had been her only certainty. Sarah Orne Jewett, Deephaven.

67 Action is character. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing.

9 Plutarch: “Nor is it always in the most distinguished achievements that men’s virtues or vices may be best discerned; but very often an action of small note, a short saying, or a jest, shall distinguish a person’s real character more than the greatest sieges, or the most important battles." Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 13, 2007

Character (Continued)
542 The young ladies’ young gentleman: This young gentleman has several titles… “a nice young man” … “a fine young man” … “quite a lady’s man” … “a handsome man” … “a remarkably good-looking young man” … “a perfect angel” … “quite a love” … a charming creature, a duck, and a dear. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

588 You cannot…tell the egotistical couple anything they don’t know, or describe to them anything they have not felt…they have been everything but dead. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

61 …for thirty-five years he had not stopped talking and almost nothing of fundamental value had emerged. Watson, The Double Helix.

601 …believed that if a man were patient he could persuade fate to behave in a rational manner. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).

14 Fyodor Pavlovitch was all his life fond of acting, of suddenly playing an unexpected part, sometimes without any motive for doing so, and even to his direct disadvantage. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

22 There was something about him [Alyosha] which made one feel at once…that he did not care to be a judge of others—that he would never take it upon himself to criticize and would never condemn anyone for anything. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

65 Even when he was excited and talking irritably, his eyes somehow did not follow his mood, but betrayed something else, sometimes quite incongruous with what was passing. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

77 He is one of those who don’t want millions, but an answer to their questions. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

208 It’s a feature of the Karamazovs it’s true, that thirst for life regardless of everything…. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

251 Don’t watch his eyes, you won’t find out anything from his eyes. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

273 But about himself he scarcely ever said a word, yet continually asked me about myself. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

633 …Karamazov character…capable of combining the most incongruous contradictions, and capable of the greatest heights and the greatest depths….two extremes at the same moment, or they are miserable and dissatisfied and their existence is incomplete…wide, wide as Mother Russia; they include everything and put up with everything. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

315 Lincoln: …the tired part of me is inside and out of reach. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

808 Those who had sought cunningly to lead him [Lincoln], slowly found that he was leading them. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

84 Anne’s object was not to be in the way of anybody…. Austen, Persuasion.

97 He had a pleasing face and a melancholy air, just as he ought to have, and drew back from conversation. Austen, Persuasion.

199 Mr. Elliott is a man without heart or conscience; a designing, wary, cold-blooded being, who thinks only of himself; who, for his own interest or ease would be guilty of any cruelty or any treachery, that could be perpetrated without risk of his general character… has no feeling for others…whom he has been the chief cause of leading into ruin, he can neglect and desert without the smallest compunction…totally beyond the reach of any sentiment of justice or compassion…black at heart, hollow and black. Austen, Persuasion.

242 …he had learnt to distinguish between the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self-will, between the darings of heedlessness and the resolution of a collected mind. Austen, Persuasion.

279 Wordsworth recognized that simple people and animals often show more courage and loyalty and unselfishness than sophisticated people, and also a greater sense of the wholeness of life. Clark, Civilization.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 12, 2007

Character (Continued)
390 Heathcliff: I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

19 [Mrs. Woodhouse] could never believe other people to be different from herself. Austen, Emma.

91 There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves. Austen, Emma

96 Mr. Weston is rather an easy, cheerful tempered man, than a man of strong feelings; he takes things as he finds them, and makes enjoyment of them somehow or other, depending, I suspect, much more upon what is called society for his comforts, that is, upon the power of eating and drinking, and playing whist with his neighbors five times a week than upon family affection, or anything that home affords. Austen, Emma

227 He [Mr. Frank Churchill] was accused of having a delightful voice, and a perfect knowledge of music; which was properly denied; and that he knew nothing of the matter, and had no voice at all, roundly asserted. Austen, Emma

281 Emma on Mrs. Elton: …self-important, presuming, familiar, ignorant and ill-bred…so little judgment that she thought herself coming with superior knowledge of the world, to enliven and improve a country neighborhood. Austen, Emma

411 How to understand the deceptions she [Emma] had been thus practicing on herself, and living under!—the blunders, the blindness of her own head and heart…. Austen, Emma

412 With insufferable vanity had she [Emma] believed herself in the secret of everybody’s feelings, with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange everybody’s destiny. Austen, Emma

445 Mr. Knightley on Mr. Frank Churchill: Always deceived in fact by his own wishes, and regardless of little besides his own convenience. Austen, Emma

249 “He has seen such service,” answered Fergus, “and one is sometimes astonished to find how much nonsense and reason are mingled in his composition." Sir Walter Scott, Waverley.

294 The Baron of Bradwardine being asked what he thought of these recruits, took a long pinch of snuff, and answered dryly, that he could not but have an excellent opinion of them, since they resembled precisely the followers who attached themselves to the good King David at the cave of Adullam; ...every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt and every one that was discontented, which the Vulgate renders bitter of soul.... Sir Walter Scott, Waverley.

350 Lancelot began to shudder, not at the knight but at the cruelty in himself. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

371 If there is one thing I can’t stand, it is being treated like a possession. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

461 …the faculty to look short life in the face…. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

227 Laugh!—nobody ever understood papa’s jokes half so well as Mr. Tupple, who laughs himself into convulsions at every fresh burst of facetiousness. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

305 “Disgusting machines!” rejoined Evenson, who extended his dislike to almost every created object, masculine, feminine, or neuter. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

433 “Tottle,” said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, “you know my way—off-hand, open, say what I mean, mean what I say, hate reserve and can’t bear affectation.” Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

467 Mr. Nicodemus Dumps, or, as his acquaintance called him, “long Dumps,” was a bachelor, six feet high, and fifty years old: cross, cadaverous, odd, and ill-natured…never happy but when he was miserable…only real comfort of his existence was to make everybody about him wretched—then he might be truly said to enjoy life…adored King Herod for his massacre of the innocents, and if he hated one thing more than another, it was a child. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

539 There is another great characteristic of the throwing-off young gentleman, which is, that he “happens to be acquainted” with a most extraordinary variety of people in all parts of the world…in all disputed questions, when the throwing-off young gentleman has no argument to bring forward, he invariably happens to be acquainted with some distant person, intimately connected with the subject, whose testimony decides the point against you…. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 11, 2007

Character (Continued)
439 In physical endurance and contentment he was cousin to the pine and the rock. Thoreau, Walden.

6 …but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

48 [Gatsby’s smile] …understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

58 The bored haughty face that she turned to the world concealed something…. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

81 A phrase began to beat in my ears…: There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

137 Generally, he [Wilson] was one of those worn-out men: when he wasn’t working, he sat on a chair in the doorway and stared at the people and the cars that passed along the road. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

180 They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made… Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

27 What vain weather-cocks we are! E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

47 [Joseph, the servant] He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbors. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

57 Don’t be afraid, it is but a boy—yet the villain scowls so plainly in his face; would it not be a kindness to the country to hang him at once, before he shows his nature in acts as well as features? E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

80 Then personal appearance sympathized with mental deterioration: he acquired a slouching gait, and ignoble look; his naturally reserved disposition was exaggerated into an almost idiotic excess of unsociable moroseness; and he took a grim pleasure, apparently, in exciting the aversion rather than the esteem of his few acquaintances. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

114 Heathcliff, three years later…a half-civilized ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued; and his manner was even dignified: quite divested of roughness, though too stern for grace. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

116 Catherine: He [Edgar] always contrives to be sick, at the least cross! E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

122 Pray, don’t imagine that he [Heathcliff] conceals depths of benevolence and affection beneath a stern exterior…not a rough diamond—a pear-containing oyster of rustic: he’s a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man…he’d crush you like a sparrow’s egg, Isabella, if he found you a troublesome charge…that’s my picture” and I’m his friend…. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

135 Your bliss lies, like his, in inflicting misery. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

137 Your presence is a moral poison that would contaminate the most virtuous. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

141 …but I believed a person who could plan the turning of her fits of passion to account, beforehand, might, by exerting her will, manage to control herself tolerably, even while under their influence…. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

182 Heathcliff: …and I’ve sometimes relented, from pure lack of invention, in my experiments on what she [Isabella1] could endure, and still creep shamefully cringing back. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

23 He died true to his character: drunk as a lord. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

325 Heathcliff: It’s odd what a savage feeling I have to anything that seems afraid of me. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

346 She seemed to have made up her mind to enter into the spirit of her future family, and draw pleasure from the griefs of her enemies. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

374 He’s [Hareton] just like a dog…or a cart horse…does his work, eats his food, and sleeps eternally…what a blank, dreary mind he must have! E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 10, 2007

Character (Continued)
49 ...for you are really proud of your defects in writing, because you consider them as proceeding from a rapidity of thought and carelessness of execution, which if not estimable, you think at least highly interesting. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

70 Mr. Collins was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

371 Of Darcy: She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at, and it was rather too early to begin. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

287 [Kennedy had]...an outlook more practical than theoretical and more logical than ideological; an ability to be precise and concise; a willingness to learn...to change; and ability to work hard and long, creatively, imaginatively, successfully. Sorenson, Kennedy

305 And like the entire Kennedy Cabinet he was cool under pressure, more pragmatic than dogmatic.... Sorenson, Kennedy

424 When he was not working, he and Jacqueline liked having people around who were cheerful, amusing, energetic, informed and informal. Sorenson, Kennedy

846 If one extraordinary quality stood out among the many, it was the quality of continuing growth. Sorenson, Kennedy

852 [Kennedy] stood for excellence in an era of indifference—for hope in an era of doubt—for placing public service ahead of private interests—for reconciliation between East and West, black and white, labor and management. Sorenson, Kennedy

81 He did not mention that he was a lineal descendant of Balaam’s ass; but everybody knew that without his telling it. Twain, Innocents Abroad.

258 A conception of inward freedom that centers upon a refusal to accept esteem except from one upon whom one has conferred esteem, is a conception of the highest degree of irony. Bloom, Western Canon.

303 Blake says that we become what we behold, but Dickinson...says that which we are, that only can we see. Bloom, Western Canon.

35 Kreon: A sharp-tempered woman, or for that matter a man,/ Is easier to deal with than the clever type/ Who holds her tongue. Euripides, Medea.

41 Medea: O God, you have given to mortals a sure method/ Of telling the gold that is pure from the counterfeit;/ Why is there no mark engraved upon men’s bodies,/ By which we could know the true ones from the false ones. Euripides, Medea.

64 Messenger: And I do not fear to say that those who are held/ Wise amongst men and who search the reasons of things/ Are those who bring the most sorrow on themselves. Euripides, Medea.

65 Medea: O arm yourself in steel, my heart! Euripides, Medea.

781 However, like the rest of the world, I still go on underrating men of gold, and glorifying men of mica…. Twain, Roughing It

710 …whenever he [Capt. John] met a man, woman or child, in camp, inn or desert, he either knew such parties personally or had been acquainted with a relative of the same. Twain, Roughing It

854 …the thoughts of one whose dreams were all of the past, whose life was a failure; a tired man, burdened with the present, and indifferent to the future; a man without ties, hopes, interests, waiting for rest and the end. Twain, Roughing It

910 There was one person, a middle-aged man, with an absent look in his face, who simply glanced up, gave us good-day and lapsed again into the meditations which our coming had interrupted. Twain, Roughing It

438 He interested me because he was so quiet and solitary and so happy withal; a well of good humor and contentment. Thoreau, Walden.

Friday, March 9, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 9, 2007

Character
34 He [Heathcliff] was a model of a jailer: surly, and dumb and deaf to every attempt at moving his sense of justice or compassion. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

183 Heathcliff: I have no pity! I have no pity! The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails…I grind with greater energy, in proportion to the increase of pain. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

291 Had his acquaintances been asked, who was the man in London, the surest to perform nothing today which should be remembered on the morrow, they would have thought of Wakefield. Hawthorne, Tales and Sketches

77 “My mother was a woman who invited murder.” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley

78 “Daisy [his mother] was a woman who never wept; she made others weep.” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley.

113 The Kennedy style was the triumph, hard-bought and well earned, of a gallant and collected human being over the anguish of life. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

200 Richard Goodwin…the archetypal New Frontiersman…was the supreme generalist who could turn from Latin America to saving the Nile monuments at Abu Simbel, from civil rights to planning the White House dinner for the Nobel Prize winners, from composing a parody of Norman Mailer to drafting a piece of legislation, from lunching with a Supreme Court Justice to dining with Jean Seberg and at the same time retain an unceasing drive to get things done. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

669 The combination of self-criticism, wit and ideas made up, I think, a large part of the spirit of the New Frontier. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

25 …the desire to influence people in almost every way, even for evil. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

25 …he was a slave to his own moods. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

236 Probably more than any concrete vice or failing Amory despised his own personality—he loathed knowing that to-morrow and the thousand days after he would swell pompously at a compliment and sulk at an ill word…. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

242 The chief characteristic of the big man seemed to be a great confidence in himself set off against a tremendous boredom with everything around him. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

159 She’s a pretty girl—anybody responds to that to a certain extent. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

168 The delight in Nicole’s face—to be a feather again instead of a plummet, to float and not to drag. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

263 It had been a hard night but she had the satisfaction of feeling that, whatever Dick’s previous record was, they now possessed a moral superiority over him for as long as he proved of any use. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

268 He’s different, he thinks of others. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

297 …you used to want to create things—now you seem to want to smash them up. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

318 Dick’s bitterness had surprised Rosemary, who had thought of him as all-forgiving, all comprehending. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

321 “Why, I’m almost complete…. I’m practically standing alone, without him.” Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

5 The business of her [Mrs. Bennet’s] life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

10 Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien; and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 8, 2007

Challenge
403 ...every action admits of being outdone. Emerson, Circles.

406 The continual effort to raise himself above himself, to work a pitch above his last height.... Emerson, Circles.

Chance
61 Jocasta: How can a man have scruples when it’s only Chance that’s king? Sophocles. Oedipus the King.

Change
176 The power to change is both creative and destructive. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

104 Falkland: When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

110 [Kennedy believed that]...change took place more often by accommodation than by annihilation. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

400 JFK: “Let it be clear that this administration recognizes the value of dissent and daring—that we greet healthy controversy as the hallmark of healthy change.” Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

540 “It is sometimes easier to build a million-ton steel plant,” as Kusum Nair wrote of the Indian experience,”…than to change a man’s outlook on such matters as the use of irrigation water, fertilizers and contraceptives.” Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

542 [Galbraith on financial assistance to underdeveloped countries]: A dollar or rupee invested in the intellectual improvement of human beings…will regularly bring a greater increase in national income than a dollar or a rupee devoted to railways, dams, machine tools or other tangible goods.” Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

548 Changing the direction of an agency while it continues its day-to-day operations is one of the hardest tricks in government. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

651 Kennedy used to quote Jefferson: “Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.” Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

651 [Kennedy] knew that if he sent up a message and a bill, there would be debate and hearings; Congress would begin to accustom itself to new ideas; legislation would be revised to meet legitimate objections…public support would consolidate and by 1964 or 1965 the bill would be passed. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

3 Some kind of widespread enthusiasm or excitement is apparently needed for the realization of vast and rapid change…. Hoffer, The True Believer

4 Peter the Great…failed in his chief purpose…to turn Russia into a Western nation…and the reason he failed was that he did not infuse the Russian masses with some soul-stirring enthusiasm. Hoffer, The True Believer

8 The men who rush into undertakings of vast change usually feel they are in possession of some irresistible power. Hoffer, The True Believer

11 Finally, they must be wholly ignorant of the difficulties involved in their vast undertaking. Hoffer, The True Believer

65 Human beings never welcome the news that something they have long cherished is untrue: they almost always reply to that news by reviling its promulgator. Mencken, Minority Report.

826 The English power resides also in their dislike of change. Emerson, English Traits.

862 The new age brings new qualities into request…. Emerson, English Traits.

107 Publius: the plan is bad that never can be changed. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

252 Lincoln: I have not allowed myself to forget that the abolition of the slave-trade by Great Britain was agitated a hundred years before it was a final success; that the measure had its open fire-eating opponents; its stealthy “don’t-care” opponents; its dollar and cent opponents; its inferior race opponents; its Negro equality opponents; and its religion and good order opponents. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years.

425 And you won’t find them [women] changing methods merely/ To have a change and wouldn’t Athens yet/ Boast the serene…power/ If she had kept to projects proved quite sound/ Instead of any faddy substitute. Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae.

438 Blepyros: We’ve one steadfast principle, I have observed;/ New things are good, old things are bad. Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae.

218 Hierocles: Can you tutor the crab to advance straight forward?/ You will never be able to smooth the spines of the hedgehog. Aristophanes, Peace.

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 7, 2007

Cause and Effect
541 Cause and effect, yes, but a rational explanation, no. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).

368 It was obvious that the affair that had begun so lightly could not now be averted in any way but was bound to run its course to the very end, irrespective of the will of men. Tolstoi, War and Peace.

1168 It is beyond the power of the human intellect to encompass all the causes of any phenomenon. Tolstoi, War and Peace

1168 And so the human intellect, without investigating the multiplicity and complexity of circumstances conditioning an event, any one of which taken separately may seem to be the reason for it, snatches at the first most comprehensible approximation to a cause and says: “There is the cause!” Tolstoi, War and Peace

Censorship
162 Politicians are already wrestling with the question of when an online service should be treated as a common carrier and when it should be treated as a publisher. Gates, The Road Ahead.

163 When they [on-line services] act as publishers, and offer content they have acquired, authored or edited, it makes sense that the rules of libel…would apply. Gates, The Road Ahead.

163 …we also expect them [on-line services] to deliver our e-mail like a common carrier without taking responsibility for its contents. Gates, The Road Ahead.

108 Justice Potter Stewart of the United States Supreme Court said about pornography that he could not define it but he knew it when he saw it. Newman, Strictly Speaking.

7 The commentator may be excused for repeating what he has stressed in his own books and lectures, namely that “offensive” is frequently but a synonym for “unusual”; and a great work of art is of course always original, and thus by its very nature should come as a more or less shocking surprise. Foreword. Nabokov, Lolita.

285 Nabokov: [In pornographic novels]: style, structure, imagery should never distract the reader from his tepid lust. Nabokov, Lolita.

285 Nabokov: Their refusal to buy the book was based not on my treatment of the theme but on the theme itself, for there are at least three themes which are utterly taboo as far as most American publishers are concerned...two others are: a Negro-white marriage which is a complete and glorious success resulting in lots of children and grandchildren; and the total atheist who lives a happy and useful life, and dies in his sleep at the age of 106. Nabokov, Lolita.

287 Nabokov: And when I thus think of Lolita, I seem always to pick out for special delectation such images as Mr. Taxovitch or that class list of Ramsdale School, or Charlotte saying “waterproof,” or Lolita in slow motion advancing toward Humbert’s gifts, or the pictures decorating the stylized garret of Gaston Godin, or the Kasbeam barber (who cost me a month of work), or Lolita playing tennis, or the hospital at Elphinstone, or pale, pregnant, beloved, irretrievable Dolly Schiller dying in Gray Star (the capital town of the book), or the tinkling sounds of the valley town coming up the mountain trail...the nerves of the novel...the secret points...by means of which the book is plotted--although I realize very clearly that these and other scenes will be skimmed over or not noticed, or never reached, by those who begin reading the book under the impression that it is something on the lines of Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.... Nabokov, Lolita.

438 Why can’t they understand that you are explaining and describing, not advocating…after all, you didn’t write the plot of human nature. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).

651 Freud: I did not invent man…all I am trying to do is to describe him, to find out what makes this most complex and confusing of all animals behave the way he does. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).

158 [Spinoza’s] A Treatise on Religion and the State…appeared anonymously in 1670…was at once honored with a place in the Index Expurgatorius; and its sale was prohibited by the civil authorities; with this assistance it attained a considerable circulation under cover of title pages which disguised it as a medical treatise or an historical narrative. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.

193 Spinoza: Laws against free speech are subversive of all law; for men will not long respect laws which they may not criticize. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.

193 Spinoza: If actions only could be made the ground of criminal prosecutions, and words were always allowed to pass free…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.

247 Voltaire: I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

559 Johnson on The Beggar’s Opera: …I do not deny that it may have some influence, by making the character of a rogue familiar, and in some degree pleasing. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

95 Walker Percy: All I suggest is that pornography and literature stimulate different organs. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

106 Their [the censors’] goal was not so much to eliminate sex as to erase all signs that the leading lady derived either pleasure or money from the experience. Pierpont, Claudia Roth. “A Critic at Large: The Strong Woman.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 106-118.

111 The infamous Production Code…cut sexual references to nil and required that in the end the audience feel that “evil is wrong and good is right.” Pierpont, Claudia Roth. “A Critic at Large: The Strong Woman.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 106-118.

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Perspectives on Ideas March 6, 2007

Camp (Life Style)
Camp 118 …Susan Sontag’s famed definition of camp as “failed seriousness.”… Pierpont, Claudia Roth. “A Critic at Large: The Strong Woman.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 106-118.

Camp Fire
Camp fire 551 …camp-fire…around which the most impossible reminiscences sound plausible, instructive, and profoundly entertaining. Twain, Roughing It

Capital Punishment
Capital Punishment 214 He wakes, cold and wretched…dull gray light of morning is stealing into the cell…confused by his dreams, he starts from his uneasy bed in momentary uncertainty… every object in the narrow cell is too frightfully real to admit of doubt or mistake…condemned felon again, guilty and despairing; and in two hours more he will be dead. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

Capital Punishment 31 As things stand, the spread between [conviction, sentencing and execution] is so great that by the time the criminal comes to the chair the crime is forgotten and all we see is a poor fish making a tremendous (and sometimes even gallant) effort to save his life, with all sorts of shyster lawyers and do-gooders as assistant-heroes. Mencken, Minority Report.

Capital Punishment 53 It is impossible to hang the average murderer until he has killed at least a dozen people. Mencken, Minority Report.

Cares
Cares 209 Leader: Future cares have future cures/ And we must mind today. Sophocles. Antigone.

Carousel
Carousel 76 Riding on one of the outside horses on the carousel, the ground spinning faster and faster, the tinny organ music racing, people, buildings, trees in that other world out there would break apart, flying all over the place in a kaleidoscope of colors, sounds, images. Browning, Notes from Turtle Creek.

Catholicism
Catholicism 41 The medieval pilgrim really believed that by contemplating a reliquary containing the head or even the fingers of a saint he would persuade that particular saint to intercede on his behalf with God...can one hope to share this belief which played so great a part in medieval civilization? Clark, Civilization.

Catholicism 1140 Hilda saw peasants, citizens, soldiers, nobles, women with bare heads, ladies in their silks, entering the churches, individually, kneeling for moments or for hours and directing their inaudible devotions to the shrine of some saint…felt themselves possessed of an own friend in Heaven. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

Catholicism 167 [Catholicism] …gave ordinary people a means of satisfying, through ritual, images and symbols, their deepest impulses, so that their minds were at peace. Clark, Civilization.

Catholicism 175 The great achievements of the Catholic Church lay in harmonizing, humanizing, civilizing the deepest impulses of ordinary, ignorant people. Clark, Civilization.

Catholicism 210 Voltaire’s L’ingenu: A Huron Indian comes to France with some returning explorers…when he has trouble over confession, he asks where in the Gospel this is commanded and is directed to a passage in the Epistle of St. James: “Confess your sins to one another”…confesses, but when he had done he dragged the Abbé from the confessional chair, placed himself in the seat, and bade the Abbé confess in turn… “it is said, ‘We must confess our sins to one another’; I have related my sins to you, and you shall not stir till you recount yours.” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

Catholicism 280 Kant: … “pious nonsense” is inculcated as “a sort of heavenly court service by means of which one may win through flattery the favor of the ruler of heaven.” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.

Catholicism 496 Sainte-Beauve remarked of his countrymen that they would continue to be Catholics long after they ceased to be Christians. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Santayana.

Catholicism 17 The Catholic is fortunate in the fact that the sinner can go to a priest and get rid of his sense of guilt. Mencken, Minority Report.

Catholicism 19075 …nor does it occur to him [the Catholic] that there are fitter modes of propitiating heaven than by penances, pilgrimages, and offerings at shrines. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

Catholicism 1138 [Of Catholicism]: …the attractions of a faith, which so marvelously adapts itself to every human need. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

Catholicism 1158 The more I see of this worship [Catholicism], the more I wonder at the exuberance with which it adapts itself to all the demands of human infirmity. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.