Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Quotes: Medicine.

A collection of quotes on various topics. The sentence in bold face is a plain statement of the quote that follows.

Medicine
Dr. “Grave-face.”
Medicine 438 Rosamond: Very well, Dr. Grave-face, I will declare in future that I dote on skeletons, and body snatchers, and bits of things in phials, and quarrels with everybody, that ends in your dying miserably. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

When young, Hawthorne’s wife submitted heroically to the medical profession.
Medicine 7 Lizzie Peabody recalled her sister’s heroic submission to the medical profession. Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

Medicines in Colonial America interfered less with the patients’ recovery than those in Europe.
Medicine 214 The common medical treatments here [colonial America] did not cure any more effectively than those administered in the Old World, but they probably interfered less with the patient’s recovery. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Medical guides were common in Colonial Virginia libraries.
Medicine 217 It is not surprising to find medical guides for laymen among the commonest books in Virginia libraries: Every Man his own Doctor, or, The Poor Planter’s Physician (1734) attained vast popularity by prescribing “plain and easy means for persons to cure themselves of all, or most of the distempers, incident to the climate, and with very little charge, the medicines being chiefly of the growth and production of this country.” Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Jefferson to physicians: Don’t interrupt Mother Nature’s work in healing.
Medicine 218 Jefferson (1807) was eloquent against the presumptuous dogmatism of the physicians: Having been so often a witness to the salutary efforts which nature makes to re-establish the disordered functions, he [the wise physician] should rather trust to their action, than hazard the interruption of that, and a greater derangement of the system, by conjectural experiments on a machine so complicated and so unknown as the human body and a subject so sacred as human life. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

One physician told Jefferson that he used mostly bread pills, drops of colored water and powders made of hickory ashes.
Medicine 218 Jefferson (1807): One of the most successful physicians I have ever known, has assured me, that he used more bread pills, drops of colored water, and powders of hickory ashes, than of all other medicines put together. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Jefferson noted changing fads in medicine.
Medicine 218 Jefferson (1807) on fads in medicine: I have lived myself to see the disciples of Hoffman, Boerhaave, Stahl, Cullen, Brown, succeed one another like the shifting figures of a magic lantern and their fancies, like the dresses of the annual doll-babies from Paris, becoming, from their novelty, the vogue of the day, and yielding to the next novelty their ephemeral flavor. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Common sense often cured more effectively than academic learning.
Medicine 219 [Dr. David Ramsay] ...boasted of the success of amateur doctors whose common sense was accomplishing what academic learning had found difficult or impossible: “The pride of science is sometimes humbled on seeing and hearing the many cures that are wrought by these pupils of experience, who, without theory of system, by observation and practice acquire a dexterity in curing common diseases.” Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Mather was more interested in remedies than causes of diseases.
Medicine 223 Mather’s “Angels of Bethseda”...showed...less interest... in the “causes” than in the remedies of diseases...illustrated the vagaries of learned doctors by their contradictory prescriptions for the consumption. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

When a man has a fit, you can tell me all kinds of things about possible causes, but you have not the sense to loosen the man’s collar and tie.
Medicine 236 Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes: Here is a man fallen in a fit; you can tell me all about the eight surfaces of the two processes of the palate-bone, but you have not had the sense to loosen that man’s neck-cloth, and the old women are calling you a fool. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Colonial doctors were good at diagnosis, but not so good at curing.
Medicine 71 Neither could there be any question that, although the specialist in internal medicine could make an accurate diagnosis of the symptoms, there was no corresponding body of knowledge of the cure. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).

Nature is the best medicine.
Medicine 71 The greatest medicine is nature. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).

He repeated the same tranquilizing formulas, a dose of verbal bromides.
Medicine 242 …had to repeat the same tranquilizing formulas…all I can do is give her a dose of verbal bromides. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).

Doctors are beautiful diagnosers, but have no idea how to cure.
Medicine 579 I’ve tried all the medical faculty: They can diagnose beautifully, they have the whole of your disease at their finger-tips, but they’ve no idea how to cure you. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

You may die, but you’ll know very clearly what you are dying of.
Medicine 580 There was an enthusiastic little [medical] student here, “you may die,’ said he, ‘but you’ll know perfectly what disease you are dying of.’ Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

When his wife had breast cancer, he coped by reading scientific articles about the disease.
Medicine 205 I coped with my great anxiety [about his wife’s breast cancer] by reading scientific articles about the disease and the various [forms] of treatment. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

A hundred years from now, medical science might look on chemotherapy as it looks now on blood letting two centuries ago.
Medicine 205 I wonder whether a hundred years from now medical science might not look upon chemotherapy [as a treatment for cancer] as it does now upon the medical blood-letting of the eighteenth century. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

Doctors today cannot even tell the patient what is wrong with him because the language to describe it is incomprehensible.
Medicine 45 There is simply no way for his [the patient's] physician to tell him just what is the matter with him, for all the concepts on which the explanation must be based, and even most of its terms, are incomprehensible to him. Mencken, Minority Report.

Nature cures.
Medicine 217 It is nature that does it [cures] after all, and diseases are oftener effects of illness than causes. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

Young doctors have to follow their textbook learning until they have the experience to observe and think for themselves.
Medicine 217 But the young practitioners must follow the text-books a while until they have had enough experience to open their eyes to observe and have learned to think for themselves. [RFS: Like using the basal to teach reading.] Jewett, A Country Doctor.

The deceptions of character fall away in the face of pain and death.
Medicine 364 The decorations and deceptions of character must fall away before the great realities of pain and death. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

Why did he live so long? Ignorance of medicine.
Medicine 241 A Lacedemonian was asked what had made him live so long in good health: “Ignorance of medicine,” he replied. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

All medicines are harmful to us.
Medicine 248 Moreover, their authors hold that there is no medicine that has not something hurtful in it; and if even those which are useful to us do in some measure harm us, what must those do that are totally misapplied to us? Montaigne, Selected Essays.

Medicines that are more harmful than the disease they are supposed to treat.
Medicine 564 I hate remedies that are more troublesome than the disease itself. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

Nature knows her business better than doctors do.
Medicine 567 [Of curing diseases]: Let us leave it a little up to Nature; she knows her business better than we do. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

A homeopathic doctor uses medicine sparingly.
Medicine 667 A doctor was sent for, who, being homeopathic, gave me as much medicine…as would have lain on the point of a needle. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

In spite of the doctors’ treatments, he recovered.
Medicine 1306 He had what the doctors termed ‘bilious fever,’ but in spite of the fact that they treated him, bled him and made him swallow drugs—he recovered. Tolstoi, War and Peace

Reading about diseases makes me feel as if I have them.
Medicine 75 I no sooner began to peruse books of this nature [medical books] but I found my pulse was irregular, and scarce ever read the account of any disease that I did not fancy myself afflicted with it. Addison, 3/29/1711. The Spectator.

Health care is the new name for the profession of medicine.
Medicine 81 …health care has become the new name for medicine [and] health care delivery is what doctors now do…. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

We’re not very good at preventing disease and preserving health.
Medicine 82 We are really not all that good at preventing disease or preserving health—not yet anyway. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

We fail to notice our good health most of the time.
Medicine 83 Meanwhile, we are paying too little attention, and respect, to the built-in durability and sheer power of the human organism…the absolute marvel of good health that is the real lot of most of us, most of the time. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

Most things get better by themselves.
Medicine 85 The great secret, known to internists and learned early in marriage by internists’ wives, but still hidden from the general public, is that most things get better by themselves. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

Here’s a lady lying on the floor waiting for reviving by some scientific invention.
Medicine 674 Mr. Weller: Here’s a wenerable old lady a lyin’ on the carpet waitin’ for dissection, or galwinism, or some other rewivin’ and scientific inwention. Dickens, Pickwick.

Level I of medical care: helps patient cope with diseases that are not well understood.
Medicine1 32 Medical care levels1: “Supportive therapy”--tides patients over through diseases that are not, by and large, understood... [by]simply providing reassurance [and]...only the very best of doctors are good at coping with this kind of defeat. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

Level II of medical care: “halfway technology”—things done to deal with disease and postpone death.
Medicine2 32 Medical care levels2: “Halfway technology”--the kinds of things that must be done after the fact...to make up for disease...to postpone death...the kind of thing that one must continue to do until there is a genuine understanding of the mechanisms involved in disease. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

Level III of medical care: comes from genuine understanding of the disease and is usually inexpensive, simple and easy to deliver.
Medicine3 35 Medical care levels3: ...comes as the result of a genuine understanding of disease mechanisms, and when it becomes available, it is relatively inexpensive, relatively simple, and relatively easy to deliver. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Quotes: Mathematics. Maturity. Media.

A collection of quotes on various topics. The sentence in fold face is a plain statement of the quote that follows.

Mathematics
Mathematics: Proposition that if something is true of something, it is also true of something else.
Mathematics 480 Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that if such and such a proposition is true of anything, then such and such another proposition is true of that thing...essential not to discuss whether the first proposition is really true and...what the anything is of which it is supposed to be true. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell.

Maturity
Maturity consists of the realization that there are things that cannot be understood.
Maturity 294 Kierkegaard: Maturity consists in the discovery that “there comes a critical moment where everything is reversed, after which the point becomes to understand more and more that there is something which cannot be understood.” Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Maturity means understanding that imitation is suicide, that one must understand oneself as an individual, for better or worse.
Maturity 259 There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction...that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion.... Emerson, Self-Reliance.

Maturity means understanding that one is responsible for the consequences of one’s actions.
Maturity 563 Natasha’s thought after Andrei’s proposal: Can it be true that there can be no more playing with life, that now I am grown up, that now a responsibility lies on me for my every word and action? Tolstoi, War and Peace.

Maturity means recognizing that what is, is, and accepting our place in it.
Maturity 162 Albert Schweitzer: The great progress in the evolution of life is that a moment arrives when we see what lies around us, comprehend what is, and accept our place in it. Anderson, The Schweitzer Album.

Media
The function of WWII movies was to build morale, i.e., education, inspiration and confidence.
Media 25 “The wartime function of the movies…is to build morale, and morale is…education…inspiration…confidence.” Hollywood Writers Mobilization for Defense. Blum, V Was for Victory

If I had done it the way the movies do it, I’d have hit her with the back of my hand across the face.
Media 30 At last both were out of the quivering apartment--the vibration of the door I had slammed after them still rang in my every nerve, a poor substitute for the backhand slap with which I ought to have hit her across the cheekbone according to the rules of the movies. Nabokov, Lolita.

Reporters seek the lurid and the sensational because it sells newspapers, rather than to report factually and educate readers.
Media 157 Too many reporters think the search for the lurid and the sensational is their job, and in some selfish sense it is—after all, it catches the eye of the editors, and increasingly editors are being asked by publishers to sell more papers rather than simply report factually on events or educate their readers. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

To make the TV news, it must be reduced to 30 seconds.
Media 159 Write a thoughtful analysis of the American predicament and it will be reduced to thirty seconds, if it makes the TV news at all. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

Newspapers, radio and TV give their audience what their market research people tell them the audience wants.
Media 160 Newspapers and radio and television networks are in the business of making money…not so much intellectually opposed to intelligent political coverage as they are aware of the importance…of pandering to what their market-research gurus tell them the public wants—and buys. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

Panel discussions discuss violence on TV followed by shows full of violence.
Media 160 …television’s attitude toward violence yields panel discussions and public-service ads decrying it, followed by programs full of violent acts. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

Local TV news: If it bleeds it leads; if it thinks, it stinks.
Media 160 The dual credo of local television news seems to be: “If it bleeds, it leads; if it thinks, it stinks.” Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

TV news rarely uplifts the human spirit.
Media 161 Rarely does [television news] make the human spirit soar. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

TV news makes America look worse than it is.
Media 161 America isn’t as bad as it looks on the television news. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

Money is to be made by giving the TV audience what it likes.
Media 170 Frank O’Connor: The real trouble is, the moment you get a mass audience, commercial interests become involved…”There’s big money in this…we’ve got to consider what the audiences like.” Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

In writing for the media, you cannot offend Catholics, Jews, the Salvation Army or the mayors of cities.
Media 170 Frank O’Connor on writing for the media: “Now you mustn’t offend the Catholics, you mustn’t offend the Jews, you mustn’t offend the Salvation Army, you mustn’t offend the mayors of cities.” Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

The camera is a limited instrument of expression compared to the pen.
Media 217 A. Moravia: The camera is a less complete instrument of expression than the pen, even in the hands of an Eisenstein. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

German reporting in WWII stressed the bravery of groups rather than of individuals.
Media war 71 German reporting stressed the bravery of military groups rather than individual soldiers. Blum, V Was for Victory

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Quotes: Martin Luther King. Martyr. Mask. Mass Movements.

A collection of quotes on various topics. The sentence in bold face is a plain statement of the quote that follows.

Martin Luther King
My dream is that the sons of slaves and slave owners will join in brotherhood.
Martin Luther King 887 MLK: “I have a dream that on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.” Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

Martyr
The martyr sacrifices his life to prove his worth.
Martyr 88 He sacrifices his life to prove his worth. Hoffer, The True Believer

He who enjoys learning from his experience is not likely to accept the idea of martyrdom because that will be the end of his experience.
Martyrdom 82 He who is free to draw conclusions from his individual experience and observation is not usually hospitable to the idea of martyrdom. Hoffer, The True Believer

Mask
He masks his personality with dull composure to prevent people from seeing his personality.
Mask 1060 …the mask of dull composure…to attempt throwing a cloud over our transparency. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

Mass movements
Mass movements: readiness to die; desire for united action; fanaticism; enthusiasm; fervent hope, hatred and intolerance; blind faith; single-hearted allegiance.
Mass movements xxvii All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die…a proclivity for united action…breed fanaticism, enthusiasm, fervent hope, hatred and intolerance…are capable of releasing a powerful flow of activity…demand blind faith and single hearted allegiance. Hoffer, The True Believer

Mass movements provide hope for the future while depriving their followers of enjoyment of the present.
Mass movements 15 Mass movements are usually accused of doping their followers with hope of the future while cheating them of the enjoyment of the present. Hoffer, The True Believer

Stop a mass movement by substituting another mass movement.
Mass movements 19 …stopping a mass movement is often a matter of substituting one movement for another. Hoffer, The True Believer

Offer a chance for action and a new beginning to stop the rise and spread of mass movements.
Mass movements 20 In general, any arrangement which…offers chances for action and new beginnings tends to counteract the rise and spread of mass movements. Hoffer, The True Believer

Mass movements depend on their followers’ desire for united action and self sacrifice.
Mass movements 61 The vigor of a mass movement stems from the propensity of its followers for united action and self-sacrifice. Hoffer, The True Believer

Processions, parades, rituals and ceremonials cause participants and spectators to get out of themselves.
Mass movements 71 There is no doubt that in staging its processions, parades, rituals and ceremonials, a mass movement touches a responsive chord in every heart…an exhilaration and getting out of one’s skin in both participants and spectators. Hoffer, The True Believer

The True Believer takes his facts from some kind of “Holy Writ,” Not from his experience.
Mass movements 82 The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ. Hoffer, The True Believer

Mass movements “deindividualize” and therefore dehumanize.
Mass movements 105 The deindividualization which is a prerequisite for thorough integration and selfless dedication is also, to a considerable extent, a process of dehumanization. Hoffer, The True Believer

Mass movements prefer coercion to persuasion.
Mass movements 113 It also seems that, where a mass movement can either persuade or coerce, it usually chooses the latter. Hoffer, The True Believer

The True Believer feels that he is in possession of the one and only truth, that one is backed by an irresistible and inevitable power, that one’s opponent is evil incarnate and must be crushed, that one must selflessly be devoted to duty: the qualifications for ruthless action.
Mass movements 126 To be in possession of the one and only truth and never doubt one’s righteousness; to feel that one is backed by a mysterious power whether it be God, destiny or the law of history; to be convinced that one’s opponents are the incarnation of evil and must be crushed; to exult in self-denial and devotion to duty--these are admirable qualifications for resolute and ruthless action in any field. Hoffer, The True Believer

Preparation for mass movements is started by speakers and writers; hatching the movement requires fanatics; and consolidation is accomplished by practical men of action.
Mass movements 138 What the classification attempts to suggest is that the readying of the ground for a mass movement is done best by men whose chief claim to excellence is their skill in the use of the spoken or written word; that the hatching of an actual movement requires the temperament and the talents of the fanatic; and that the final consolidation of the movement is largely the work of practical men of action. Hoffer, The True Believer

Mass movements are instruments of power for the successful and opiates for the frustrated.
Mass movements 161 Thus in the end . . . the movement is an instrument of power for the successful and an opiate for the frustrated. Hoffer, The True Believer

Mass movements destroy the present in their preoccupation with the future.
Mass movements92 The mass movement comes to destroy the present…in its preoccupation…with the future. Hoffer, The True Believer

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Quotes: Marriage.

A collection of quotes on various topics. The sentence in bold face is a plain statement of the quote that follows.

Marriage
Husbands sometimes hate their wives because of the wrongs the husbands have done to them.
Marriage 334 I have been vexed to see husbands hate their wives only because they themselves do them wrong. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

In Egypt, men stay home and the wives work.
Marriage 99 Oedipus: [of his sons] For there [Egypt] the men sit at home and weave while their wives go out to win the daily bread. Sophocles. Oedipus at Colonus.

A single man with a fortune must need a wife.
Marriage 3 It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

In Jane Austen’s time, marriage was the only escape from poverty and chance for happiness for a woman with little money.
Marriage 122 Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her [Charlotte Lucas’s] object; it was the only honorable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

For women, marriage is a chance for a new purpose in life, a new future and a new identity.
Marriage 56 Marriage has for women many equivalents of joining a mass movement …offers a new purpose in life, a new future, and a new identity (a new name). Hoffer, The True Believer

If a woman doubts when asked to marry, she should say no.
Marriage 52 Emma: I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him; if she can hesitate as to ‘Yes,’ she ought to say ‘No’ directly...but do not imagine that I want to influence you. Austen, Emma

A woman should not marry just because he has asked her, likes her and can write a tolerable letter.
Marriage 54 Emma: A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or because he is attached to her, and can write a tolerable letter. Austen, Emma

Why should he marry when he has his farm, sheep, library and manages his entire parish?
Marriage 225 Why should he [Mr. Knightley] marry?--He’s as happy as possible by himself; with his farm, and his sheep, and his library, and all the parish to manage. Austen, Emma

If a man chooses a wife when young, 23, it is usually a mistake.
Marriage 428 Mr. Knightley: So early in life—at three and twenty—a period when, if a man chooses a wife, he generally chooses ill. Austen, Emma

In spite of the doubts of all those who witnessed the ceremony, the union was perfectly happy.
Marriage 484 But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union. Austen, Emma

He sat in front of the fire with a handkerchief over his head, his feet on the fender and drinking his end-of-the-day wine.
Marriage 355 “Indeed, my love, he paid Teresa very great attention”…said Mrs. Malderton, addressing her spouse, who, after the fatigues of the day in the city was sitting with a silk handkerchief over his head, and his feet on the fender, drinking his port…. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

Marriage will put an end to whatever dreams you have.
Marriage 548 You [ladies] have but a very few years to be young and handsome in the eyes of the world; and as few months to be so in the eyes of a husband…for I hope you do not still dream of charms and raptures, which marriage ever did, and ever will, put a sudden end to. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

Being married and alone with each other much of the time would suggest that people could learn to get along together, but one runs into many contradictory couples.
Marriage 568 One would suppose that two people who are to pass their whole lives together, and must necessarily be very often alone with each other, could find little pleasure in mutual contradictions; and yet what is more common than a contradictory couple? Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

Married couples almost always argue about trifles.
Marriage 571 [The contradictory couple] …never quarrel except about trifles. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

While eating the pudding, he nudged his friend to notice the child’s eyes, chin, nose, hair, figure, calves, mouth or head.
Marriage 575 [The couple who dote on their children]: While the pudding is being disposed of, Mr. and Mrs. Whiffler look on with beaming countenance, and Mr. Whiffler nudging his friend Saunders, begs him to take notice of Tom’s eyes, or Dick’s chin, or Ned’s nose, or Mary Anne’s hair, or Emily’s figure, or little Bob’s calves, or Fanny’s mouth, or Carry’s head as the case may be. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

Married couples call each other “dearest” and “darling,” etc.
Marriage 581 The plausible gentleman calls his wife “darling” and the plausible lady addresses him as “dearest” …if it be Mr. and Mrs. Bobtail Widger, Mrs. Widger is “Lavinia, darling,” and Mr. Widger is “Bobtail, dearest.” Dickens, Sketches by Boz.

Marriage without love means love without marriage.
Marriage 64 Medieval marriages were entirely a matter of property, and, as everybody knows, marriage without love means love without marriage. Clark, Civilization.

Marriage is arduous communism.
Marriage 8 …the arduous communism of marriage…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.

Marriage is for the perpetuation of the species, not for the pleasure of the individual.
Marriage 319 Schopenhauer : …no unions are so unhappy as…love marriages—and precisely for the reason that their aim is the perpetuation of the species, and not the pleasure of the individual. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer.

If you marry for love, you will live in sorrow.
Marriage 319 Schopenhauer : Spanish proverb: He who marries from love must live in sorrow. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer.

Marriage is disillusioning and eventually destroys love.
Marriage 319 Schopenhauer : …marriage is the attrition of love, and must be disillusioning. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer.

Marriage fulfills women and empties men.
Marriage 433 Nietzsche: Marriage...fulfillment of the woman and its narrowing and emptying of the man. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Nietzsche.

The astonishing thing about marriage is that many endure.
Marriage 3 The really astounding thing about marriage is not that it so often goes to smash, but that it so often endures. Mencken, Minority Report.

Marriage is a natural condition that allows men to have careers and forbids women to have careers.
Marriage 329 Nan: Of course I know being married isn’t a trade: It is a natural condition of life, which permits a man to follow certain public careers and forbids them to a woman. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

Being a wife will deprive me of the opportunity to do what nature fitted me for.
Marriage 351 351 Nan: If I had heard he [George Gerry] had gone to the other side of the world for years and years, I should be glad now and not sorry; but I can look forward and see something a thousand times better than being his wife, and living here in Dunport keeping his house, and trying to forget all that nature fitted me to do. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

I will always be your friend, but if I married you, I will eventually seem to be your enemy.
Marriage 354 Nan to George Gerry: I will always be your friend, but if I married you I might seem by and by to be your enemy. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

I could not marry and give my whole self; there are other things I want to do.
Marriage 355 Nan: But something tells me all the time that I could not marry the whole of myself as most women can; there is a great share of my life which could not have its way, and could only hide itself and be sorry. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

Marriage is miserable when the only conversation concerns whether the meat should be boiled or roasted and probably a dispute about that.
Marriage 394 Johnson: It [marriage] was a miserable thing when the conversation could only be such as whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a dispute about that. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

Marriages would be happier if they were arranged by the Lord Chancellor who would consider the character and the circumstances and if the parties had nothing to say in the matter.
Marriage 627 Johnson: I believe marriages would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due consideration of the characters and circumstances, without the parties having any choice in the matter. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

He expected his wife to be uncritical and in awe of him; in fact he saw her as a spy.
Marriage 195 And this cruel outward accuser was there in the shape of a wife—nay, of a young bride, who, instead of observing his abundant pen scratches and amplitude of paper with the uncritical awe of an elegant-minded canary-bird, seemed to present herself as a spy watching everything with a malign power of inference. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

She was his wife, but also the personification of critics of unappreciated authors.
Marriage 195 Dorothea was not only his wife: she was a personification of that shallow world which surrounds the ill-appreciated or desponding author. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Young, inexperienced people may think of marriage as a perpetual holiday, but it soon turns into a work day.
Marriage 248 Young folks may get fond of each other before they know what life is, and they may think it all holiday if they can only get together; but it soon turns into working day…. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Going on a honeymoon is nonsense; they get tired of each other and can’t comfortably argue as they would at home.
Marriage 267 Mrs. Cadwallader says it is nonsense, people going on a long journey when they are married…says they get tired to death of each other and can’t quarrel comfortably as they would at home. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

It’s not a marriage; it’s a virgin-sacrifice.
Marriage 347 Ladislaw on Dorothea’s marriage to Casaubon: “It is the most horrible of virgin-sacrifices.” George Eliot, Middlemarch.

The young creature who had worshipped him before marriage had become a critic.
Marriage 402 Poor Mr. Casaubon! This suffering was the harder to bear because it seemed like a betrayal: the young creature who had worshipped him with perfect trust had quickly turned into the critical wife; and early instances of criticism and resentment had made an impression which no tenderness and submission afterwards could remove. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Men want a perfect woman who will reverence her husband’s mind.
Marriage 555 ...marking how far he had traveled from his old dreamland, in which Rosamond Vincy appeared to be that perfect piece of womanhood who would reverence her husband’s mind.... George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Marriage demands self-suppression and tolerance.
Marriage 716 716 …for Rosamond’s discontent in her marriage was due to the conditions of marriage itself, to its demand for self-suppression and tolerance…. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

He called his wife his basil because it was a plant that flourished on a murdered man’s brains.
Marriage 792 [Lydgate] had once called her [Rosamond] his basil plant; and when she asked for an explanation, said that basil was a plant which had flourished wonderfully on a murdered man’s brains [to which] Rosamond had a placid but strong answer[:] Why then had he chosen her…pity he had not had Mrs. Ladislaw, whom he was always praising, and placing above her…conversation ended with the advantage on Rosamond’s side. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Whether you marry or not you will repent it.
Marriage 331 Socrates, when asked whether it was better to take or not to take a wife, replied, “Whichever a man does, he will repent it.” Montaigne, Selected Essays.

Marriage cures love.
Marriage 334 I have seen in my time…love shamefully and dishonorably cured by marriage. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

The Senate gave a man permission to kill himself to free himself from his squally wife.
Marriage 355 The Senate of Marseilles was right to grant the request of the man who asked permission to kill himself so that he might be delivered from his squally wife. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

A happy marriage consists of a blind wife and a deaf husband.
Marriage 355 That was, to my mind, an understanding fellow who said that a happy marriage was formed of a blind wife and a deaf husband. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

Browning and Elizabeth Barrett symbolize both individuality and union.
Marriage 953 …Harriet Hosmer’s clasped hands of Browning and his wife symbolizing the individuality and heroic union of two poetic lives. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

Don’t marry until you have accomplished all you are capable of doing and until you see your intended as she really is or you will make a terrible mistake.
Marriage 30 …don’t marry until you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of doing, and until you cease to love the woman of your choice and see her plainly, as she really is; or else you will be making a cruel and irreparable mistake. Tolstoi, War and Peace.

I would never marry anyone who would be block-headed enough to marry me.
Marriage 111 Lincoln: I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying; and for this reason; I can never be satisfied with any one who would block-head enough to have me. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years

Marriage is the process of going through so much to learn so little.
Marriage 372 “Wen you’re a married man, Samival, you’ll understand a good many things as you don’t understand now; but vether it’s worth while goin’ through so much, to learn so little...is a matter of taste...I rayther think it isn’t.” Dickens, Pickwick.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Quotes: Manners. Marching.

A collection of quotes on various topics. The sentence in bold face is a plain statement of the quote that follows.

Manners
Distinguishing between “ease” and “elegance” in behavior.
Manners 270 She [Emma] would not be in a hurry to find fault [with Mrs. Elton], but she suspected that there was no elegance;--ease, but not elegance. Austen, Emma

Good manners depend on the good manners of others.
Manners 1044 Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Behavior.

Self-reliance is the basis for good manners.
Manners 1046 The basis of good manners is self-reliance. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Behavior.

People who lack self-possession are painful to behold.
Manners 1046 Those who are not self-possessed, obtrude and pain us. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Behavior.

Good manners take time; haste is vulgar.
Manners 1046 Manners require time, as nothing is more vulgar than haste. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Behavior.

He had the manners of a tolerably trained bear.
Manners 656 As for external polish, or mere courtesy of manner, he never possessed more than a tolerably educated bear. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Marching
Marching diverts thoughts, kills thought and eliminates individuality.
Marching 126 Hermann Rauschming: “Marching diverts men’s thoughts; marching kills thought; marching makes an end of individuality.” Hoffer, The True Believer

Monday, July 23, 2007

Quotes: Man.

A collection of quotes on various topics. The sentence in bold face is a plain statement of the quote that follows.

Man
Man is the masterpiece of creation.
Man 176 Chorus: Creation is a marvel/ And man its masterpiece. Sophocles. Antigone.

Man is a god-detested monster.
Man 76 Oedipus: Hurry off the monster: that deepest damned and god-detested man. Sophocles. Oedipus the King.

Man is both good and evil, god and human.
Man 51 Man...is also Homo duplex...partakes of evil and of good, of god and of man. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Man would kill for ideas and in the next generation forget what he killed for.
Man 256 He would kill for shadowy ideas more ferociously than other creatures kill for food, then, in a generation or less, forget what bloody dream had so oppressed him. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

If man self-destructs it’s too bad he will take the rest of nature with him.
Man 261 If it should turn out that we have mishandled our own lives…it seems a pity that we should involve the violet and the tree frog in our departure. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Man has harnessed the energy of the sun and threatens the lives and happiness of his unborn descendants.
Man 284 He [man] holds the heat of suns within his hands and threatens with it both the lives and the happiness of his unborn descendants. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Man is always searching for his true nature.
Man 300 ...a play in which man was destined always to be a searcher, and it would be his true nature he would seek. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Men are contradictory; we believe what we disbelieve and do what we condemn.
Man 302 Montaigne: “We are, I know not how, double in ourselves, so that what we believe we disbelieve, and cannot rid ourselves of what we condemn.” Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Few are saints or total monsters.
Man 304 Few of us can be saints; few of us are total monsters. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Man would be great, happy, perfect, and the object of love, but he realizes he is little, miserable, full of imperfections, with faults that merit only aversion and contempt.
Man xxxi Pascal: Man would fain be great and sees that he is little; would fain be happy and sees that he is miserable; would fain be perfect and sees that he is full of imperfections; would fain be the object of the love and esteem of men and sees that his faults merit only their aversion and contempt. Hoffer, The True Believer

JFK: Man is the most extraordinary computer, with judgment, nerve and ability to learn from experience.
Man 593 To those who argued that instruments alone could do the job [of going to the moon], he [Kennedy] replied that man was “the most extraordinary computer of them all…[whose] judgment, nerve and [ability to] learn from experience still make him unique” among the instruments. Sorenson, Kennedy

Man has the need to transcend himself.
Man 104 …man feels the inner need to transcend himself. Pope John Paul II, Threshold

Man’s capacities have never been measured; precedents don’t help since so little has been tried.
Man 330 But man’s capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what we can do by any precedents, so little has been tried. Thoreau, Walden.

Plato: Man is a biped without feathers.
Man 441 …Plato’s definition of a man,--a biped without feathers. Thoreau, Walden.

Man has an instinct for the higher, spiritual life and also an instinct for a primitive, savage life.
Man 490 I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. Thoreau, Walden.

Foolish people think every person is the same.
Man 27 The foolish have no range in their scale, but suppose every man is as every other man. Emerson, Nature.

Man has unlimited possibilities.
Man 41 Who can set bounds to the possibilities of man? Emerson, Nature.

People are ruined gods.
Man 45 A man is a god in ruins. Emerson, Nature.

It takes a whole society to put together a complete man.
Man 54 ...you must take the whole society to find the whole man. Emerson, The American Scholar.

People are neither willing or able to help others.
Man 70 “I learned,” said the melancholy Pestalozzi, “that no man in God’s wide earth is either willing or able to help any other man.” Emerson, The American Scholar.

All people are capable of sublime thoughts and value the few hours of real life.
Man 89 ...all men have sublime thoughts;...all men value the few real hours of life. Emerson, Divinity College Address.

Man’s mind is the final riddle.
Man xx Man’s mind is the final, unlocked riddle. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

All men need security, identity and stimulation.
Man xx …what men need and must have are three things: security, identity, and stimulation, and not always in that order. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

A man’s hand is not just a single organ; it is an instrument that creates other instruments.
Man 6 For the most intelligent of animals is the one who would put the most organs to use; and the hand is not to be looked on as one organ but as many; for it is, as it were, an instrument for further instruments. Aristotle, Parts of Animals. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought.

Man is at the same time the frailest and most arrogant of creatures.
Man 11 The most vulnerable and frail of all creatures is man, and at the same time the most arrogant. Montaigne, Essays: “Apology for Raymond Sebond.” Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought.

Man is the glory, jest and riddle of the world.
Man 14 He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest,/ …In doubt his mind or body to prefer,/ Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;/ Alike in ignorance…/ Whether he thinks too little, or too much:/ …Created half to rise, and half to fall;/ Great lord of all things, yet prey to all;/ …The glory, jest, and riddle of the world. Pope, Essay on Man. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought.

Man is a degraded mass of animated dust who is put to shame by the brute creation.
Man 17 Oh, Man! Thou feeble tenant of an hour,/ Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power,…/ Degraded mass of animated dust;/ Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,/ Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit;/ …Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Byron, Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought.

Man is the most ruthlessly ferocious of beasts.
Man 20 In many respects man is the most ruthlessly ferocious of beasts. W. James, Psychology. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought.

Man is the only creature to prey systematically on its own species.
Man 21 Man…the only one that preys systematically on its own species. W. James, Remarks…. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought.

Man is subject by his humanity to pain and sorrow and adds to that his cruel treatment of others
Man 510 Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief, and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another. Addison, 9/13/1711. The Spectator.

Man is simply a part of nature.
Man 3 Man is embedded in nature.
Animals have many of the characteristics of man and even something equivalent to intelligence. [If you define intelligence as learning from experience.]

Animals resemble men physically and emotionally.
Man and animals 6 For just as we pointed our resemblances in the physical organs, so in a number of animals we observe gentleness or fierceness, mildness or cross temper, courage, or timidity, fear or confidence, high spirit or low cunning, and, with regard to intelligence, something equivalent to sagacity. Aristotle, History of Animals. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought.

Animals live only in the present, with little perception of the past or future. [I don’t agree. Animals learn from experience.]
Man and animals 7 The most evident difference between man and animal is this: the beast, inasmuch as it is largely motivated by the senses and with little perception of the past or future, lives only for the present. Cicero, De Officiis. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought.

Animals are like clocks which inform us of the hour, better than we can judge without them.
Man and animals 12 They [animals] act by force of nature and by springs like a clock, which tells better what the hour is than our judgment can inform us. Descartes. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought.

Men are different from animals because they preserve their past experiences.
Man and animals 21 Man differs from the lower animals because he preserves his past experiences. Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought.

Colonies of insects act as a single organism. [“Swimmy.”]
Man and Animals 127 The idea that colonies of social insects are somehow equivalent to vast, multi-creatured organisms, possessing a collective intelligence and a gift for adaptation far superior to the sum of the individual inhabitants [was suggested by] William Morton Wheeler, who proposed the term “superorganism” to describe the arrangement. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

Analogies are made between human and insect societies, but the insects do not develop a social tradition based on the accumulated experience of many generations.
Man and animals 57 It is not surprising that many analogies have been drawn between the social insects and human societies...; however, these are misleading or meaningless, for the behavior of insects is rigidly stereotyped and determined by innate instructive mechanisms; they show little or no insight or capacity for learning, and they lack the ability to develop a social tradition based on the accumulated experience of many generations. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

Human behavior is not mindless and stereotyped and coded out by our genomes, and we do not engage compulsively in tasks. [A half-truth?]
Man and animals 88 We are not mindless nor is our day-to-day behavior coded out to the last detail by our genomes, nor do we seem to be engaged together, compulsively, in any single, universal, stereotyped task analogous to the construction of a nest. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

The wasp cannot consider alternative methods of doing things. [Judging by the behavior of squirrels, I question this assertion.]
Man and animals 93 …the wasp cannot imagine any other way of doing things. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

Man, unlike animals, stands straight and can look to the heavens.
Man and God 9 Man has not been created stooping towards the earth, like the irrational animals; but his bodily form, erect and looking heavenwards, admonishes him to mind the things that are above. Augustine, City of God. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought.

Was there a time when man and the things of nature knew each other more intimately?
Man and Nature 861 And, after all, the idea of [the Faun] may have been no dream, but rather a poet’s reminiscence of a period when man’s affinity with Nature...and his fellowship with every living thing [was] more intimate and dear. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

The American Indians believed that everything in nature had a soul.
Man and nature 169 The Americans [Indians] believe that all creatures have souls, not only men and women, but brutes, vegetables, nay even the most inanimate things as sticks and stones. Addison, 5/4/1711. The Spectator.

Men are like flies to the gods who kill us for their sport.
Man and the gods 11 As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods,/ They kill us for their sport. Shakespeare, Lear. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought.

Evolution has shaped man as a unique creature who will not be duplicated in other conditions.
Man evolution 116 That shape [of man] is the evolutionary product of a strange, long wandering through the attics of the forest roof, and so great are the chances of failure, that nothing precisely and identically human is likely ever to come that way again. Eiseley, The Immense Journey

Man is a fire that consumes himself.
Man fire 45 [Man] ... is himself a consuming fire. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Man has escaped from the animals’ eternal present into a knowledge of past and future.
Man instinct 87 Man had escaped out of the eternal present of the animal world into a knowledge of past and future. Eiseley, The Immense Journey

Man has created an invisible world of ideas, beliefs, habits and customs that replace the instincts of animals.
Man instincts 65 Creature of dream, he [man] has created an invisible world of ideas, beliefs, habits, and customs which buttress him about and replace for him the precise instincts of the lower creatures. Eiseley, The Immense Journey

Luxuries are not indispensable and are hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
Man luxury 334 Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. Thoreau, Walden.

Man, the user of tools, needs to be careful not to become a tool himself.
Man tool 269 Man, the tool user, grows convinced that he is himself only useful as a tool. Eiseley, The Star Thrower.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Quotes: Machine. Mae West. Majority. Male and Female.

A collection of quotes on various topics. The sentence in bold face is a plain statement of the quote that follows.

Machine
Machines don’t bleed, ache, and worry about the fate of other machines.
Machine bird 140 ...on the other hand the machine does not bleed, ache, hang for hours in the empty sky in a torment of hope to learn the fate of another machine, nor does it cry out with joy nor dance in the air with the fierce passion of a bird. Eiseley, The Immense Journey

The machine makes the user its servant.
Machines 857 …the machine unmans the user. Emerson, English Traits.

Mae West
Mae West could make any line in a script sound salacious.
Mae West 113 …even after a script had been torn apart she could make the barest participle left on a page sound oozily lubricious. Pierpont, Claudia Roth. “A Critic at Large: The Strong Woman.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 106-118.

Mae West enjoyed fighting for her rights, but we will never know what it cost her.
Mae West 118 Maybe the best of her [Mae West’s] valor and the choicest of her victories…arose from how much she enjoyed the fight, and insisted on her right to enjoy it and, of course, on our right to enjoy her enjoying it: What it cost her we’ll never know. Pierpont, Claudia Roth. “A Critic at Large: The Strong Woman.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 106-118.

Majority
The majority often do not know their opinion.
Majority 1082 To say then, the majority are wicked, means no malice, no bad heart in the observer, but simply, that the majority are unripe, and have not yet come to themselves, do not yet know their opinion. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Considerations by the Way.

Male and Female
The great religions gave the female principle of obedience at least as much emphasis as the male.
Male and female 177 The stabilizing, comprehensive religions of the world, the religions which penetrate to every part of a man’s being—in Egypt, India or China—gave the female principle of creation at least as much importance as the male…communities of obedience. Clark, Civilization.

Aggressive societies conceived their gods as male.
Male and female 177 The aggressive, nomadic societies…communities of will—Israel, Islam, the Protestant North, conceived their gods as male. Clark, Civilization.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Quotes: Loneliness. Lost Generation. Love. Lying.

A collection of quotes on various topics. The sentence in bold face is a plain statement of the quote that follows.

Loneliness
We are lonelier in crowds than when we are alone in our own rooms.
Loneliness 430 We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. Thoreau, Walden.

Nothing produces loneliness more than distrust.
Loneliness 421 ...what loneliness is more lonely than distrust? George Eliot, Middlemarch.

The loneliest words: “Why hast thou forsaken me?”
Loneliness 1134 One of the most striking effects produced, is the sense of loneliness…Christ deserted both in Heaven and earth; that despair…which wrung forth the saddest utterance man ever made—‘Why has thou forsaken me?’ Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

Lost Generation
We were a generation to whom everything seemed possible; to be young at a time like that was incredibly lucky.
Lost Generation 277 Archibald MacLeish: We knew we belonged to a great, a greatly creative generation—that we lived in a generative time[;] everything seemed possible—was possible[;] to be young in a time like that was incredible luck-—to be young and in Paris! Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook [I immediately think of An American in Paris.]

Love
Fall in love with my hair, eyes, shoulders, slippers, but not my mouth.
Love 163 Please don’t fall in love with my mouth—hair, eyes, shoulders, slippers—but not my mouth. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

The love affair may be insane, but it’s not inane.
Love 171 “It may be an insane love affair…but it’s not inane.” Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

In love, he moved as if in a dream.
Love 172 …he moved in a half-dream. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

Who was the first person to discover that poetry can drive away love?
Love 44 I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

Freud on love: “The over-estimation of the object.”
Love 400 Freud’s ironic description of being in love, ‘The over-estimation of the object....’ Bloom, Western Canon.

Excess in love brings no honor or worthiness.
Love 45 Chorus: When love is in excess/ It brings a man no honor/ Nor any worthiness. Euripides, Medea.

Love lightly, quick to shed or tighten.
Love 86 Nurse: Light should the heart’s affections lie on us, quick to cast off and quick to pull tighter. Euripides, Hippolytus.

Love is the sincere gift of self.
Love 202 Council emphasizes that the most important thing about love is the sincere gift of self. Pope John Paul II, Threshold

Possessed of intense life, they looked at me remotely.
Love 97 I looked once more at them and they looked back at me, remotely, possessed by intense life. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

They stared at each other, alone in space.
Love 119 Their eyes met, and they stared together at each other, alone in space. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

If he loved with all he had, he could not love as much in eighty years as I in a day.
Love 179 Heathcliff: If he [Edgar Linton] loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn’t love as much in eighty years as I could in a day…and Catherine has a heart as deep as I have. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

Fall on her grave and die like a faithful dog.
Love 213 Isabella: Heathcliff, if I were you, I’d go stretch myself over her grave and die like a faithful dog. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

People hate their wives, but not their brothers or sisters; I wish you were my brother.
Love 287 Cathy: Pretty Linton! I wish you were my brother…people hate their wives sometimes; but not their sisters and brothers…. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

Behavior accompanying love.
Love 262 Emma: this sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, this feeling of every thing’s being dull and insipid…I must be in love…. Austen, Emma

She imagined his advances and her refusal as they became merely friends.
Love 264 …as she sat drawing or working, forming a thousand amusing schemes for the progress and close of their attachment, fancying interesting dialogues, and inventing elegant letters; the conclusion of every imaginary declaration on his side was that she refused him…their affection was to subside into friendship. Austen, Emma

If I didn’t love you so much, I could talk about it more.
Love 430 Mr. Knightley: If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. Austen, Emma

Love contains the seeds of hatred, fear and confusion; love can coexist with hatred, giving it fury.
Love 375 Now, in their love, which was stronger, there were the seeds of hatred and fear and confusion growing at the same time: For love can exist with hatred, each preying on the other, and this is what gives it its greatest fury. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

To be loved is embarrassing.
Love 402 But it is always embarrassing to be loved. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

Love in action is harsh as compared to love in dreams.
Love 56 …love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

His love was more like revenge.
Love 626 …that love was not like love, but more like revenge. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

Love is between delight and misery.
Love 175 It was agitation, pain, pleasure, a something between delight and misery. Austen, Persuasion.

She was happy in her misery or miserable in her happiness.
Love 229 She was deep in the happiness of such misery, or the misery of such happiness…. Austen, Persuasion.

They walked, heedless of everything around them, going over the events that had preceded their admitting their love for each other.
Love 241 …as they slowly paced the gradual ascent, heedless of every group around them, seeing neither sauntering politicians, bustling house-keepers, flirting girls, nor nursery-maids and children, they could indulge in those retrospections and acknowledgments, and especially in those explanations of what had directly preceded the present moment, which were so poignant and so ceaseless in interest. Austen, Persuasion.

The evening consisted of exquisite moments.
Love 244 That evening seemed to be made up of exquisite moments. Austen, Persuasion.

Love is nature’s deception.
Love 319 Schopenhauer : …love is a deception practiced by nature…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer.

If Petrarch’s love had been gratified, he would no longer have written poetry.
Love 320 Schopenhauer : If Petrarch’s passion had been gratified, his song would have been silenced. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer.

As he talked, I was thinking of the other man.
Love 416 “I spent some happy hours right here…always liked Nathan, and he never knew…this pennyr’yal always reminded me, as I’d sit and gather it and hear him talkin’—it always would remind me of—the other one.” Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.

People told me that time would help me stop missing her, but I still miss her every day.
Love 477 "I do miss her…folks all kep' repeatin' that time would ease me, but I can't find it does[;] no, I miss her just the same every day." Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.

I keep feeling she will walk in that door; I can’t get over losing her.
Love 478 "I get so some days it feels as if poor dear might step right back into the kitchen[;] I keep a watchin' them doors as if she might step in to ary one…I can't get over losin' of her no way nor no how." Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.

No pleasures are worth the pain of love.
Love 330 In the noon and afternoon of life we still throb at the recollection of days when happiness was not happy enough, but must be drugged with the relish of pain and fear; for he touched the secret of the matter, who said of love, “All other pleasures are not worth its pain.” Emerson, Love.

Love in most men is lust.
Love 234 The Ragged One: Now, love in most young men is not love, but lust…. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha, Part 1: 1605.

Love returns us to simplicity.
Love 940 It is the surest test of genuine love, that it brings back our early simplicity to the worldliest of us. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

We love people not for what they have done for us, but for what we have done for them.
Love 118 As Sterne says: “We don’t love men so much for the good they have done us as for the good we have done them.” Tolstoi, War and Peace.

We love those to whom we give and dislike those who give to us.
Love 408 Perhaps it is true that we love best those to whom we give and dislike those who give to us. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

When love is too strong, it doesn’t last long.
Love 393 And when love is too strong, it don’t last long,/ As many have found to their pain. Dickens, Pickwick.

The course of true love is not straight.
Love xv …the course of true love is not a railway. Chapter 8. Table of Contents. Dickens, Pickwick.

If we could look into the hearts of those whom we think love us, what would we see?
Love and friendship 698 If we could look into the hearts where we wish to be most valued, what should you expect to see? Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Love and joy cannot be forced.
Love joy 118 Oedipus: Who ever heard of joy or love by force? Sophocles. Oedipus at Colonus.

Lying
Old liars can convince themselves that what they are saying is true, although at the same time, they tell themselves that they are lying.
Lying 70 With old liars who have been acting all their lives there are moments when they enter so completely into their part that they tremble or shed tears of emotion in earnest, although at that very moment…they are able to whisper to themselves, “You know you are lying…you’re acting now….” Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

You can tell someone that he whores, drinks and blasphemes and he won’t resent it; but tell him he lies and he will respond with fury.
Lying 307 One may tell another he whores, drinks, blasphemes, and it may pass unresented; but to say he lies, though but in jest, is an affront that nothing but blood can expiate. Addison, 6/23/1711. The Spectator.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Quotes: Logic

A collection of quotes on various topics. The sentence in bold face is a plain statement of the quote that follows.

Logic
Contradictions can’t exist in logic, but they exist in feelings.
Logic 60 …only in logic are contradictions unable to coexist; in feelings they quite happily continue alongside each other…. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).

Minorities that secede will produce multiple minorities that secede from them.
Logic 37 Lincoln: If a minority, in such case, will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which, in turn, will divide and ruin them: for a minority of their own will secede from them, whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such a minority. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

If they are consistent, the Southern states will secede from each other whenever they disagree.
Logic 99 Lincoln: To be consistent they [the Southern states] must secede from one another, whenever they shall find it the easiest way of settling their debts, or effecting any other selfish, or unjust object. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

Our generals say when they lose that they were outnumbered from three to five to one, so, since we have 400,000 men in the field, the enemy must have 1,200,000 men.
Logic 213 Yes Sir, went on the President [the enemy troops number] 1,200,000—no doubt of it…all our generals, when they get whipped, say the enemy outnumbers them from three to five to one…we have 400,000 men in the field, and three times four makes twelve. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

Logic is a science because it can be reduced to a set of rules like physics and geometry.
Logic 58 [Logic] is a science because to a considerable extent the processes of correct thinking can be reduced to rules like physics and geometry…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.

Syllogism defined.
Logic 61 A syllogism is a trio of propositions of which the third (the conclusion) follows from the conceded truth of the other two. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.

Syllogisms don’t produce truth, but clarify it.
Logic 61 …the syllogism is not a mechanism for the discovery of truth so much as for the clarification of exposition and thought. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.

The people who justify slavery as good should want to become slaves themselves.
Logic 195 Lincoln: “Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself.” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years

If the person of lighter color can enslave the darker, you are at the mercy of anyone whose skin is fairer than your own.
Logic 197 Lincoln: It is color, then; the lighter having the right to enslave the darker…by this rule, you are slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years

If whites are intellectually superior to the blacks, giving them the right to enslave blacks, you should be enslaved by the person who is intellectually superior to you. Logic 197 Lincoln: You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks and therefore have the right to enslave them…by this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet with an intellect superior to your own. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years

If you do not object to my taking my hog to Nebraska, then I should not object to your taking your slave to Nebraska—logical if there is no difference between hogs and people.
Logic 203 Lincoln: “Inasmuch as you do not object to my taking my hog to Nebraska, therefore I must not object to you taking your slave…perfectly logical, if there is no difference between hogs and Negroes.” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years

If the safeguards of liberty are taken from Negroes, how long will it be before the safeguards of liberty are taken from poor white men?
Logic 208 Lincoln: “And if the safeguards of liberty are broken down…when they have made things of all the free Negroes, how long, think you, before they will begin to make things of poor white men?” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years

If I had taken up arms in behalf of the rich, powerful and intelligent, instead of Negro slaves, I would be rewarded, not punished, by this court.
Logic 264 John Brown: “Had I taken up arms on behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent…every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than of punishment.” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Quotes: Literacy. Literature.

A collection of quotes on various topics. The sentence in bold face is a plain statement of the quote that follows.

Literacy
In American history, the spoken word predominated over the printed word.
Literacy 10 The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay thus foreshadowed the circumstances which, throughout American history, were to give peculiar prominence to the spoken, as contrasted with the printed, word. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Speaking is more topical than writing.
Literacy 10 The spoken word is inevitably more topical than the printed word. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

“Plain” [writing] style, in contrast to the “metaphysical” style, emphasized persuasion and practical consequences.
Literacy, style 11 In contrast to the involved “metaphysical” style of Lancelot Andrewes and John Donne, the Puritans developed a manner which came to be known, in their own words, as the “plain” style…greater attention to persuasion and the practical consequences. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Literature
Why bore kids with critical analysis of literature; it’s of interest only to literary critics.
Literary analysis 319 Gore Vidal: this business of taking novels apart in order to show bored children how they were put together…only a literary critic would benefit…so what is the point to these desultory autopsies…? Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

The literary canon is what has been preserved from all that has been written.
Literary Canon 17 The Canon, once we view it as the relation of an individual reader and writer to what has been preserved out of what has been written, and forget the canon as a list of books for required reading. . . . Bloom, Western Canon.

The test for membership in the literary canon is whether the work demands rereading.
Literary Canon 30 One ancient test for the canonical remains fiercely valid: unless it demands rereading, the work does not qualify. Bloom, Western Canon.

The works in the literary canon cause us to think.
Literary Canon 41 Without the Canon, we cease to think. Bloom, Western Canon.

The works in the canon are chosen for their singularity, not because they fit into some pattern.
Literary Canon 147 ...this unrealized truth about the Western canon: works are appropriated by it for their singularity, not because they fit smoothly into an existing order. Bloom, Western Canon.

A classic has survived the following generations.
Literary classic 89 A classic, suggested Anthony, is a successful book that has survived the reaction of the next period or generation. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing.

Farrell is really a journalist, a stenographer.
Literary criticism 240 N. Algren: I don’t think [Farrell] is a writer, really…too journalistic for my taste…too stenographic. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

From reading criticisms of her books, F. Sagan said she learned about intentions she had never had.
Literary criticism 306 F. Sagan in response to the question, “Did you learn anything from the published criticism of the book?” “They saw intentions I never had.” Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

You read his books as if you were going to the movies.
Literary criticism 85 …one woman who could hardly have written a coherent letter in English described [The Great Gatsby] as a book that one read only as one goes to the movies around the corner. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing.

Writers need readers who have the same spirit.
Literary Criticism 25 “Every scripture is to be interpreted by the same spirit that gave it forth,”—is the fundamental law of criticism. Emerson, Nature.

Don’t commend him for what he has written, but for what he did not write.
Literary criticism 834 Cervantes: …that he be commended not for what he writes, but for what he has refrained from writing. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Part Two: 1615.

Shakespeare and Cervantes had broad humanity, tolerance and an ironic vision of life.
Literary Criticism 16 …to Shakespeare, whom…he [Cervantes] resembles, owing to his broad humanity, toleration, and profoundly ironic vision of life. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Introduction by Walter Starkie.

Correct English is the slang of prigs who write history, essays and, especially, poetry.
Literary criticism 98 …correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays; and the strongest slang of all is the slang of poets. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Great men and tall men were the same in the theater.
Literary criticism 126 One would believe [in the theater] that we thought a great man and a tall man the same thing. Addison, 4/18/1711. The Spectator.

The glib playwrights are murderers of art.
Literary Criticism 371 Dionysus: Mere nubbins with a silly gift of gab;/ …murderers of art. Aristophanes, Frogs.

Today’s poets cannot compose one ringing phrase.
Literary Criticism 372 Dionysus: What potent poet can you find today,/ To father one full-bodied, ringing phrase. Aristophanes, Frogs.

He is a bad poet; his rhythms are all the same.
Literary criticism 408 Euripides of Aeschylus: I can prove he’s a bad melody maker: he makes them all alike. Aristophanes, Frogs.

You can’t manufacture a story the way you can a table.
Literature 187 “An engagement to write a story must in its nature be conditional; because stories grow like vegetables, and are not manufactured like a pine table.” Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

Literature makes the moment permanent, saving it from the rush of time.
Literature 8 What are stories but attempts to fix the permanence of the moment, to salvage it from the rushing impermanence of time? Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

You cannot read Hawthorne with speed; you have to be in the right mood.
Literature 83 [Reviewer]: “To be read fitly, he should be read in the right mood and at the proper hour...taken in haste and opened at random, would do him great wrong.” Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

Great literature can never be totally understood because its meaning continually modifies in the mind.
Literature 274 ...great literature, whose meanings...can never be totally grasped because of their endless power to ramify in the individual mind. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Studying literature will not save individuals or improve society.
Literature 31 The study of literature, however it is conducted, will not save any individual, any more than it will improve any society. Bloom, Western Canon.

Read literature to find values that transcend the prejudices and needs of our time.
Literature 62 ...quest that is the final aim of literary study, the search for a kind of value that transcends the particular prejudices and needs of societies at fixed points in time. Bloom, Western Canon.

The virtual reality of literature: characters who persuade us that they are real.
Literature 105 ...the virtual reality of literary characters, convincingly persuasive women and men. Bloom, Western Canon.

The plays of Moliére remind me of my own worst qualities and the worst qualities of my enemies.
Literature 159 I cannot read Moliere or attend a performance of Tartuffe or The Misanthrope without reflecting on my own worst qualities, as well as the dreadful qualities of my enemies. Bloom, Western Canon.

What was the writer trying to do with this poem, play or story?
Literature 249 What was the writer trying to do for herself or himself, as a person, by writing this poem, play, or story? Bloom, Western Canon.

Tolstoy enables the reader to see everything as if for the first time.
Literature 336 ...the reader’s happy conviction that Tolstoy enables him to see everything as if for the first time. Bloom, Western Canon.

With his death, we are purged of pity, anger and desire.
Literature 349 As Hadji Murad dies, he is purged of pity, anger, and desire. And so is Tolstoy. And so are we. Bloom, Western Canon.

Austen was like Shakespeare in that she wrote without hate, bitterness, fear, protest or preaching.
Literature 434 Woolf on Austen: Here was a woman about the year 1800 writing without hate, without bitterness, without fear, without protest, without preaching; that was how Shakespeare wrote.... Bloom, Western Canon.

All writers of literature plagiarize to some degree.
Literature 472 All literature is plagiaristic to some degree. Bloom, Western Canon.

Departments of English will be renamed departments of “cultural studies.”
Literature 519 What are now called “Departments of English” will be renamed departments of “Cultural Studies” where Batman comics, Mormon theme parks, television, movies, and rock will replace Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and Wallace Stevens. Bloom, Western Canon.

In American culture literacy replaced literature.
Literature 293 Was there perhaps some connection between these two characteristics of American culture?--between the literacy of the whole community and the unliterary character of the ruling groups? Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

The characteristic American man of letters was the journalist, the writer of how-to-do-it manuals and the publicist.
Literature 294 Not the litterateur but the journalist, not the essayist but the writer of how-to-do-it manuals, not the “artist” but the publicist is the characteristic American man of letters. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

The American literati were clergymen, physicians, printers, lawyers, and farmers. Literature 314 ...American men of letters were not literati; they were clergymen, physicians, printers, lawyers, farmers. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

No American would inhabit a garret in order to write literature.
Literature 317 Timothy Dwight: No American has within my knowledge been willing to inhabit a garret, for the sake of becoming an author. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

The essence of literary expression in America was the newspaper.
Literature 327 The most appropriate literary expression of an American life so shifting, so full of novelty, motion, and variety was the kaleidoscopic, ephemeral, miscellaneous newspaper. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

The popularity of the magazine revealed the extensive literacy, but not the literary nature of most Americans.
Literature 328 The magazine...unprecedented success in America...a sign of the pervasively literate though emphatically non-literary character of our culture. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Rembrandt wanted to find in his own experience the way to represent every episode in the Bible.
Literature 203 Rembrandt…wanted to look at every episode [of the Bible] as if it had never been depicted before, and to try to find an equivalent for it in his own experience. Clark, Civilization.

Richard Wright wanted to write books that were so hard, no one would weep over them as they had wept over Native Son.
Literature 384 Richard Wright on Native Son: I found I had written a book which even bankers’ daughters could read and weep over and feel good about…swore to myself that if
I ever wrote another book, no one would weep over it; that it would be so hard and so deep that they would have to face it without the consolation of tears. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

Metaphor is characteristic of Elizabethan literature.
Literature 112 ...wealth of metaphor is characteristically Elizabethan.... Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon.

Literature is a useless profession; authors are burdens to their relatives and die of hunger.
Literature 203 Voltaire’s father on his son’s proposing to take up literature as his life’s work: Literature is the profession of the man who wishes to be useless to society and a burden to his relatives, and to die of hunger. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

Paradise Lost is lofty; Shakespeare is great, but he has a lot of low talk.
Literature 387 Captain Littlepage: There’s nothing that ranks to my mind, with Paradise Lost; it’s all lofty, all lofty…Shakespeare was a great poet; he copied life, but you have to put up with a great deal of low talk. Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.

Theologians talk about sinners in the abstract; literature gives them flesh and blood.
Literature 37 F. Mauriac: the theologians give us an abstract idea of the sinner; I give him flesh and blood. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

The novel is in crisis because it has lost its purpose.
Literature 46 F. Mauriac: The crisis of the novel: the novel has lost its purpose. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

In great literature, the author disappears and his work remains.
Literature 48 F. Mauriac: the rarest thing in literature and the only success, is when the author disappears and his work remains…; [for example, we] don’t know who Shakespeare was, or Homer. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

Reading a novel should give a sense of experience, conveying emotional truth rather than arguments.
Literature 55 Joyce Cary: A novel should be an experience and convey an emotional truth rather than arguments. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

The novel is the fact plus the feeling, a sense of the complex experience in a real world.
Literature 55 Joyce Cary: But what you try to convey is reality—the fact plus the feeling, a total complex experience of a real world. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

Real people are too complex and disorganized to fit into novels.
Literature 57 Joyce Cary: …real people are too complex and too disorganized for books…not simple enough. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

Great theater gives us the strength to face the world as it is.
Literature 110 Thornton Wilder: We live in what is, but we find a thousand ways not to face it[;] great theater strengthens our faculty to face it. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

The aim of every artist is to arrest life so that years later, people will see it and it moves again.
Literature 139 Faulkner: The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

In the novel you create a sense of continuing life.
Literature 165 Frank O’Connor: Creating in the novel a sense of continuing life is the thing. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

When you’re writing stories, you’re saying, “This story is about you.” [i.e., the reader]
Literature 181 Frank O’Connor: You’re saying [to the reader] all the time, “This story is about you….” Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

Imaginative writing is a way of seeing what is possible.
Literature 198 RP Warren: In one way…all writing that is any good is experimental; that is, it’s a way of seeing what is possible…. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

The New Critics looked at literature as an object.
Literature 201 RP Warren: One thing that a lot of so-called New Critics had in common was a willingness to look long and hard at the literary object. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

The function of a writer is not to criticize, but to create living characters.
Literature 215 A. Moravia: In my view, the function of a writer is not to criticize anyway; only to create living characters. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

The novelist’s job is not to provide answers, but to present the human situation.
Literature 264 Angus Wilson: I don’t think it’s the novelist’s job to give answers…only concerned with exposing the human situation. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

I write about what I have discovered about human emotions.
Literature 264 Angus Wilson: but as a novelist I’m concerned solely with what I’ve discovered about human emotions. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

Good [imaginative] writing is written by neurotics, not by “happy chuckleheads.”
Literature 282 Wm. Styron: The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone’s neurosis, and we’d have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

Art is an illusion that makes one think it is close to life.
Literature 306 F. Sagan: Of course the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true: life is amorphous, literature is formal. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

Story rejected because “if American women are like this, we don’t want to know.”
Literature 144 W-T Budlong: One story of mine…was rejected by a general magazine with the comment, “If American women are like that, we don’t want to know about it.” Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

On Faulkner’s difficult writing style: He ought to make it more accessible to the ordinary citizen.
Literature 321 Rudolf Flesch on Faulkner’s difficult style: Maybe he has a moral obligation to make his work accessible to all who could be enriched by it…writers who use an intensely personal style have gone too far in their literary artistry…betrayed the great audience ready for the fruits of their imagination. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

Literature uses words to make you hear, feel and, above all, see.
Literature 6 Joseph Conrad defined it more clearly, more vividly than any man of our time: ‘My task is by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see.’ F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing.

The two basic stories are “Cinderella” and “Jack the Giant Killer,” representing the charm of women and the courage of men.
Literature 7 The two basic stories of all times are Cinderella and Jack the Giant Killer—the charm of women and the courage of men. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing.

Literature is cheap amusement, a drug of the soul.
Literature 9 …cheap amusement…the heroin of the soul. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing.

Writers of imaginative literature increase the range of human life.
Literature 20 Someone once said—and I am quoting most inexactly—“A writer who manages to look a little more deeply into his own soul or the soul of others, finding there, through his gift, things that no other man has ever seen or dared to say, has increased the range of human life.” F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing.

Praise writers who please but don’t corrupt, who instruct without wearying.
Literature 190 Johnson: This praise…requires to be given to writers who please and do not corrupt, who instruct and do not weary. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

In literary circles, book makers, editors, university deans and professors had ordinary intellectual talent.
Literature 985 I remarked in England, in confirmation of a frequent experience at home, that, in literary circles, the men of trust and consideration, book makers, editors, university deans and professors…were by no means men of the largest literary talent, but usually of a low and ordinary intellectuality, with a sort of mercantile activity and working talent. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Power.

Literature is made up of a few ideas and some basic stories.
Literature 1149 Literature is made up of a few ideas and a few fables. Emerson, Uncollected Prose.

Two Years Before the Mast is a narrative that is superior to argument and sentimental appeals in making its case for the mistreatment of sailors.
Literature 1174 On Two Years Before the Mast: This simple narrative…with deep sincerity and…an unstudied, pathetic eloquence, may lead to reflections, which mere argument and sentimental appeals do not call forth…will serve to hasten the day of reckoning between society and the sailor, which, though late, will not fail to come. Emerson, Uncollected Prose.

Little poetry has been written about the outrage of slavery.
Literature 1270 “Anti Slavery Poems”: …indeed, it is strange how little poetry this outrage of Negro slavery has produced. Emerson, Uncollected Prose.

With study, the sense of Plato’s ideas deepens.
Literature 654 His [Plato’s] sense deepens, his merits multiply, with study. Emerson, Representative Men: Plato, or The Philosopher.

Shakespeare found the drama ideal for his thoughts and images.
Literature 721 He was a full man, who liked to talk; a brain exhaling thoughts and images, which seeking vent, found the drama next at hand. Emerson, Representative Men: Shakespeare, or the Poet.

Great poets are cheerful because beauty is their aim.
Literature 724 …his cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet,--for beauty is his aim. Emerson, Representative Men: Shakespeare, or the Poet.

Because of literature, we shall see the world with new eyes.
Literature 48 So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes.... Emerson, Nature.

Novels do not effect changes in anyone other than novelists, whose writing is affected.
Literature 43 Philip Roth: I don’t believe that, in my society, novels effect serious changes in anyone other than the handful of people who are writers, whose own novels are of course seriously affected by other novelists’ novels. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

The first obligation of the writer is to be interesting, not to change the world.
Literature 298 John Barth: I prefer Henry James’ remark that the first obligation of the writer is to be interesting…to be interesting, not to change the world. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

Nothing happens because we read poetry.
Literature 298 John Barth: Poetry makes nothing happen. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

All writers aim to teach.
Literature 46 Thornton Wilder: I suspect that all writers have some didactic intention. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

You can’t have great poets without great audiences.
Literature and audience 90 Walt Whitman: To have great poets, there must be great audiences too. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

Euripides showed cruelty, passion and suffering, moving people to become compassionate.
Literature compassion 262 One thing alone to help [Athens] he [Euripides] had been fitted to do: he could so write as to show the hideousness of cruelty and men’s fierce passions, and the piteousness of suffering, weak, and wicked human beings, and move men thereby to the compassion which they were learning to forget. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

The Greek drama brought people into union with each other.
Literature religion drama 277 The religion of the drama brought men into union with one another. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

The Greek drama set men free of themselves because they realized the universal suffering of life.
Literature suffering life 277 Men were set free from themselves [by the drama] when they all realized together the universal suffering of life. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

Literature will be read twice; journalism, once.
Literature vs. journalism 256 Cyril Connolly: Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

Journalism gives the look of the world, literature, the feel of the world.
Literature vs. journalism 256 Archibald MacLeish: Journalism is concerned with the look of the world, poetry with the feel of the world. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

Journalism allows people to witness history, literature, the opportunity to live it.
Literature vs. journalism 257 John Hersey: Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers the opportunity to live it. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

It’s too literary; I recognized only 15% of the allusions.
Literature, allusions 92 Thurber quoting Harold Ross: “Goddam it, this is too literary; I got only fifteen percent of the allusions.” Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

I will use wit to enliven morality and give wit purpose in the cause of morality.
Literature, Spectator 31 …I shall endeavor to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality. Addison, 3/12/1711. The Spectator.

The meaning of symbols is uncertain.
Literature, symbols 65 Joyce Cary: Symbols are highly uncertain. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.