Cause and Effect
541 Cause and effect, yes, but a rational explanation, no. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
368 It was obvious that the affair that had begun so lightly could not now be averted in any way but was bound to run its course to the very end, irrespective of the will of men. Tolstoi, War and Peace.
1168 It is beyond the power of the human intellect to encompass all the causes of any phenomenon. Tolstoi, War and Peace
1168 And so the human intellect, without investigating the multiplicity and complexity of circumstances conditioning an event, any one of which taken separately may seem to be the reason for it, snatches at the first most comprehensible approximation to a cause and says: “There is the cause!” Tolstoi, War and Peace
Censorship
162 Politicians are already wrestling with the question of when an online service should be treated as a common carrier and when it should be treated as a publisher. Gates, The Road Ahead.
163 When they [on-line services] act as publishers, and offer content they have acquired, authored or edited, it makes sense that the rules of libel…would apply. Gates, The Road Ahead.
163 …we also expect them [on-line services] to deliver our e-mail like a common carrier without taking responsibility for its contents. Gates, The Road Ahead.
108 Justice Potter Stewart of the United States Supreme Court said about pornography that he could not define it but he knew it when he saw it. Newman, Strictly Speaking.
7 The commentator may be excused for repeating what he has stressed in his own books and lectures, namely that “offensive” is frequently but a synonym for “unusual”; and a great work of art is of course always original, and thus by its very nature should come as a more or less shocking surprise. Foreword. Nabokov, Lolita.
285 Nabokov: [In pornographic novels]: style, structure, imagery should never distract the reader from his tepid lust. Nabokov, Lolita.
285 Nabokov: Their refusal to buy the book was based not on my treatment of the theme but on the theme itself, for there are at least three themes which are utterly taboo as far as most American publishers are concerned...two others are: a Negro-white marriage which is a complete and glorious success resulting in lots of children and grandchildren; and the total atheist who lives a happy and useful life, and dies in his sleep at the age of 106. Nabokov, Lolita.
287 Nabokov: And when I thus think of Lolita, I seem always to pick out for special delectation such images as Mr. Taxovitch or that class list of Ramsdale School, or Charlotte saying “waterproof,” or Lolita in slow motion advancing toward Humbert’s gifts, or the pictures decorating the stylized garret of Gaston Godin, or the Kasbeam barber (who cost me a month of work), or Lolita playing tennis, or the hospital at Elphinstone, or pale, pregnant, beloved, irretrievable Dolly Schiller dying in Gray Star (the capital town of the book), or the tinkling sounds of the valley town coming up the mountain trail...the nerves of the novel...the secret points...by means of which the book is plotted--although I realize very clearly that these and other scenes will be skimmed over or not noticed, or never reached, by those who begin reading the book under the impression that it is something on the lines of Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.... Nabokov, Lolita.
438 Why can’t they understand that you are explaining and describing, not advocating…after all, you didn’t write the plot of human nature. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
651 Freud: I did not invent man…all I am trying to do is to describe him, to find out what makes this most complex and confusing of all animals behave the way he does. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
158 [Spinoza’s] A Treatise on Religion and the State…appeared anonymously in 1670…was at once honored with a place in the Index Expurgatorius; and its sale was prohibited by the civil authorities; with this assistance it attained a considerable circulation under cover of title pages which disguised it as a medical treatise or an historical narrative. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.
193 Spinoza: Laws against free speech are subversive of all law; for men will not long respect laws which they may not criticize. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.
193 Spinoza: If actions only could be made the ground of criminal prosecutions, and words were always allowed to pass free…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.
247 Voltaire: I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.
559 Johnson on The Beggar’s Opera: …I do not deny that it may have some influence, by making the character of a rogue familiar, and in some degree pleasing. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
95 Walker Percy: All I suggest is that pornography and literature stimulate different organs. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
106 Their [the censors’] goal was not so much to eliminate sex as to erase all signs that the leading lady derived either pleasure or money from the experience. Pierpont, Claudia Roth. “A Critic at Large: The Strong Woman.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 106-118.
111 The infamous Production Code…cut sexual references to nil and required that in the end the audience feel that “evil is wrong and good is right.” Pierpont, Claudia Roth. “A Critic at Large: The Strong Woman.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 106-118.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas March 6, 2007
Camp (Life Style)
Camp 118 …Susan Sontag’s famed definition of camp as “failed seriousness.”… Pierpont, Claudia Roth. “A Critic at Large: The Strong Woman.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 106-118.
Camp Fire
Camp fire 551 …camp-fire…around which the most impossible reminiscences sound plausible, instructive, and profoundly entertaining. Twain, Roughing It
Capital Punishment
Capital Punishment 214 He wakes, cold and wretched…dull gray light of morning is stealing into the cell…confused by his dreams, he starts from his uneasy bed in momentary uncertainty… every object in the narrow cell is too frightfully real to admit of doubt or mistake…condemned felon again, guilty and despairing; and in two hours more he will be dead. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.
Capital Punishment 31 As things stand, the spread between [conviction, sentencing and execution] is so great that by the time the criminal comes to the chair the crime is forgotten and all we see is a poor fish making a tremendous (and sometimes even gallant) effort to save his life, with all sorts of shyster lawyers and do-gooders as assistant-heroes. Mencken, Minority Report.
Capital Punishment 53 It is impossible to hang the average murderer until he has killed at least a dozen people. Mencken, Minority Report.
Cares
Cares 209 Leader: Future cares have future cures/ And we must mind today. Sophocles. Antigone.
Carousel
Carousel 76 Riding on one of the outside horses on the carousel, the ground spinning faster and faster, the tinny organ music racing, people, buildings, trees in that other world out there would break apart, flying all over the place in a kaleidoscope of colors, sounds, images. Browning, Notes from Turtle Creek.
Catholicism
Catholicism 41 The medieval pilgrim really believed that by contemplating a reliquary containing the head or even the fingers of a saint he would persuade that particular saint to intercede on his behalf with God...can one hope to share this belief which played so great a part in medieval civilization? Clark, Civilization.
Catholicism 1140 Hilda saw peasants, citizens, soldiers, nobles, women with bare heads, ladies in their silks, entering the churches, individually, kneeling for moments or for hours and directing their inaudible devotions to the shrine of some saint…felt themselves possessed of an own friend in Heaven. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.
Catholicism 167 [Catholicism] …gave ordinary people a means of satisfying, through ritual, images and symbols, their deepest impulses, so that their minds were at peace. Clark, Civilization.
Catholicism 175 The great achievements of the Catholic Church lay in harmonizing, humanizing, civilizing the deepest impulses of ordinary, ignorant people. Clark, Civilization.
Catholicism 210 Voltaire’s L’ingenu: A Huron Indian comes to France with some returning explorers…when he has trouble over confession, he asks where in the Gospel this is commanded and is directed to a passage in the Epistle of St. James: “Confess your sins to one another”…confesses, but when he had done he dragged the Abbé from the confessional chair, placed himself in the seat, and bade the Abbé confess in turn… “it is said, ‘We must confess our sins to one another’; I have related my sins to you, and you shall not stir till you recount yours.” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.
Catholicism 280 Kant: … “pious nonsense” is inculcated as “a sort of heavenly court service by means of which one may win through flattery the favor of the ruler of heaven.” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.
Catholicism 496 Sainte-Beauve remarked of his countrymen that they would continue to be Catholics long after they ceased to be Christians. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Santayana.
Catholicism 17 The Catholic is fortunate in the fact that the sinner can go to a priest and get rid of his sense of guilt. Mencken, Minority Report.
Catholicism 19075 …nor does it occur to him [the Catholic] that there are fitter modes of propitiating heaven than by penances, pilgrimages, and offerings at shrines. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.
Catholicism 1138 [Of Catholicism]: …the attractions of a faith, which so marvelously adapts itself to every human need. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.
Catholicism 1158 The more I see of this worship [Catholicism], the more I wonder at the exuberance with which it adapts itself to all the demands of human infirmity. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.
Camp 118 …Susan Sontag’s famed definition of camp as “failed seriousness.”… Pierpont, Claudia Roth. “A Critic at Large: The Strong Woman.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 106-118.
Camp Fire
Camp fire 551 …camp-fire…around which the most impossible reminiscences sound plausible, instructive, and profoundly entertaining. Twain, Roughing It
Capital Punishment
Capital Punishment 214 He wakes, cold and wretched…dull gray light of morning is stealing into the cell…confused by his dreams, he starts from his uneasy bed in momentary uncertainty… every object in the narrow cell is too frightfully real to admit of doubt or mistake…condemned felon again, guilty and despairing; and in two hours more he will be dead. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.
Capital Punishment 31 As things stand, the spread between [conviction, sentencing and execution] is so great that by the time the criminal comes to the chair the crime is forgotten and all we see is a poor fish making a tremendous (and sometimes even gallant) effort to save his life, with all sorts of shyster lawyers and do-gooders as assistant-heroes. Mencken, Minority Report.
Capital Punishment 53 It is impossible to hang the average murderer until he has killed at least a dozen people. Mencken, Minority Report.
Cares
Cares 209 Leader: Future cares have future cures/ And we must mind today. Sophocles. Antigone.
Carousel
Carousel 76 Riding on one of the outside horses on the carousel, the ground spinning faster and faster, the tinny organ music racing, people, buildings, trees in that other world out there would break apart, flying all over the place in a kaleidoscope of colors, sounds, images. Browning, Notes from Turtle Creek.
Catholicism
Catholicism 41 The medieval pilgrim really believed that by contemplating a reliquary containing the head or even the fingers of a saint he would persuade that particular saint to intercede on his behalf with God...can one hope to share this belief which played so great a part in medieval civilization? Clark, Civilization.
Catholicism 1140 Hilda saw peasants, citizens, soldiers, nobles, women with bare heads, ladies in their silks, entering the churches, individually, kneeling for moments or for hours and directing their inaudible devotions to the shrine of some saint…felt themselves possessed of an own friend in Heaven. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.
Catholicism 167 [Catholicism] …gave ordinary people a means of satisfying, through ritual, images and symbols, their deepest impulses, so that their minds were at peace. Clark, Civilization.
Catholicism 175 The great achievements of the Catholic Church lay in harmonizing, humanizing, civilizing the deepest impulses of ordinary, ignorant people. Clark, Civilization.
Catholicism 210 Voltaire’s L’ingenu: A Huron Indian comes to France with some returning explorers…when he has trouble over confession, he asks where in the Gospel this is commanded and is directed to a passage in the Epistle of St. James: “Confess your sins to one another”…confesses, but when he had done he dragged the Abbé from the confessional chair, placed himself in the seat, and bade the Abbé confess in turn… “it is said, ‘We must confess our sins to one another’; I have related my sins to you, and you shall not stir till you recount yours.” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.
Catholicism 280 Kant: … “pious nonsense” is inculcated as “a sort of heavenly court service by means of which one may win through flattery the favor of the ruler of heaven.” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.
Catholicism 496 Sainte-Beauve remarked of his countrymen that they would continue to be Catholics long after they ceased to be Christians. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Santayana.
Catholicism 17 The Catholic is fortunate in the fact that the sinner can go to a priest and get rid of his sense of guilt. Mencken, Minority Report.
Catholicism 19075 …nor does it occur to him [the Catholic] that there are fitter modes of propitiating heaven than by penances, pilgrimages, and offerings at shrines. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.
Catholicism 1138 [Of Catholicism]: …the attractions of a faith, which so marvelously adapts itself to every human need. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.
Catholicism 1158 The more I see of this worship [Catholicism], the more I wonder at the exuberance with which it adapts itself to all the demands of human infirmity. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.
Monday, March 5, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas March 5, 2007
Budget
472 JFK:…the Budget represented not a bureaucratic grab but loans to farmers and small businessmen, aid to education and conservation, urban renewal and area redevelopment. Sorenson, Kennedy
Bureaucracy
383 The President used to divert himself with the dream of establishing a secret office of thirty people or so to run foreign policy while maintaining the State Department as a façade in which people might contentedly carry papers from bureau to bureau. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
Business
44 …and many a man is wasting the summer afternoon in labor and anxiety in losing riches, or in gaining them, when he would be wiser to flee away to some pleasant country village, or shaded lake in the forest, or wild and cool sea-beach. Hawthorne, Tales and Sketches
64 In our business things move too fast to spend much time looking back. Gates, The Road Ahead.
105 Lippmann: The political art deals with matters peculiar to politics, with a complex of material circumstances of historic deposit, of human passion, for which the problems of business or engineering do not provide an analogy. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
166 In the first half-century of our own history, government had played a relatively active role in building the turnpikes, canals, harbors, railroads and schools which made subsequent economic expansion possible…since private capital will not go into these areas of low return. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
547 His [Kennedy’s] recruitment effort concentrated on businessmen…on the theory, a recurring cliché in government administration, that appointments from the business world would both disarm Congress and improve the efficiency of the agency. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
548 …McNamara’s prediction, saddling the agency with executives whose main contribution was to say at regular intervals: “That’s not the way we did it at Proctor and Gamble.” Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
586 …[Kennedy] did not regard the acquisitive impulse as man’s noblest instinct nor the pursuit of profit as man’s highest calling. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
265 …unions will continue to be necessary as long as management remains stingy, possesses little social conscience, and controls its rubber-stamp board of directors. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.
410 Will insecurity [because of downsizing] lead to a deadening of creativity, risk taking, and innovation? Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.
250 Perhaps the most revolting character that the United States ever produced was the…business man…[who] fought to the end against any approach to rational and humane dealing with labor. Mencken, Minority Report.
230 …they worked to convert the incredibly archaic, helter-skelter operation of old Henry [Ford] to the new classic corporate style used at General Motors, with its highly accountable decentralized units, the different company operations turned into separate profit-and-loss centers where each executive would be held directly responsible and where slippage and failure would be quickly spotted. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.
131 …accounting for what we frequently see, to wit, that dull fellows prove very good men of business. Steele, 4/19/1711. The Spectator.
64 My goal is to prove that a successful corporation can renew itself and stay in the forefront. Gates, The Road Ahead.
472 JFK:…the Budget represented not a bureaucratic grab but loans to farmers and small businessmen, aid to education and conservation, urban renewal and area redevelopment. Sorenson, Kennedy
Bureaucracy
383 The President used to divert himself with the dream of establishing a secret office of thirty people or so to run foreign policy while maintaining the State Department as a façade in which people might contentedly carry papers from bureau to bureau. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
Business
44 …and many a man is wasting the summer afternoon in labor and anxiety in losing riches, or in gaining them, when he would be wiser to flee away to some pleasant country village, or shaded lake in the forest, or wild and cool sea-beach. Hawthorne, Tales and Sketches
64 In our business things move too fast to spend much time looking back. Gates, The Road Ahead.
105 Lippmann: The political art deals with matters peculiar to politics, with a complex of material circumstances of historic deposit, of human passion, for which the problems of business or engineering do not provide an analogy. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
166 In the first half-century of our own history, government had played a relatively active role in building the turnpikes, canals, harbors, railroads and schools which made subsequent economic expansion possible…since private capital will not go into these areas of low return. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
547 His [Kennedy’s] recruitment effort concentrated on businessmen…on the theory, a recurring cliché in government administration, that appointments from the business world would both disarm Congress and improve the efficiency of the agency. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
548 …McNamara’s prediction, saddling the agency with executives whose main contribution was to say at regular intervals: “That’s not the way we did it at Proctor and Gamble.” Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
586 …[Kennedy] did not regard the acquisitive impulse as man’s noblest instinct nor the pursuit of profit as man’s highest calling. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
265 …unions will continue to be necessary as long as management remains stingy, possesses little social conscience, and controls its rubber-stamp board of directors. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.
410 Will insecurity [because of downsizing] lead to a deadening of creativity, risk taking, and innovation? Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.
250 Perhaps the most revolting character that the United States ever produced was the…business man…[who] fought to the end against any approach to rational and humane dealing with labor. Mencken, Minority Report.
230 …they worked to convert the incredibly archaic, helter-skelter operation of old Henry [Ford] to the new classic corporate style used at General Motors, with its highly accountable decentralized units, the different company operations turned into separate profit-and-loss centers where each executive would be held directly responsible and where slippage and failure would be quickly spotted. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.
131 …accounting for what we frequently see, to wit, that dull fellows prove very good men of business. Steele, 4/19/1711. The Spectator.
64 My goal is to prove that a successful corporation can renew itself and stay in the forefront. Gates, The Road Ahead.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas March 4, 2007
Bore
267 A bore is simply a nonentity who resents his humble lot in life, and seeks satisfaction for his wounded ego in forcing himself upon his betters. Mencken, Minority Report.
55 When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored. Hoffer, The True Believer
55 The consciousness of a barren, meaningless existence is the main fountainhead of boredom. Hoffer, The True Believer
Brain
131 ...the brain they say now is just another type of more complicated feedback system. Eiseley, The Immense Journey
38 It’s easy to switch gears, to shift from the left brain of overdue bills and payroll deductions to the right brain, the old attic trunk-of-the-mind, where memories, intuitions, connections and all sorts of tattered bric-a-brac are stored away. Browning, Notes from Turtle Creek.
95 “Barney, that specimen you are looking at through your microscope is not a thin slice of a human mind; it’s a slice of brain…the brain is a vessel, a physical structure built to contain; the mind is the content: words, ideas, images, beliefs….” Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
Bravery
644 Confederate spy condemned to be hanged: I desire that, if possible, one or more members of the court will come and witness my execution…the request of one who is about to be launched into eternity…see it done, and you shall at least have the satisfaction of knowing that you hung a brave man. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.
Britain
933 …and if the ocean out of which it emerged should wash it [England] away, it will be remembered as an island famous for immortal laws, for the announcements of original right which make the stone tables of liberty. Emerson, English Traits.
99 ...the true English style, burying under a calmness that seemed all but indifference, the real attachment.... Austen, Emma
167 The English know how to make the best of things…so-called muddling through is simply skill at dealing with the inevitable. Mencken, Minority Report.
849 George of Cappadocia, born at Epiphania in Cilicia, was a low parasite, who got a lucrative contract to supply the army with bacon [but], a rogue and informer, he got rich…was forced to run from justice…saved his money, embraced Arianism, collected a library…got promoted by a faction to the episcopal throne of Alexandria [but] when Julian came, A.D. 361, George was dragged to prison [which was] burst open by the mob and George was lynched, as he deserved [and] this precious knave became, in good time, Saint George of England, patron of chivalry, emblem of victory and civility, and the pride of the best blood of the modern world. Emerson, English Traits.
173 One [Briton] could panic in his heart, but two together could not show it, nor a hundred in a group. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.
296 Altogether, Adams’s predecessors had faithfully obeyed the unwritten law of empire that Englishmen, regardless of where they are, shall live, speak, and eat like civilized men—that is, like Englishmen. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.
263 Interviewers quoting from the blurb of Angus Wilson’s volume of short stories, A Bit Off the Map: In an England where the lines of class and caste are becoming blurred and the traditional values have lost much of their force, the characters in Angus Wilson’s new stories seek—sometimes cheerfully, sometimes with desperation—to get their true bearings on the map of society. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.
Buddhism
85 The “enlightenment” experienced by Buddha comes down to the conviction that the world is bad, that it is the source of evil and of suffering for man. Pope John Paul II, Threshold
85 The more we are liberated from these ties, the more we become indifferent to what is in the world, and the more we are freed from suffering, from the evil that has its source in the world. Pope John Paul II, Threshold
86 The fullness of such a detachment is not union with God, but what is called nirvana, a state of perfect indifference with regard to the world. Pope John Paul II, Threshold
339 Schopenhauer : Buddhism is profounder than Christianity because it makes the destruction of the will the entirety of religion, and preaches Nirvana as the goal of all personal development. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer.
13 Today in India the triumph of the spirit over the mind is complete, and wherever Buddhism, the great product of the Indian spirit, has prevailed, the illusoriness of all that is of this earth and the vanity of all research into its nature is the center of the faith. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.
267 A bore is simply a nonentity who resents his humble lot in life, and seeks satisfaction for his wounded ego in forcing himself upon his betters. Mencken, Minority Report.
55 When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored. Hoffer, The True Believer
55 The consciousness of a barren, meaningless existence is the main fountainhead of boredom. Hoffer, The True Believer
Brain
131 ...the brain they say now is just another type of more complicated feedback system. Eiseley, The Immense Journey
38 It’s easy to switch gears, to shift from the left brain of overdue bills and payroll deductions to the right brain, the old attic trunk-of-the-mind, where memories, intuitions, connections and all sorts of tattered bric-a-brac are stored away. Browning, Notes from Turtle Creek.
95 “Barney, that specimen you are looking at through your microscope is not a thin slice of a human mind; it’s a slice of brain…the brain is a vessel, a physical structure built to contain; the mind is the content: words, ideas, images, beliefs….” Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
Bravery
644 Confederate spy condemned to be hanged: I desire that, if possible, one or more members of the court will come and witness my execution…the request of one who is about to be launched into eternity…see it done, and you shall at least have the satisfaction of knowing that you hung a brave man. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.
Britain
933 …and if the ocean out of which it emerged should wash it [England] away, it will be remembered as an island famous for immortal laws, for the announcements of original right which make the stone tables of liberty. Emerson, English Traits.
99 ...the true English style, burying under a calmness that seemed all but indifference, the real attachment.... Austen, Emma
167 The English know how to make the best of things…so-called muddling through is simply skill at dealing with the inevitable. Mencken, Minority Report.
849 George of Cappadocia, born at Epiphania in Cilicia, was a low parasite, who got a lucrative contract to supply the army with bacon [but], a rogue and informer, he got rich…was forced to run from justice…saved his money, embraced Arianism, collected a library…got promoted by a faction to the episcopal throne of Alexandria [but] when Julian came, A.D. 361, George was dragged to prison [which was] burst open by the mob and George was lynched, as he deserved [and] this precious knave became, in good time, Saint George of England, patron of chivalry, emblem of victory and civility, and the pride of the best blood of the modern world. Emerson, English Traits.
173 One [Briton] could panic in his heart, but two together could not show it, nor a hundred in a group. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.
296 Altogether, Adams’s predecessors had faithfully obeyed the unwritten law of empire that Englishmen, regardless of where they are, shall live, speak, and eat like civilized men—that is, like Englishmen. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.
263 Interviewers quoting from the blurb of Angus Wilson’s volume of short stories, A Bit Off the Map: In an England where the lines of class and caste are becoming blurred and the traditional values have lost much of their force, the characters in Angus Wilson’s new stories seek—sometimes cheerfully, sometimes with desperation—to get their true bearings on the map of society. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.
Buddhism
85 The “enlightenment” experienced by Buddha comes down to the conviction that the world is bad, that it is the source of evil and of suffering for man. Pope John Paul II, Threshold
85 The more we are liberated from these ties, the more we become indifferent to what is in the world, and the more we are freed from suffering, from the evil that has its source in the world. Pope John Paul II, Threshold
86 The fullness of such a detachment is not union with God, but what is called nirvana, a state of perfect indifference with regard to the world. Pope John Paul II, Threshold
339 Schopenhauer : Buddhism is profounder than Christianity because it makes the destruction of the will the entirety of religion, and preaches Nirvana as the goal of all personal development. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer.
13 Today in India the triumph of the spirit over the mind is complete, and wherever Buddhism, the great product of the Indian spirit, has prevailed, the illusoriness of all that is of this earth and the vanity of all research into its nature is the center of the faith. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas March 3, 2007
Biography
376 For a microcosm of the problems faced by a society there is no substitute for biography. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
Birds
22 Bird song has been so much analyzed for its content of business communication that there seems little time left for music, but it is there. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.
23 The nightingale has twenty-four basic songs, but gains wild variety by varying the internal arrangement of phrases and the length of pauses. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.
Blacks in America
152 The effort to purge the movies, the stage, the radio and the comic-strips of the old-time Negro types has worked…evil…do not hate people we laugh at and with…when the last Amos 'n' Andy program is suppressed, the Negro, ceasing to be a charming clown, will become a menacing stranger, and his lot will be a good deal less comfortable than it used to be. Mencken, Minority Report.
189 One of the things that makes a Negro unpleasant to white folk is the fact that he suffers from their injustice. Mencken, Minority Report.
234 The good humor of the American Negro is largely founded on cynicism. Mencken, Minority Report.
xvii …and in the “Negro revolution” of America, a flight, not so much from poverty as from anonymity. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.
Blockhead
1091 …a blockhead makes a blockhead of his companion. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Considerations by the Way.
Body and Soul
349 I consider the body as a system of tubes and glands…a bundle of pipes and strainers, fitted to one another after so wonderful a manner as to make a proper engine for the soul to work with. Addison, 7/12/1711. The Spectator.
Books
319 The book did not flourish here, but other types of printed matter grew in profusion...everything dissuaded the colonial printer from undertaking the long volume...scarcity of type...a prudent printer preferred small jobs which quickly repaid his investment rather than books, whose market was uncertain and on which the financial return might be postponed for a year of more. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
310 Franklin’s group did not chat wittily about polite literature; it had topics for debate: Is it justifiable to put private men to death, for the sake of public safety or tranquility, who have committed no crime...as in the case of the plague, to stop infection...? Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
116 For as long as we’ve had paper documents or collections of documents, we have been ordering information linearly, with indexes, tables of contents, and cross-references of various kinds to provide alternate means of navigation. Gates, The Road Ahead.
408 …books…are as dull as their readers. Thoreau, Walden.
146 Catherine: What in the name of all that feels has he to do with books, when I am dying? E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.
154 Catherine: I don’t want you Edgar: I’m past wanting you; return to your books; I’m glad you possess a consolation, for all you had in me is gone. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.
362 But I’ve most of them [books] written on my brain and printed in my heart, and you cannot deprive me of those. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.
363 Those books, both prose and verse, are consecrated to me by other associations. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.
302 He [the Virginia gentleman] was judged less by the furnishings of his mind, than by the furniture of his house, less by his intellect and learning, than by the charity and graciousness of his conduct. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
319 Even the most literate of [colonial Americans]--men like Franklin and Jefferson--did not express their most important ideas in books. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
320 The scarcity and the poor quality of paper was another deterrent to book printing...George Washington had to write to his generals on odd scraps of paper because nothing better could be had; loose dispatches were sent to officers because paper was too precious to be used for envelopes...wrote on fly-leaves torn from printed books and on the blank pages of old account-ledgers...for lack of paper, weekly issues of newspapers failed to appear, and often...were printed on whatever miscellaneous colors, sizes, and qualities of paper the printer could find. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
321 Such paper as was made in the American colonies...while tolerable for newspapers, pamphlets, broadsides, almanacs and primers, was not fit for a book which had to last years. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience.
324 Whatever is useful, sells. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
324 The American printer was the servant of literacy rather than of literature. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience.
633 …Omar’s fanatical compliment to the Koran…”Burn the libraries; for their value is in this book.” Emerson, Representative Men: Plato, or The Philosopher.
57 The books of an older period will not fit this. Emerson, The American Scholar.
57 [Books] are for nothing but to inspire. Emerson, The American Scholar.
58 [The best books] impress us with the conviction that one nature wrote and the same reads. Emerson, The American Scholar.
15 Katherine Anne Porter: All the old houses that I knew when I was a child were full of books, bought generation after generation by members of the family. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
351 E. M. forster: The human race did without [books] for thousands of years and may decide to do without them again. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
502 As the Supreme Being has expressed, and as it were printed his ideas in the creation, men express their ideas in books, which by this great invention of these latter ages may last as long as the sun and moon, and perish only in the general wreck of nature. Addison, 9/10/1711. The Spectator.
502 There is no other method [than books] of fixing those thoughts which arise and disappear in the mind of man, and transmitting them to the last periods of time: no other method of giving a permanency to our ideas and preserving the knowledge of any particular person, when his body is mixed with the common mass of matter, and his soul retired into the world of spirits. Addison, 9/10/1711. The Spectator.
502 The circumstances which gives authors an advantage above all these great masters [of sculpture and painting] is this, that they can multiply their originals…which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves. Addison, 9/10/1711. The Spectator.
237 It [large black-letter volume] must have been a work of vast ability in the somniferous school of literature. Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.
306 In books of chivalry…the knight goes off, attacks everything he meets that is bigger and stronger than himself, seeks all opportunities of being knocked on the head; and after seven years rambling returns to his mistress, whose chastity has been attacked in the mean time by giants and tyrants, and undergone as many trials as her lover’s valor. Addison, 6/23/1711. The Spectator.
221 [Nature—that callous and cruel engine, red in tooth and fang]…whenever I hear that phrase or its intellectual echoes I know that some passerby has been getting life from books. Henry Beston, The Outermost House.
376 For a microcosm of the problems faced by a society there is no substitute for biography. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
Birds
22 Bird song has been so much analyzed for its content of business communication that there seems little time left for music, but it is there. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.
23 The nightingale has twenty-four basic songs, but gains wild variety by varying the internal arrangement of phrases and the length of pauses. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.
Blacks in America
152 The effort to purge the movies, the stage, the radio and the comic-strips of the old-time Negro types has worked…evil…do not hate people we laugh at and with…when the last Amos 'n' Andy program is suppressed, the Negro, ceasing to be a charming clown, will become a menacing stranger, and his lot will be a good deal less comfortable than it used to be. Mencken, Minority Report.
189 One of the things that makes a Negro unpleasant to white folk is the fact that he suffers from their injustice. Mencken, Minority Report.
234 The good humor of the American Negro is largely founded on cynicism. Mencken, Minority Report.
xvii …and in the “Negro revolution” of America, a flight, not so much from poverty as from anonymity. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.
Blockhead
1091 …a blockhead makes a blockhead of his companion. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Considerations by the Way.
Body and Soul
349 I consider the body as a system of tubes and glands…a bundle of pipes and strainers, fitted to one another after so wonderful a manner as to make a proper engine for the soul to work with. Addison, 7/12/1711. The Spectator.
Books
319 The book did not flourish here, but other types of printed matter grew in profusion...everything dissuaded the colonial printer from undertaking the long volume...scarcity of type...a prudent printer preferred small jobs which quickly repaid his investment rather than books, whose market was uncertain and on which the financial return might be postponed for a year of more. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
310 Franklin’s group did not chat wittily about polite literature; it had topics for debate: Is it justifiable to put private men to death, for the sake of public safety or tranquility, who have committed no crime...as in the case of the plague, to stop infection...? Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
116 For as long as we’ve had paper documents or collections of documents, we have been ordering information linearly, with indexes, tables of contents, and cross-references of various kinds to provide alternate means of navigation. Gates, The Road Ahead.
408 …books…are as dull as their readers. Thoreau, Walden.
146 Catherine: What in the name of all that feels has he to do with books, when I am dying? E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.
154 Catherine: I don’t want you Edgar: I’m past wanting you; return to your books; I’m glad you possess a consolation, for all you had in me is gone. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.
362 But I’ve most of them [books] written on my brain and printed in my heart, and you cannot deprive me of those. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.
363 Those books, both prose and verse, are consecrated to me by other associations. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.
302 He [the Virginia gentleman] was judged less by the furnishings of his mind, than by the furniture of his house, less by his intellect and learning, than by the charity and graciousness of his conduct. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
319 Even the most literate of [colonial Americans]--men like Franklin and Jefferson--did not express their most important ideas in books. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
320 The scarcity and the poor quality of paper was another deterrent to book printing...George Washington had to write to his generals on odd scraps of paper because nothing better could be had; loose dispatches were sent to officers because paper was too precious to be used for envelopes...wrote on fly-leaves torn from printed books and on the blank pages of old account-ledgers...for lack of paper, weekly issues of newspapers failed to appear, and often...were printed on whatever miscellaneous colors, sizes, and qualities of paper the printer could find. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
321 Such paper as was made in the American colonies...while tolerable for newspapers, pamphlets, broadsides, almanacs and primers, was not fit for a book which had to last years. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience.
324 Whatever is useful, sells. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
324 The American printer was the servant of literacy rather than of literature. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience.
633 …Omar’s fanatical compliment to the Koran…”Burn the libraries; for their value is in this book.” Emerson, Representative Men: Plato, or The Philosopher.
57 The books of an older period will not fit this. Emerson, The American Scholar.
57 [Books] are for nothing but to inspire. Emerson, The American Scholar.
58 [The best books] impress us with the conviction that one nature wrote and the same reads. Emerson, The American Scholar.
15 Katherine Anne Porter: All the old houses that I knew when I was a child were full of books, bought generation after generation by members of the family. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
351 E. M. forster: The human race did without [books] for thousands of years and may decide to do without them again. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
502 As the Supreme Being has expressed, and as it were printed his ideas in the creation, men express their ideas in books, which by this great invention of these latter ages may last as long as the sun and moon, and perish only in the general wreck of nature. Addison, 9/10/1711. The Spectator.
502 There is no other method [than books] of fixing those thoughts which arise and disappear in the mind of man, and transmitting them to the last periods of time: no other method of giving a permanency to our ideas and preserving the knowledge of any particular person, when his body is mixed with the common mass of matter, and his soul retired into the world of spirits. Addison, 9/10/1711. The Spectator.
502 The circumstances which gives authors an advantage above all these great masters [of sculpture and painting] is this, that they can multiply their originals…which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves. Addison, 9/10/1711. The Spectator.
237 It [large black-letter volume] must have been a work of vast ability in the somniferous school of literature. Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.
306 In books of chivalry…the knight goes off, attacks everything he meets that is bigger and stronger than himself, seeks all opportunities of being knocked on the head; and after seven years rambling returns to his mistress, whose chastity has been attacked in the mean time by giants and tyrants, and undergone as many trials as her lover’s valor. Addison, 6/23/1711. The Spectator.
221 [Nature—that callous and cruel engine, red in tooth and fang]…whenever I hear that phrase or its intellectual echoes I know that some passerby has been getting life from books. Henry Beston, The Outermost House.
Friday, March 2, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas March 2, 2007
Beethoven
293 Beethoven…the sound of European man once more reaching for something beyond his grasp. Clark, Civilization.
Beggars
1107 …being immediately surrounded by a swarm of beggars, who are present possessors of Italy, and share the spoil of the stranger with the fleas and mosquitoes, their formidable allies. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.
Beginnings and Endings
552 Every end is prospective of some other end, which is also temporary; a round and final success nowhere. Emerson, Nature, Second Series.
403 ...there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning. Emerson, Circles.
405 Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series. Emerson, Circles.
-----
Behavior
22 Human behavior, says Plato, flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
76 We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.
113 Anything is conceivable in a world so irrational as this one. Mencken, Minority Report.
Believers
707 Great believers are always reckoned infidels, impracticable, fantastic, atheistic, and really men of no account. Emerson, Representative Men: Montaigne, or The Skeptic.
Bergson
466 Before him [Bergson] we were cogs and wheels in a vast and dead machine; now, if we wish it, we can help write our own parts in the drama of creation. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Bergson.
Bertrand Russell
484 [Russell] has not applied to his economic and political theories the same rigid scrutiny of assumptions, the same skepticism of axioms, which gave him such satisfaction in mathematics and logic. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell.
Best-sellers
61 Richard Lockridge on writing crime novels: If the characters lift themselves, for however brief a time, from the page; if the scenes are vivid and stir the reader’s imagination so that momentarily he lives them too; if the action similarly catches the reader up, so that he reads faster and faster to learn what happens next…. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.
Bible
38 Ebe Hawthorne: “The only argument for the inspiration of the Bible that has any weight with me...is that it is readable, which other religious books are not.” Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.
19 For them [the Puritans], the Bible was less a body of legislation than a set of binding precedents…preoccupied with the similarities in pairs of situations: the situation described in the Bible story and that in which they found themselves. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
163 Spinoza: "Scripture…only narrates…in the order and style which has most power to move men, and especially uneducated men to devotion…object is not to convince the reason, but to attract and lay hold of the imagination." Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.
73 But the Bible’s profoundest lesson seemed to him [Albert Schweitzer] a simple one: that “he who would find his life must lose it,” and he who would follow as a disciple must become a servant of men. Anderson, The Schweitzer Album.
310 There was the Bible, in its rich old Hebrew, with Moses and the prophets speaking to him, and God’s voice through all. Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.
66 …our culture’s wholesale ignorance of the Bible; one survey found that ten percent of Americans thought Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife, and that thirty-eight percent believe the New and Old Testaments were written immediately after Jesus’ death. Boynton, Robert S. “Life and Letters: God and Harvard.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 64-73.
293 Beethoven…the sound of European man once more reaching for something beyond his grasp. Clark, Civilization.
Beggars
1107 …being immediately surrounded by a swarm of beggars, who are present possessors of Italy, and share the spoil of the stranger with the fleas and mosquitoes, their formidable allies. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.
Beginnings and Endings
552 Every end is prospective of some other end, which is also temporary; a round and final success nowhere. Emerson, Nature, Second Series.
403 ...there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning. Emerson, Circles.
405 Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series. Emerson, Circles.
-----
Behavior
22 Human behavior, says Plato, flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
76 We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.
113 Anything is conceivable in a world so irrational as this one. Mencken, Minority Report.
Believers
707 Great believers are always reckoned infidels, impracticable, fantastic, atheistic, and really men of no account. Emerson, Representative Men: Montaigne, or The Skeptic.
Bergson
466 Before him [Bergson] we were cogs and wheels in a vast and dead machine; now, if we wish it, we can help write our own parts in the drama of creation. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Bergson.
Bertrand Russell
484 [Russell] has not applied to his economic and political theories the same rigid scrutiny of assumptions, the same skepticism of axioms, which gave him such satisfaction in mathematics and logic. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell.
Best-sellers
61 Richard Lockridge on writing crime novels: If the characters lift themselves, for however brief a time, from the page; if the scenes are vivid and stir the reader’s imagination so that momentarily he lives them too; if the action similarly catches the reader up, so that he reads faster and faster to learn what happens next…. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.
Bible
38 Ebe Hawthorne: “The only argument for the inspiration of the Bible that has any weight with me...is that it is readable, which other religious books are not.” Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.
19 For them [the Puritans], the Bible was less a body of legislation than a set of binding precedents…preoccupied with the similarities in pairs of situations: the situation described in the Bible story and that in which they found themselves. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
163 Spinoza: "Scripture…only narrates…in the order and style which has most power to move men, and especially uneducated men to devotion…object is not to convince the reason, but to attract and lay hold of the imagination." Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.
73 But the Bible’s profoundest lesson seemed to him [Albert Schweitzer] a simple one: that “he who would find his life must lose it,” and he who would follow as a disciple must become a servant of men. Anderson, The Schweitzer Album.
310 There was the Bible, in its rich old Hebrew, with Moses and the prophets speaking to him, and God’s voice through all. Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.
66 …our culture’s wholesale ignorance of the Bible; one survey found that ten percent of Americans thought Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife, and that thirty-eight percent believe the New and Old Testaments were written immediately after Jesus’ death. Boynton, Robert S. “Life and Letters: God and Harvard.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 64-73.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas March 1, 2007
Babies
480 Suffice it to say, that the single ladies unanimously voted him [the baby] an angel, and that the married ones…agreed that he was decidedly the finest baby they had ever beheld—except their own. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.
Barber
92 I said, with withering irony, that it was sufficient to be skinned [while being shaved]—I declined to be scalped. Twain, Innocents Abroad.
Beauty
891 Gazing at this portrait, you saw what Rachael might have been, when Jacob deemed her worth the wooing seven years, and seven more.... Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.
124 The beastly and the beautiful merged at one point, and it is that borderline I would like to fix, and I feel I fail to do so utterly. Nabokov, Lolita.
279 Kant begins by correlating design and beauty; the beautiful, he thinks, is anything which reveals symmetry and unity of structure, as if it had been designed by intelligence. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.
474 Croce answers that beauty is the mental formation of an image (or a series of images) that catches the essence of the things perceived. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Benedetto Croce.
1103 I am warned by the ill fate of many philosophers not to attempt a definition of beauty.
1104 …all beauty must be organic…outside embellishment is deformity. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Beauty.
1106 The line of beauty is the result of perfect economy. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Beauty.
1108 Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Beauty.
1109 We love any forms, however ugly, from which great qualities shine. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Beauty.
940 Don Quixote to Sancho: Remember, Sancho…that there are two kinds of beauty: one of the soul and the other of the body…the soul displays its radiance in intelligence, in chastity, in good conduct in generosity, and in good breeding, and all these qualities may exist in an ugly man. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Part Two: 1615.
101 Is there beauty in Sodom? Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
1110 The radiance of the human form, though sometimes astonishing, is only a burst of beauty for a few years or a few months, at the perfection of youth, and in most, rapidly declines. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Beauty.
1110 Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Beauty.
18 Nothing is quite beautiful alone…. Emerson, Nature.
9 …man alone takes pleasure in the beauty of sensible objects for its own sake…. Aquinas, Summa Theologica. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought.
67 The English method is to fill the mind with beauty; the Greek method was to set the mind to work. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.
480 Suffice it to say, that the single ladies unanimously voted him [the baby] an angel, and that the married ones…agreed that he was decidedly the finest baby they had ever beheld—except their own. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.
Barber
92 I said, with withering irony, that it was sufficient to be skinned [while being shaved]—I declined to be scalped. Twain, Innocents Abroad.
Beauty
891 Gazing at this portrait, you saw what Rachael might have been, when Jacob deemed her worth the wooing seven years, and seven more.... Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.
124 The beastly and the beautiful merged at one point, and it is that borderline I would like to fix, and I feel I fail to do so utterly. Nabokov, Lolita.
279 Kant begins by correlating design and beauty; the beautiful, he thinks, is anything which reveals symmetry and unity of structure, as if it had been designed by intelligence. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.
474 Croce answers that beauty is the mental formation of an image (or a series of images) that catches the essence of the things perceived. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Benedetto Croce.
1103 I am warned by the ill fate of many philosophers not to attempt a definition of beauty.
1104 …all beauty must be organic…outside embellishment is deformity. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Beauty.
1106 The line of beauty is the result of perfect economy. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Beauty.
1108 Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Beauty.
1109 We love any forms, however ugly, from which great qualities shine. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Beauty.
940 Don Quixote to Sancho: Remember, Sancho…that there are two kinds of beauty: one of the soul and the other of the body…the soul displays its radiance in intelligence, in chastity, in good conduct in generosity, and in good breeding, and all these qualities may exist in an ugly man. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Part Two: 1615.
101 Is there beauty in Sodom? Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
1110 The radiance of the human form, though sometimes astonishing, is only a burst of beauty for a few years or a few months, at the perfection of youth, and in most, rapidly declines. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Beauty.
1110 Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Beauty.
18 Nothing is quite beautiful alone…. Emerson, Nature.
9 …man alone takes pleasure in the beauty of sensible objects for its own sake…. Aquinas, Summa Theologica. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought.
67 The English method is to fill the mind with beauty; the Greek method was to set the mind to work. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.
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