Note: A bold-face statement at the conclusion of a quote is my attempt to express a wordy or convoluted quote in plain English.
Fame
Fame 266 After browsing among the stately ruins of Rome...of Pompeii, and after glancing down the long marble ranks of battered and nameless imperial heads that stretch down the corridors of the Vatican, one thing strikes me with a force it never had before: the unsubstantial, unlasting character of fame. Twain, Innocents Abroad. [Rome shows how unsubstantial is fame.]
Fame 272 “It is a good lesson...,” he wrote of his Custom House experiences, “for a man who has dreamed of literary fame...to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of significance...is all that he achieves, and all he aims at.” Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times. [It’s a good experience to have achieved fame in one circle, then to step out of that circle and learn how no one has even heard of you.]
Fame 118 F. Bacon: Phocion took it right, who, being applauded by the multitude, asked, What had he done amiss? Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon. [When he was being applauded by the multitude, he asked, “What have I done wrong?”]
Fame 126 I was always sorry for such men, for I soon observed that the applause of today was almost invariably followed by the indifference of tomorrow. Mencken, Minority Report. [The applause of today is followed by the indifference of tomorrow.]
Fame 234 When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity for him[;] all he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough. Mencken, Minority Report.
Fame 234 [The mob] always stones those it has worshipped. Mencken, Minority Report.
Families
Families 44 One of the least agreeable circumstances of her residence there, was her being treated with too much confidence by all parties, and being too much in the secret of the complaints of each house…she could do little more than listen patiently, soften every grievance, and excuse each to the other…. Austen, Persuasion. [She became the confidante of every member of the family who told her their grievances against other members of the family.]
Family 54 Joyce Cary: [Family life]: Toughest thing in the world…but of course it is also a microcosm of a world…--birth, life, death, love and jealousy, conflict of wills, of authority and freedom, the new and the old. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work. [The family is a microcosm of the world.]
Fanatic
Fanatic 89 The fanatic…embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness and holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold on to. Hoffer, The True Believer [The fanatic adopts a cause, not because he believe in it, but because he needs a cause.]
Fanatic 90 It is doubtful whether the fanatic who deserts his holy cause or is suddenly left without one can ever adjust himself to an autonomous individual existence. Hoffer, The True Believer
Fanaticism 165 [The fanatic] is without the fruitful intervals of groping, when the mind is as it were in solution--ready for all manner of new reactions, new combinations and new beginnings. Hoffer, The True Believer. [The fanatic does not take the opportunity to reflect on and explore ideas.]
Farewells
Farewells 64 Albert Schweitzer: After a farewell, one wishes to be alone. Anderson, The Schweitzer Album.
Farmer
Farmer 752 Silas Foster: He can do his day’s work…with any man or ox on the farm.
Fashion
Fashion 97 Nor is it so very long since Richard the Third set up half the backs of the nation; and high shoulders, as well as high noses, were the top of the fashion. Steele, 4/6/1711. The Spectator. [Even deformities can become fashionable.]
Fat Man
Fat man 390 ...reg’lar fat man, as hadn’t caught a glimpse of his own shoes for five-and-forty-year. Dickens, Pickwick.
Fate
Fate 160 Chorus: All’s ordained—past all denying. Sophocles. Oedipus at Colonus. [Everything has been foreordained.]
Fate 97 Oedipus: As it was, where I went all ignorant towards a doom too known to those who planned it. Sophocles. Oedipus at Colonus. [I went to my doom without knowing that that was what the gods had planned.]
Fate 37 “Unconsciously, they [his parents] had arrived at the philosophy that foresight merely invited the attention of some baleful intelligence that despised and persecuted the calculating planner.” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley. [Conscious planning only invites the eye of the almighty planner.]
Fate 118 Chorus: From fate and from necessity there’s no escape. Euripides, Hippolytus.
Fate 577 …permeating sense of destiny, as though his life had been assigned to him by fate and had to be fulfilled. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [A sense of destiny.]
Fate 952 What ever limits us we call fate. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Fate.
Fate 954 ‘Tis the best use of Fate to teach a fatal courage. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Fate.
Fate 1289 The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute force or Destiny; the belief that the order of nature and events is controlled by a law not adapted to man, nor man to that, but which holds on its way to the end, serving him if his wishes chance to lie in the same course,--crushing him if his wishes lie contrary to it,--and heedless whether it serves or crushes him. Emerson, Uncollected Prose. [I believe that if one chooses the course blessed by fate, one is successful, that if one chooses a course not blessed by fate, you are crushed by a force that doesn’t care whether you succeed or are crushed.]
Fate 386 …without all the deeper trust in a comprehensive sympathy above us, we might…be led to suspect the insult of a sneer…on the iron countenance of fate. Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables. [We believe in a comprehensive sympathy from above, not the iron countenance of fate.]
Fate 268 Chillingworth to Hester: By thy first step awry, thou didst plant the germ of evil; but, since that moment, it has all been a dark necessity. Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. [Once you chose your course of action, everything that followed became a dark necessity.]
Fate 161 Achilles: But Zeus will not fulfill what men design,/ not all of it. Homer, Iliad. [The gods will not fulfill man’s designs.]
Fate Hecuba, Hector’s mother: Almighty Fate spun this thing for our son/ the day I bore him: destined him to feed the wild dogs after death.… Homer, Iliad. [On the day her son was born, he was destined to die and be eaten by dogs.]
Fate evil 185 Chorus: If evil good appear/ To any, fate is near. Sophocles. Antigone. [If evil appears to be good, your fate is near.]
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Monday, May 7, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas. May 7, 2007
Note: A bold-face statement at the conclusion of a quote is my attempt to express a wordy or convoluted quote in plain English.
Facts
Facts xvii J.W. Krutch: “Actually we already have more facts than we know how to interpret or how to use wisely.” Eiseley, The Immense Journey
Facts vs. commentaries 44 Isaac Bashevis Singer: …while facts never become obsolete or stale, commentaries always do. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
Fads
Fad 427 ...one of your damned new versions of old humbug....” George Eliot, Middlemarch.
Fads 140 The burden [cost] of quackery has never been properly estimated. Mencken, Minority Report.
Failure
Failure 182 I love the lost ones, the failures of the world. Eiseley, The Star Thrower
Failure 64 In recent years, Microsoft deliberately hired a few managers with experience in failing companies...bound to have failures in the future, and I want people here who have proved they can do well in tough situations. Gates, The Road Ahead.
Failure 278 But no one can doubt that failure in Cuba in 1961 contributed to success in Cuba in 1962. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days [The failure at the Bay of Pigs led to success in the Cuban Missile Crisis.]
Failure 125 F. Scott Fitzgerald on his play The Vegetable: People left their seats and walked out, people rustled their programs and talked audibly in bored impatient whispers…but the actors struggled heroically on. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing. [The experience of a play’s failure.]
Failure 129 I never blame failure—there are too many complicated situations in life—but I am absolutely merciless toward lack of effort. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing.
Failure 213 …what could be sadder than so much ardent labor all in vain? George Eliot, Middlemarch. [Nothing is sadder than expending so much effort only to fail.]
Failure 242 [After losing the election to Douglas]: …he [Lincoln] joked: he was like the boy who stubbed his toe, “It hurt too bad to laugh, and he was too big to cry.” [Note: used by Adlai Stevenson in his concession speech after losing to Dwight Eisenhower in the presidential election of 1952.] Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years
Failure 242 [After losing the election to Douglas, he almost fell while walking]: “It’s a slip and not a fall.” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years
Failure success 311 It was the failures who had always won, but by the time they won they had come to be called successes. Eiseley, The Star Thrower.
Faith
Faith 399 The faith that stands on authority is not faith. Emerson, The Over-Soul. [Faith compelled by authority is not faith.]
Faith, Reason, Judgment 23 JFK: ...faith in man’s ability...reason and judgment...is our best and our only hope in the world today. Sorenson, Kennedy
Faith, Understanding 28 According to the ancient exhortations of the saints and doctors of the church, the Christian “believes in order to understand”; but he is also called “to understand in order to believe.” Pope John Paul II, Threshold [Christians believe in order to understand, but they must understand in order to believe.]
Facts
Facts xvii J.W. Krutch: “Actually we already have more facts than we know how to interpret or how to use wisely.” Eiseley, The Immense Journey
Facts vs. commentaries 44 Isaac Bashevis Singer: …while facts never become obsolete or stale, commentaries always do. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
Fads
Fad 427 ...one of your damned new versions of old humbug....” George Eliot, Middlemarch.
Fads 140 The burden [cost] of quackery has never been properly estimated. Mencken, Minority Report.
Failure
Failure 182 I love the lost ones, the failures of the world. Eiseley, The Star Thrower
Failure 64 In recent years, Microsoft deliberately hired a few managers with experience in failing companies...bound to have failures in the future, and I want people here who have proved they can do well in tough situations. Gates, The Road Ahead.
Failure 278 But no one can doubt that failure in Cuba in 1961 contributed to success in Cuba in 1962. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days [The failure at the Bay of Pigs led to success in the Cuban Missile Crisis.]
Failure 125 F. Scott Fitzgerald on his play The Vegetable: People left their seats and walked out, people rustled their programs and talked audibly in bored impatient whispers…but the actors struggled heroically on. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing. [The experience of a play’s failure.]
Failure 129 I never blame failure—there are too many complicated situations in life—but I am absolutely merciless toward lack of effort. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing.
Failure 213 …what could be sadder than so much ardent labor all in vain? George Eliot, Middlemarch. [Nothing is sadder than expending so much effort only to fail.]
Failure 242 [After losing the election to Douglas]: …he [Lincoln] joked: he was like the boy who stubbed his toe, “It hurt too bad to laugh, and he was too big to cry.” [Note: used by Adlai Stevenson in his concession speech after losing to Dwight Eisenhower in the presidential election of 1952.] Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years
Failure 242 [After losing the election to Douglas, he almost fell while walking]: “It’s a slip and not a fall.” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years
Failure success 311 It was the failures who had always won, but by the time they won they had come to be called successes. Eiseley, The Star Thrower.
Faith
Faith 399 The faith that stands on authority is not faith. Emerson, The Over-Soul. [Faith compelled by authority is not faith.]
Faith, Reason, Judgment 23 JFK: ...faith in man’s ability...reason and judgment...is our best and our only hope in the world today. Sorenson, Kennedy
Faith, Understanding 28 According to the ancient exhortations of the saints and doctors of the church, the Christian “believes in order to understand”; but he is also called “to understand in order to believe.” Pope John Paul II, Threshold [Christians believe in order to understand, but they must understand in order to believe.]
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas. May 6, 2007.
Note: A bold-face statement at the conclusion of a quote is my attempt to express a wordy or convoluted quote in plain English.
Experience
Experience 139 The receptive mind makes all the difference, shadowing or lighting the original object. Eiseley, The Star Thrower. [Experience involves a receptive mind.]
Experience Epigraph “Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes.” Oscar Wilde. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.
Experience 90 The lovers were standing together at one of the windows; it had a most favorable aspect; and for half a minute, Emma felt the glory of having schemed successfully. Austen, Emma
Experience 366 There is a thing called knowledge of the world, which people do not have until they are middle-aged…something which cannot be taught to younger people, because it is not logical and does not obey laws which are constant. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
Experience 74 A chill of understanding flashed through me that I feel to this day...the last person to hold that stone in the same way...had been an Indian, a native American grinding corn at Meadow Springs…as if I had reached back in time to touch the hand of the person who had held the stone.... Browning, Notes from Turtle Creek. [As I held the artifact, I felt that I was communing with the last person to hold it, a native American centuries ago.]
Experience 204 But Dorothea remembered it to the last with the vividness with which we all remember epochs in our experience when some dear expectation dies, or some new motive is born. George Eliot, Middlemarch.
Experience 408 Here was a man who now for the first time found himself looking into the eyes of death--who was passing through one of those rare moments of experience when we feel the truth of a commonplace, which is...different from what we call knowing it....“We must all die” transforms itself suddenly into the acute consciousness “I must die--and soon.” George Eliot, Middlemarch. [He suddenly realized personally the truth of “All must die.”]
Experience 754 But she ceased thinking how anything would turn out—merely wondering what would come. George Eliot, Middlemarch. [She stopped expecting how things would turn out and simply wondered what would happen.]
Experience 757 She was under the first great shock that had shattered her dream-world in which she had been easily confident of herself and critical of others…. George Eliot, Middlemarch.
Expert and Expertise
Expertise 67 Admiral William Leahy to President Truman, 1945: The [atomic] bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives. A Random Walk in Science.
Experts 346 Kennedy: “All my life I’ve known better than to depend on the experts.” Sorenson, Kennedy
Explaining
Explaining 370 Dionysus: I can’t describe it…only illustrate. Aristophanes, Frogs.
Expression
Expression 346 Lincoln: “He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years. [He puts the smallest ideas into the most words.]
Expression 440 "…but there's no kind of glasses to remedy the mind." Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs. [Eye glasses will not remedy the mind.]
Expression 442 "She died the same year my oldest boy was born, an' the town house was burnt over to the port." Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs. [Relating an event to other events.]
Expression 448 "…'tain't worth while to wear a day all out before it comes." Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.
Expression 462 "There's a great many such strayaway folks, just as there is plants." Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.
Expression 463 "Yes, Mari' was one o' them pretty little lambs that make dreadful homely old sheep." Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.
Expression 478 "No, I shan't trouble the fish a great sight more." Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs.
Expression 482 "'Twas never 'you dear an' you darlin' ' afore folks, an' 'you divil' behind the door!" Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs.
Expression 452 …the beauty of things, which becomes a new, and higher beauty, when expressed. Emerson, The Poet. [Things increase in beauty when they are described in language.]
Expression 195 Margaret Drabble: I think most people are more intelligent than they are given credit for, but that they don’t express themselves in a way people find accessible. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
Expression 194 Horace: I strive to be concise, and I become obscure. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Expression 1066 It is a great mistake to try to put our best thoughts into human language. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.
Expressions 86 When they [male deer] ram heads with each other to establish dominance, sometimes the horns lock, condemning the combatants to a grim danse macabre over hill and dale until they drop of exhaustion and starvation. Browning, Notes from Turtle Creek.
Expressions 411 “He’ll be hungry enough to eat his size.” Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.
Expressions 324 “She called such a disarray in the kitchen one morning the monkey’s wedding breakfast…Priscilla has always made use of a great many old-fashioned expressions. Jewett, A Country Doctor.
Extremism
Extremism 375 He [Kennedy] deplored ‘the discordant voices of extremism’ which peddled their frighteningly simple solutions to citizens frustrated and baffled by our national burdens. Sorenson, Kennedy [Extremists peddle simple solutions to frustrated and baffled people.]
Extremism 306 “Resistance to Lincoln is obedience to God” [Banner at Alabama mass meeting]. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years.
Experience
Experience 139 The receptive mind makes all the difference, shadowing or lighting the original object. Eiseley, The Star Thrower. [Experience involves a receptive mind.]
Experience Epigraph “Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes.” Oscar Wilde. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.
Experience 90 The lovers were standing together at one of the windows; it had a most favorable aspect; and for half a minute, Emma felt the glory of having schemed successfully. Austen, Emma
Experience 366 There is a thing called knowledge of the world, which people do not have until they are middle-aged…something which cannot be taught to younger people, because it is not logical and does not obey laws which are constant. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
Experience 74 A chill of understanding flashed through me that I feel to this day...the last person to hold that stone in the same way...had been an Indian, a native American grinding corn at Meadow Springs…as if I had reached back in time to touch the hand of the person who had held the stone.... Browning, Notes from Turtle Creek. [As I held the artifact, I felt that I was communing with the last person to hold it, a native American centuries ago.]
Experience 204 But Dorothea remembered it to the last with the vividness with which we all remember epochs in our experience when some dear expectation dies, or some new motive is born. George Eliot, Middlemarch.
Experience 408 Here was a man who now for the first time found himself looking into the eyes of death--who was passing through one of those rare moments of experience when we feel the truth of a commonplace, which is...different from what we call knowing it....“We must all die” transforms itself suddenly into the acute consciousness “I must die--and soon.” George Eliot, Middlemarch. [He suddenly realized personally the truth of “All must die.”]
Experience 754 But she ceased thinking how anything would turn out—merely wondering what would come. George Eliot, Middlemarch. [She stopped expecting how things would turn out and simply wondered what would happen.]
Experience 757 She was under the first great shock that had shattered her dream-world in which she had been easily confident of herself and critical of others…. George Eliot, Middlemarch.
Expert and Expertise
Expertise 67 Admiral William Leahy to President Truman, 1945: The [atomic] bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives. A Random Walk in Science.
Experts 346 Kennedy: “All my life I’ve known better than to depend on the experts.” Sorenson, Kennedy
Explaining
Explaining 370 Dionysus: I can’t describe it…only illustrate. Aristophanes, Frogs.
Expression
Expression 346 Lincoln: “He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years. [He puts the smallest ideas into the most words.]
Expression 440 "…but there's no kind of glasses to remedy the mind." Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs. [Eye glasses will not remedy the mind.]
Expression 442 "She died the same year my oldest boy was born, an' the town house was burnt over to the port." Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs. [Relating an event to other events.]
Expression 448 "…'tain't worth while to wear a day all out before it comes." Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.
Expression 462 "There's a great many such strayaway folks, just as there is plants." Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.
Expression 463 "Yes, Mari' was one o' them pretty little lambs that make dreadful homely old sheep." Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.
Expression 478 "No, I shan't trouble the fish a great sight more." Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs.
Expression 482 "'Twas never 'you dear an' you darlin' ' afore folks, an' 'you divil' behind the door!" Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs.
Expression 452 …the beauty of things, which becomes a new, and higher beauty, when expressed. Emerson, The Poet. [Things increase in beauty when they are described in language.]
Expression 195 Margaret Drabble: I think most people are more intelligent than they are given credit for, but that they don’t express themselves in a way people find accessible. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
Expression 194 Horace: I strive to be concise, and I become obscure. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Expression 1066 It is a great mistake to try to put our best thoughts into human language. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.
Expressions 86 When they [male deer] ram heads with each other to establish dominance, sometimes the horns lock, condemning the combatants to a grim danse macabre over hill and dale until they drop of exhaustion and starvation. Browning, Notes from Turtle Creek.
Expressions 411 “He’ll be hungry enough to eat his size.” Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.
Expressions 324 “She called such a disarray in the kitchen one morning the monkey’s wedding breakfast…Priscilla has always made use of a great many old-fashioned expressions. Jewett, A Country Doctor.
Extremism
Extremism 375 He [Kennedy] deplored ‘the discordant voices of extremism’ which peddled their frighteningly simple solutions to citizens frustrated and baffled by our national burdens. Sorenson, Kennedy [Extremists peddle simple solutions to frustrated and baffled people.]
Extremism 306 “Resistance to Lincoln is obedience to God” [Banner at Alabama mass meeting]. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas, May 5, 2007.
Note: A bold-face statement at the concusion of a quote is an attempt to express a wordy or convoluted quote in plain English.
Evolution
Evolution xiv J.W. Krutch: “We think of ourselves as the climax of evolution, but we may be hardly more than its beginning.” Eiseley, The Immense Journey [We are not the climax of evolution; we might just be the beginning of it.]
Evolution 354 …in 1859 the old world…crashed to pieces with the publication of the Origin of Species…detailed and richly documented theory of the actual mode and process of evolution ‘by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life.’ Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Herbert Spencer.
Evolution 396 …Spencer’s usual assumption that evolution and progress are synonymous…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Herbert Spencer.
Evolution 457 Bergson: ...evolution appears to us as something quite different from the blind and dreary mechanism of struggle and destruction which Darwin and Spencer described...we sense duration in evolution, the accumulations of vital powers, the inventiveness of life and mind, “the continual elaboration of the absolutely new.” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Bergson. [Darwin described evolution as a blind and dreary mechanism of struggle and destruction; Bergson senses in evolution duration, accumulation and inventiveness.]
Evolution 466 We were near to thinking of the world as a finished and predetermined show, in which our initiative was a self-delusion, and our efforts a devilish humor of the gods; after Bergson we come to see the world as the stage and the material of our own originative powers. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Bergson. [Contrary to thinking of the world as a finished product and our initiative as a delusion, Bergson saw it as a stage for our creative powers.]
Evolution 47 Bishop Wilberforce to Huxley: “Is it on your grandfather’s or your grandmother’s side that the ape ancestry comes in?” Caullery and Tetry A Random Walk in Science.
Evolution 19 …the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him [man] hope for a still higher destiny in the distant future. Darwin, Descent of Man. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought. [Instead of man’s having just been placed in the world, evolution suggests that man has a higher destiny in the future.]
Evolution 5 Evolution is still an infinitely long and tedious biologic game, with only the winners staying at the table. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell. [Evolution is a game with only the winners staying at the table.]
Excellence
Excellence 81 Can excellence be learned? E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.
Excellence 76 [Excellence is the mean between extremes.] Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.
Excellence 189 Spinoza: But all excellent things are as difficult as they are rare. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.
Excellence 314 Schopenhauer : All religions promise a reward for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer.
Excellence 1037 There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be to boil an egg. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Behavior.
Existence
Existence 201 You speculate on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in bed, like an oyster in its shell, content with the sluggish ecstasy of inaction, and drowsily conscious of nothing but delicious warmth…. Hawthorne, Tales and Sketches [The luxury of spending a life in bed like an oyster in a shell, inactive, conscious only of warmth.]
Existence 190 “The whole of existence frightens me,” protested the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard; “from the smallest fly to the mystery of the Incarnation, everything is unintelligible to me, most of all myself.” Eiseley, The Star Thrower [Existence is unintelligible to me, most especially my own.]
Existentialism
Existentialism 21 …man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and only afterwards, defines himself. Sartre, Existentialism. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought. [Man first exists and then defines himself.]
Existentialism 21 Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be…. Sartre, Existentialism Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought. [Man is what he wills himself to be.]
Evolution
Evolution xiv J.W. Krutch: “We think of ourselves as the climax of evolution, but we may be hardly more than its beginning.” Eiseley, The Immense Journey [We are not the climax of evolution; we might just be the beginning of it.]
Evolution 354 …in 1859 the old world…crashed to pieces with the publication of the Origin of Species…detailed and richly documented theory of the actual mode and process of evolution ‘by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life.’ Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Herbert Spencer.
Evolution 396 …Spencer’s usual assumption that evolution and progress are synonymous…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Herbert Spencer.
Evolution 457 Bergson: ...evolution appears to us as something quite different from the blind and dreary mechanism of struggle and destruction which Darwin and Spencer described...we sense duration in evolution, the accumulations of vital powers, the inventiveness of life and mind, “the continual elaboration of the absolutely new.” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Bergson. [Darwin described evolution as a blind and dreary mechanism of struggle and destruction; Bergson senses in evolution duration, accumulation and inventiveness.]
Evolution 466 We were near to thinking of the world as a finished and predetermined show, in which our initiative was a self-delusion, and our efforts a devilish humor of the gods; after Bergson we come to see the world as the stage and the material of our own originative powers. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Bergson. [Contrary to thinking of the world as a finished product and our initiative as a delusion, Bergson saw it as a stage for our creative powers.]
Evolution 47 Bishop Wilberforce to Huxley: “Is it on your grandfather’s or your grandmother’s side that the ape ancestry comes in?” Caullery and Tetry A Random Walk in Science.
Evolution 19 …the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him [man] hope for a still higher destiny in the distant future. Darwin, Descent of Man. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought. [Instead of man’s having just been placed in the world, evolution suggests that man has a higher destiny in the future.]
Evolution 5 Evolution is still an infinitely long and tedious biologic game, with only the winners staying at the table. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell. [Evolution is a game with only the winners staying at the table.]
Excellence
Excellence 81 Can excellence be learned? E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.
Excellence 76 [Excellence is the mean between extremes.] Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.
Excellence 189 Spinoza: But all excellent things are as difficult as they are rare. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.
Excellence 314 Schopenhauer : All religions promise a reward for excellences of the will or heart, but none for excellences of the head or understanding. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer.
Excellence 1037 There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be to boil an egg. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Behavior.
Existence
Existence 201 You speculate on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in bed, like an oyster in its shell, content with the sluggish ecstasy of inaction, and drowsily conscious of nothing but delicious warmth…. Hawthorne, Tales and Sketches [The luxury of spending a life in bed like an oyster in a shell, inactive, conscious only of warmth.]
Existence 190 “The whole of existence frightens me,” protested the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard; “from the smallest fly to the mystery of the Incarnation, everything is unintelligible to me, most of all myself.” Eiseley, The Star Thrower [Existence is unintelligible to me, most especially my own.]
Existentialism
Existentialism 21 …man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and only afterwards, defines himself. Sartre, Existentialism. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought. [Man first exists and then defines himself.]
Existentialism 21 Not only is man what he conceives himself to be, but he is also only what he wills himself to be…. Sartre, Existentialism Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought. [Man is what he wills himself to be.]
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas. May 3, 2007.
Note: If the last sentence in the quote is in brackets, I attempted to express a wordy or convoluted quote in plain English. How did I do? Rays.
Ethics
Ethics 40 Morality, said Jesus, is kindness to the weak; morality, said Nietzsche, is the bravery of the strong; morality, says Plato, is the effective harmony of the whole: probably all three doctrines must be combined to find a perfect ethics. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
Ethics 174 Spinoza: For one and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza. [Behavior can be good, bad or indifferent at the same time.]
Ethics 181 [Spinoza] builds his ethic not on altruism and the natural goodness of man, like Utopian reformers, nor on selfishness and the natural wickedness of man, like cynical conservatives, but on what he considers to be an inevitable and justifiable egoism…thinks that egoism is a necessary corollary of the supreme instinct of self-preservation; "no one ever neglects anything which he judges to be good, except with the hope of gaining a greater good." Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza. [Spinoza does not build his ethic on altruism or on selfishness and the natural wickedness of man but on egoism that does that which is good for self.]
Euphemism
Euphemism 368 Eichmann organized the “Central Office for Jewish Emigration.” Bracher, The German Dictatorship
Euphemism 225 The SS bureaucracy…continued to employ Aesopian language, for example, referring to deportations to concentration camps as “having been emigrated”; and evaluation and deportation, “special treatment” and “disposition” meant extermination. Bracher, The German Dictatorship
Euphemism 728 “Retreat is not flight,” said Don Quixote, “…I confess that I retired but I did not fly; and in this I have imitated many valiant persons who have reserved themselves for better times.” Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Part Two: 1615. [“Retreat” does not mean “flight”; those who retreated saved themselves for better times.]
Euripides
Euripides Viii …emphasis on the individual, in particular on individual suffering…. Warner, Euripides.
Euripides xv It is in showing the individuality and also the universality of suffering that Euripides deserves the title of ‘most tragic poet.’ Warner, Euripides. [Euripides was “the most tragic poet” because he showed the universality of suffering.]
Europe
Europe 863 This long descent of families and this cleaving through the ages to the same spot of ground captivates the imagination. Emerson, English Traits. [Americans are captivated by the Europeans’ remaining in the same place for centuries.]
Evaluation
Evaluation 143 The spiritual, mystical dimensions of the Church are much greater than any sociological statistics could ever possibly show. Pope John Paul II, Threshold. [Statistics can never measure the influence of the Catholic Church.]
Evaluation 186 Thomas Lincoln on being asked by his second wife which of his wives he liked best: “Oh, now Sarah, that reminds me of old John Hardin down in Kentucky who had a fine-looking pair of horses, and a neighbor coming in one day and looking at them said, “John, which horse do you like best?”…“I can’t tell; one of them kicks and the other bites and I don’t know which is wust.” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years
Events
Events 962 Person makes event, and event person. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Fate. [People make events and events shape people.]
Evil
Evil 125 He [Hawthorne] was fascinated by the ambiguity and deceptiveness of evil. Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.
Evil 101 That the evil men do lives after them is partly due to the fact that those who have reason to hate the evil most shape themselves after it and thus perpetuate it. Hoffer, The True Believer. [Evil lives on because the people who hate an evil allow themselves to copy it.]
Evil 570 [King] Arthur: When I was a young man I did something which was not just, and from it has sprung the misery of my life; do you think you can stop the consequences of a bad action, by doing good ones afterwards?…I don’t…have been trying to stopper it down with good actions, ever since, but it goes on in widening circles…will not be stoppered. T. H. White, The Once and Future King. [The evil consequences of an act cannot be stopped from expanding.]
Evil 39 All evil is disharmony: between man and nature, or man and men, or man and himself. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
Evil 17 No one can ever really avoid [doing] what he holds to be evil. Mencken, Minority Report. [People cannot stop themselves from doing what they perceive of as evil.]
Evil 77 Evil...is like cold, which is the privation of heat. Emerson, Divinity College Address. [Evil is the negative of something positive. ]
Evil 456 …the oldest and best-known evil is always more bearable than an evil that is new and untried. Montaigne, Selected Essays. [Old evils are better than new evils which are unexpected.]
Evil 154 Albert Schweitzer: Evil consists in destroying life, in injuring of it, or in thwarting its full flowering. Anderson, The Schweitzer Album. [Evil destroys, injures or thwarts life.]
Ethics
Ethics 40 Morality, said Jesus, is kindness to the weak; morality, said Nietzsche, is the bravery of the strong; morality, says Plato, is the effective harmony of the whole: probably all three doctrines must be combined to find a perfect ethics. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
Ethics 174 Spinoza: For one and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza. [Behavior can be good, bad or indifferent at the same time.]
Ethics 181 [Spinoza] builds his ethic not on altruism and the natural goodness of man, like Utopian reformers, nor on selfishness and the natural wickedness of man, like cynical conservatives, but on what he considers to be an inevitable and justifiable egoism…thinks that egoism is a necessary corollary of the supreme instinct of self-preservation; "no one ever neglects anything which he judges to be good, except with the hope of gaining a greater good." Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza. [Spinoza does not build his ethic on altruism or on selfishness and the natural wickedness of man but on egoism that does that which is good for self.]
Euphemism
Euphemism 368 Eichmann organized the “Central Office for Jewish Emigration.” Bracher, The German Dictatorship
Euphemism 225 The SS bureaucracy…continued to employ Aesopian language, for example, referring to deportations to concentration camps as “having been emigrated”; and evaluation and deportation, “special treatment” and “disposition” meant extermination. Bracher, The German Dictatorship
Euphemism 728 “Retreat is not flight,” said Don Quixote, “…I confess that I retired but I did not fly; and in this I have imitated many valiant persons who have reserved themselves for better times.” Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Part Two: 1615. [“Retreat” does not mean “flight”; those who retreated saved themselves for better times.]
Euripides
Euripides Viii …emphasis on the individual, in particular on individual suffering…. Warner, Euripides.
Euripides xv It is in showing the individuality and also the universality of suffering that Euripides deserves the title of ‘most tragic poet.’ Warner, Euripides. [Euripides was “the most tragic poet” because he showed the universality of suffering.]
Europe
Europe 863 This long descent of families and this cleaving through the ages to the same spot of ground captivates the imagination. Emerson, English Traits. [Americans are captivated by the Europeans’ remaining in the same place for centuries.]
Evaluation
Evaluation 143 The spiritual, mystical dimensions of the Church are much greater than any sociological statistics could ever possibly show. Pope John Paul II, Threshold. [Statistics can never measure the influence of the Catholic Church.]
Evaluation 186 Thomas Lincoln on being asked by his second wife which of his wives he liked best: “Oh, now Sarah, that reminds me of old John Hardin down in Kentucky who had a fine-looking pair of horses, and a neighbor coming in one day and looking at them said, “John, which horse do you like best?”…“I can’t tell; one of them kicks and the other bites and I don’t know which is wust.” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years
Events
Events 962 Person makes event, and event person. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Fate. [People make events and events shape people.]
Evil
Evil 125 He [Hawthorne] was fascinated by the ambiguity and deceptiveness of evil. Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.
Evil 101 That the evil men do lives after them is partly due to the fact that those who have reason to hate the evil most shape themselves after it and thus perpetuate it. Hoffer, The True Believer. [Evil lives on because the people who hate an evil allow themselves to copy it.]
Evil 570 [King] Arthur: When I was a young man I did something which was not just, and from it has sprung the misery of my life; do you think you can stop the consequences of a bad action, by doing good ones afterwards?…I don’t…have been trying to stopper it down with good actions, ever since, but it goes on in widening circles…will not be stoppered. T. H. White, The Once and Future King. [The evil consequences of an act cannot be stopped from expanding.]
Evil 39 All evil is disharmony: between man and nature, or man and men, or man and himself. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
Evil 17 No one can ever really avoid [doing] what he holds to be evil. Mencken, Minority Report. [People cannot stop themselves from doing what they perceive of as evil.]
Evil 77 Evil...is like cold, which is the privation of heat. Emerson, Divinity College Address. [Evil is the negative of something positive. ]
Evil 456 …the oldest and best-known evil is always more bearable than an evil that is new and untried. Montaigne, Selected Essays. [Old evils are better than new evils which are unexpected.]
Evil 154 Albert Schweitzer: Evil consists in destroying life, in injuring of it, or in thwarting its full flowering. Anderson, The Schweitzer Album. [Evil destroys, injures or thwarts life.]
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas. May 2, 2007.
Note: A bold-face statement at the conclusion of a quote is an attempt to express a wordy or convoluted quote in plain English.
Ends and Means
Ends and Means 585 The end and the means, the gamester and the game—life is made up of the intermixture and reaction of these two amicable powers, whose marriage appears beforehand monstrous, as each denies and tends to abolish the other. Emerson, Nominalist and Realist. [The effects are monstrous if ends or means demolish each other.]
Enemies
Enemies 75 These are paranoid delusions on a societal scale, explainable in part by our need for enemies. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell. [We feel a need for enemies.]
Enemies 263 Hoope: Nay, but enemies can teach us many things, if we are wise. Aristophanes, Birds.
Enlightenment
Enlightenment, Reason 53 In the Enlightenment…man was supposed to live by his reason alone, as if God did not exist. Pope John Paul II, Threshold
Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm 71 Earl of Egmont: It is a melancholy thing to see how zeal for a good thing abates when the novelty is over, and when there is no pecuniary reward attending the service. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience. [Enthusiasm wanes with the loss of novelty and no promise of monetary reward. ]
Epicureanism
Epicureanism 98 Epicurus…is no Epicurean; he exalts the joys of intellect rather than those of sense; he warns against pleasures that excite and disturb the soul which they should rather quiet and appease; …proposes to seek not pleasure in its usual sense, but…tranquility, equanimity, repose of mind. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon. [Epicurus was no Epicurean: exalted the joys of intellect, tranquility, equanimity, repose of mind.]
Epitaph
Epitaph 253 Loren on himself in a letter to his niece Athena: “Just tell her he was a guy who had his troubles, was a poor letter writer, couldn’t stand most of his relatives and died by himself and to hell with it.” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley
Epitaph 435 Epitaph: “We loved the earth but could not stay.” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley
Epitaph 202 Her life closed in a gentle dream—may she wake as kindly in the other world. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.
Epitaph 408 I lingered around them, under the benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and the harebells [blue bells], listening to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.
Epitaph 1049 He reck’d the world of little prize/ ...But had the fortune in his age,/ To live a fool and die a sage. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Part Two: 1615.
Epitaph 797 Mr. Pickwick: If I have done but little good, I trust I have done less harm. Dickens, Pickwick.
Equality
Equality 34 Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom. Hoffer, The True Believer
Equality 34 The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity; to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others…no one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority. Hoffer, The True Believer. [The passion for equality is a passion for anonymity.]
Equality 530 JFK: “I do not say that all are equal in their ability, their character or their motivation…but I say they should be equal in their chance to develop their character, their motivation and their ability. Sorenson, Kennedy
Equality 286 Equality is to be found only in the spiritual dignity of man…. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Equality 227 Lincoln: Of course the Declaration signers did not intend to declare “all men equal in all respects” but they did consider all men equal in “certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years
Eternity
Eternity 481 Borges’ Aleph: …equivalent to eternity, where “all time—past, present, and future—coexists simultaneously. Bloom, Western Canon.
Ends and Means
Ends and Means 585 The end and the means, the gamester and the game—life is made up of the intermixture and reaction of these two amicable powers, whose marriage appears beforehand monstrous, as each denies and tends to abolish the other. Emerson, Nominalist and Realist. [The effects are monstrous if ends or means demolish each other.]
Enemies
Enemies 75 These are paranoid delusions on a societal scale, explainable in part by our need for enemies. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell. [We feel a need for enemies.]
Enemies 263 Hoope: Nay, but enemies can teach us many things, if we are wise. Aristophanes, Birds.
Enlightenment
Enlightenment, Reason 53 In the Enlightenment…man was supposed to live by his reason alone, as if God did not exist. Pope John Paul II, Threshold
Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm 71 Earl of Egmont: It is a melancholy thing to see how zeal for a good thing abates when the novelty is over, and when there is no pecuniary reward attending the service. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience. [Enthusiasm wanes with the loss of novelty and no promise of monetary reward. ]
Epicureanism
Epicureanism 98 Epicurus…is no Epicurean; he exalts the joys of intellect rather than those of sense; he warns against pleasures that excite and disturb the soul which they should rather quiet and appease; …proposes to seek not pleasure in its usual sense, but…tranquility, equanimity, repose of mind. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon. [Epicurus was no Epicurean: exalted the joys of intellect, tranquility, equanimity, repose of mind.]
Epitaph
Epitaph 253 Loren on himself in a letter to his niece Athena: “Just tell her he was a guy who had his troubles, was a poor letter writer, couldn’t stand most of his relatives and died by himself and to hell with it.” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley
Epitaph 435 Epitaph: “We loved the earth but could not stay.” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley
Epitaph 202 Her life closed in a gentle dream—may she wake as kindly in the other world. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.
Epitaph 408 I lingered around them, under the benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and the harebells [blue bells], listening to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.
Epitaph 1049 He reck’d the world of little prize/ ...But had the fortune in his age,/ To live a fool and die a sage. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Part Two: 1615.
Epitaph 797 Mr. Pickwick: If I have done but little good, I trust I have done less harm. Dickens, Pickwick.
Equality
Equality 34 Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom. Hoffer, The True Believer
Equality 34 The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity; to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others…no one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority. Hoffer, The True Believer. [The passion for equality is a passion for anonymity.]
Equality 530 JFK: “I do not say that all are equal in their ability, their character or their motivation…but I say they should be equal in their chance to develop their character, their motivation and their ability. Sorenson, Kennedy
Equality 286 Equality is to be found only in the spiritual dignity of man…. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Equality 227 Lincoln: Of course the Declaration signers did not intend to declare “all men equal in all respects” but they did consider all men equal in “certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years
Eternity
Eternity 481 Borges’ Aleph: …equivalent to eternity, where “all time—past, present, and future—coexists simultaneously. Bloom, Western Canon.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas. May 1, 2007
Efficiency
Efficiency 7 It is estimated that if all redundant passages were eliminated the whole concert time of two hours could be reduced to twenty minutes, and there would be no need for an interval. Anonymous. A Random Walk in Science. [If all redundancy were removed from a concert it would take twenty minutes instead of two hours.]
Ego and Egotism
Ego 205 We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves…. George Eliot, Middlemarch. [We all think that the world is for us alone; that is we are born with moral stupidity.]
Egotism 411 …a man never speaks of himself without loss: his condemnation of himself is always credited, his praise of himself discredited. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Einstein
Einstein 2 It is not surprising therefore that many a college graduate still thinks of Einstein as a kind of mathematical surrealist rather than as the discoverer of certain cosmic laws of immense importance in man’s slow struggle to understand physical reality. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein.
Einstein 53 E = mc2: …energy contained in any particle of matter is equal to the mass of that body multiplied by the square of the velocity of light…extraordinary relationship becomes more vivid when its terms are translated into concrete values: i.e., one kilogram of coal (about two pounds), if converted entirely into energy, would yield 25 billion kilowatt hours of electricity or as much as all the power plants in the U.S. could generate by running steadily for two months. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein [E=MC2 means that if matter could be converted to energy that energy could be incredibly productive.]
Einstein 86 In the Einstein universe there are no straight lines, there are only great circles. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein [The Einstein universe has no straight lines but only circles.]
Emerson
Emerson 1076 The music that can deepest reach/ And cure all ill, is cordial speech. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Considerations by the Way.
Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson 291 ...she wrote lyrical meditations...while practicing an art of singular economy. Bloom, Western Canon. [Dickinson wrote lyrical meditations very concisely.]
Emily Dickinson 291 What her critics almost always underestimate is her startling intellectual complexity. Bloom, Western Canon.
Emily Dickinson 308 Dickinson’s way...favors questioning over interpretation. Bloom, Western Canon.
Emotion
Emotion 14 As John Buchan wrote of a friend in John Kennedy’s favorite book, Pilgrim’s Way, “He disliked [shows of] emotion, not because he felt lightly but because he felt deeply.” Sorenson, Kennedy
Emotion 151 Catherine: Why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words?
Emotion 669 Despair and penitence are two very different things. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Emotion 85 Giovanni Pisano’s relief in Pistoia of the Massacre of the Innocents: I did not weep, so much of stone had I become within. Clark, Civilization. [I did not weep because my heart had become stone.]
Emotion 183 Spinoza: “An emotion can neither be hindered nor removed except by a contrary and stronger emotion.” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza. [Only a stronger and contrary emotion will overcome another emotion.]
Emotion 370 ...and suddenly she reached her hands upward in an ecstasy of life and strength and gladness: “O God,” [Nan] said, “I thank thee for my future.” Jewett, A Country Doctor.
Emotion 1058 …an emotion more delightful than he had often felt before, but which he forbore to analyze, lest, if he seized it, it should at once perish in his grasp. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun. [He felt the emotion strongly, but did not analyze it because he was afraid he would lose it.]
Emotion and reason 183 Spinoza knows that as passion without reason is blind, reason without passion is dead. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.
Emotions 180 Spinoza: A passion or an emotion is bad or good not in itself, but only as it decreases or enhances our power. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.
Encyclopedia
Encyclopedia 117 Encarta includes 26,000 topics with 9 million words of text, 8 hours of sounds, 7,0000 photographs and illustrations, 800 maps, 250 interactive charts and tables, and 100 animations and video clips...costs less than $100 [and comes on a wafer thin disk about six inches in diameter]. Gates, The Road Ahead.
Efficiency 7 It is estimated that if all redundant passages were eliminated the whole concert time of two hours could be reduced to twenty minutes, and there would be no need for an interval. Anonymous. A Random Walk in Science. [If all redundancy were removed from a concert it would take twenty minutes instead of two hours.]
Ego and Egotism
Ego 205 We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves…. George Eliot, Middlemarch. [We all think that the world is for us alone; that is we are born with moral stupidity.]
Egotism 411 …a man never speaks of himself without loss: his condemnation of himself is always credited, his praise of himself discredited. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Einstein
Einstein 2 It is not surprising therefore that many a college graduate still thinks of Einstein as a kind of mathematical surrealist rather than as the discoverer of certain cosmic laws of immense importance in man’s slow struggle to understand physical reality. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein.
Einstein 53 E = mc2: …energy contained in any particle of matter is equal to the mass of that body multiplied by the square of the velocity of light…extraordinary relationship becomes more vivid when its terms are translated into concrete values: i.e., one kilogram of coal (about two pounds), if converted entirely into energy, would yield 25 billion kilowatt hours of electricity or as much as all the power plants in the U.S. could generate by running steadily for two months. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein [E=MC2 means that if matter could be converted to energy that energy could be incredibly productive.]
Einstein 86 In the Einstein universe there are no straight lines, there are only great circles. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein [The Einstein universe has no straight lines but only circles.]
Emerson
Emerson 1076 The music that can deepest reach/ And cure all ill, is cordial speech. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Considerations by the Way.
Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson 291 ...she wrote lyrical meditations...while practicing an art of singular economy. Bloom, Western Canon. [Dickinson wrote lyrical meditations very concisely.]
Emily Dickinson 291 What her critics almost always underestimate is her startling intellectual complexity. Bloom, Western Canon.
Emily Dickinson 308 Dickinson’s way...favors questioning over interpretation. Bloom, Western Canon.
Emotion
Emotion 14 As John Buchan wrote of a friend in John Kennedy’s favorite book, Pilgrim’s Way, “He disliked [shows of] emotion, not because he felt lightly but because he felt deeply.” Sorenson, Kennedy
Emotion 151 Catherine: Why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words?
Emotion 669 Despair and penitence are two very different things. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Emotion 85 Giovanni Pisano’s relief in Pistoia of the Massacre of the Innocents: I did not weep, so much of stone had I become within. Clark, Civilization. [I did not weep because my heart had become stone.]
Emotion 183 Spinoza: “An emotion can neither be hindered nor removed except by a contrary and stronger emotion.” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza. [Only a stronger and contrary emotion will overcome another emotion.]
Emotion 370 ...and suddenly she reached her hands upward in an ecstasy of life and strength and gladness: “O God,” [Nan] said, “I thank thee for my future.” Jewett, A Country Doctor.
Emotion 1058 …an emotion more delightful than he had often felt before, but which he forbore to analyze, lest, if he seized it, it should at once perish in his grasp. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun. [He felt the emotion strongly, but did not analyze it because he was afraid he would lose it.]
Emotion and reason 183 Spinoza knows that as passion without reason is blind, reason without passion is dead. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.
Emotions 180 Spinoza: A passion or an emotion is bad or good not in itself, but only as it decreases or enhances our power. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.
Encyclopedia
Encyclopedia 117 Encarta includes 26,000 topics with 9 million words of text, 8 hours of sounds, 7,0000 photographs and illustrations, 800 maps, 250 interactive charts and tables, and 100 animations and video clips...costs less than $100 [and comes on a wafer thin disk about six inches in diameter]. Gates, The Road Ahead.
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