Confidence
189 I admire the assurance and confidence everyone has in himself, whereas there is hardly anything that I am sure I know or that I dare give my word that I can do. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Conflict
279 ...[Kennedy] had called on Americans to renounce the proposition that ‘we should enter every military conflict as a moral crusade requiring the unconditional surrender of the enemy.’ Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
69 Arthur Koestler: Conflict thus always reveals a paradox in the human condition…each of the conflicting characters or ideas must be right within its own terms of reference [and]…the audience should be compelled to accept both conflicting fields as valid…. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.
23 …we were reaching a danger point of the spirit, when…a trifle becomes the occasion for the explosion…. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.
767 At every stage he [Kennedy] gave his adversary time for reflection, and reappraisal, taking care not to force him into ‘spasm’ reactions or to cut off his retreat. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
Conscience
132 Faulkner: ...the three men in Moby Dick, who represent the trinity of conscience: knowing nothing, knowing but not caring, knowing and caring. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.
473 Johnson: Conscience is nothing more than a conviction felt by ourselves of something to be done, or something to be avoided…. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
Consciousness
507 …how much of seemingly rational life was controlled by the unconscious. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
462 But many quite irrelevant and inappropriate thoughts sometimes occur even to a prisoner when he is being led out to execution. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
652 At the most terrible moments of man’s life, for instance when he is being led to execution, he remembers just such trifles…will forget anything but some green roof that has flashed past him on the road, or a jackdaw on a cross—that he will remember. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Conservatism
92 …justifies the conservative in believing that all permanent change is gradual. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.
274 Lincoln: “I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our Fathers did…to do so would be to discard all the lights of current experience—to reject all progress--all improvement.” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years.
77 He [the conservative] goes to the past for reassurance about the present: “I wanted the sense of continuity, the assurance that our contemporary blunders were endemic in human nature, that our new fads were very ancient heresies….” John Buchan, Pilgrim’s Way. 1940. Hoffer, The True Believer
173 The two parties which divide the state, the party of conservatism and that of innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made. Emerson. The Conservative.
183 ...as...there is no pure reformer, so it is to be considered that there is no pure conservative, no man who from the beginning to the end of his life maintains the defective institutions. Emerson, The Conservative.
185 He [the radical] legislates for man as he ought to be...but he makes no allowance for friction.... Emerson, The Conservative.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas. March 26, 2007
Communism
132 [Communism] proved to be a medicine more dangerous than the disease…. Pope John Paul II, Threshold
43 …when everything belongs to everybody nobody will take care of anything. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
Comparison
157 Johnson: A fly, sir, may sting a stately horse, and make him wince; but one is an insect and the other is a horse still. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
280 Johnson: “…I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it.” Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
287 Johnson: “Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs…not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
343 In comparing these two writers [Richardson and Fielding], he [Johnson] used this expression: ‘'that there was as great a difference between them, as between a man who knew how a watch was made, and a man who could tell the hour by looking on the dial-plate.” Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
370 Johnson: I do not know, Sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
610 Johnson: It is as unreasonable for a man to go into a Carthusian convent for fear of being immoral, as for a man to cut off his hands for fear he should steal…for though it is out of his power to steal, yet he may all his life be a thief in his heart. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
Competence
224 The most steadily attractive of all human qualities is competence…good at his trade…understands its technique thoroughly,…surmounts its difficulties with ease…. Mencken, Minority Report.
Competition and Cooperation
54 It is increasingly important to be able to compete and cooperate at the same time but that calls for a lot of maturity. Gates, The Road Ahead.
Complaints
105 Hindu proverb: I had no shoes--and I murmured until I met a man who had no feet. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
Compromise
69 The Quaker was haunted by fear that every compromise was a defeat, that to modify anything might be to lose everything. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
Computer
220 But simple is difficult. [computer software] Gates, The Road Ahead.
255 Alan Turing in 1950 suggested what has come to be called the Turing Test: If you are able to carry on a conversation with a computer and another human, both hidden from your view, and were uncertain about which was which, you would have a truly intelligent machine. Gates, The Road Ahead.
Conceit
70 ...the self-conceit of a weak head.... Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.
Concentration
982 Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short, in all management of human affairs. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Power.
Concise Expression
294 A Frenchman once asked Hegel to put his philosophy into one sentence; and he did not succeed so well as the monk who, asked to define Christianity while standing on one foot, said, simply, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Hegel.
132 [Communism] proved to be a medicine more dangerous than the disease…. Pope John Paul II, Threshold
43 …when everything belongs to everybody nobody will take care of anything. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
Comparison
157 Johnson: A fly, sir, may sting a stately horse, and make him wince; but one is an insect and the other is a horse still. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
280 Johnson: “…I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it.” Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
287 Johnson: “Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs…not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
343 In comparing these two writers [Richardson and Fielding], he [Johnson] used this expression: ‘'that there was as great a difference between them, as between a man who knew how a watch was made, and a man who could tell the hour by looking on the dial-plate.” Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
370 Johnson: I do not know, Sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
610 Johnson: It is as unreasonable for a man to go into a Carthusian convent for fear of being immoral, as for a man to cut off his hands for fear he should steal…for though it is out of his power to steal, yet he may all his life be a thief in his heart. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
Competence
224 The most steadily attractive of all human qualities is competence…good at his trade…understands its technique thoroughly,…surmounts its difficulties with ease…. Mencken, Minority Report.
Competition and Cooperation
54 It is increasingly important to be able to compete and cooperate at the same time but that calls for a lot of maturity. Gates, The Road Ahead.
Complaints
105 Hindu proverb: I had no shoes--and I murmured until I met a man who had no feet. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
Compromise
69 The Quaker was haunted by fear that every compromise was a defeat, that to modify anything might be to lose everything. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
Computer
220 But simple is difficult. [computer software] Gates, The Road Ahead.
255 Alan Turing in 1950 suggested what has come to be called the Turing Test: If you are able to carry on a conversation with a computer and another human, both hidden from your view, and were uncertain about which was which, you would have a truly intelligent machine. Gates, The Road Ahead.
Conceit
70 ...the self-conceit of a weak head.... Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.
Concentration
982 Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short, in all management of human affairs. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Power.
Concise Expression
294 A Frenchman once asked Hegel to put his philosophy into one sentence; and he did not succeed so well as the monk who, asked to define Christianity while standing on one foot, said, simply, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Hegel.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas. March 25, 2007.
Communication
111 …she answered to what was implied, rather than expressed. Hawthorne, Fanshawe.
93 They [Larry O’Brien and Ken O’Donnell] shared that common understanding which abbreviates communication to swift phrases and imperceptible changes in facial expression. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
258 JFK: It is not that [Alan] Dulles is not a man of great ability...but I have never worked with him, and therefore I can’t estimate his meaning when he tells me things. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
388 Schlesinger: At the very least, each [Presidential] message should be (a) in English, (b) clear and trenchant in style, (c) logical in its structure and (d) devoid of gobbledygook. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
514 He [Kennedy] wanted to find out how foreign leaders saw their problems, to get them to understand something of his own problems and to establish personal relations which could be continued by correspondence. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
515 He [Kennedy] would mention personalities and issues, cite facts and statistics and comment on past or present in a way which led some of his guests to say afterward that the American president knew more about their countries than they did themselves. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
635 Their [Bobby and Jack] communication was virtually telepathic. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
787 The talks with Thorneycroft were a Pinero drama of misunderstanding: Thorneycroft expecting McNamara to propose Polaris, McNamara expecting Thorneycroft to request it. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
824 JFK: To move toward peace would “require increased understanding between the Soviets and ourselves…increased contact and communication." Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
147 But men will chatter and you and I will still shout our futilities to each other across the stage until the last silly curtain falls plump! upon our bobbing heads. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.
277 JFK: Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us. Sorenson, Kennedy
417 [Kennedy] kept his own comments to a minimum and often cut short others, no matter how important or friendly, who were dealing with generalities or repeating the obvious. Sorenson, Kennedy
302 I talked to the Russians a good deal, just to be friendly, and they talked to me from the same motive; I am sure that both enjoyed the conversation, but never a word of it either of us understood. Twain, Innocents Abroad.
391 …the failure to establish communication had been his fault rather than the patient’s, because he had begun with preconceived notions about the case…. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
153 Simenon: The fact that we are I don’t know how many millions of people, yet communication, complete communication, is completely impossible between two of these people is to me one of the biggest tragic themes in the world. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.
29 John Hersey: Oceans, boundaries, iron curtains; local prejudices, nationalisms, class lines; special interests, hardened traditions, intransigent beliefs—all these tend to block the flow of ideas and images between man and man. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.
587 How sincere and confidential we can be, saying all that lies in the mind, and yet go away feeling that all is yet unsaid, from the incapability of the parties to know each other, although they use the same words! Emerson, Nominalist and Realist.
75 About Harriman: He had taught all his protégés always to be brief when talking to a president; they have so little time, everyone is always telling them things, keep it short and simple, and brevity above all…one idea, a few brief sentences. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.
30 Robert Creeley: So communication is mutual feeling with someone, not a didactic process of information. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
490 No pleasure has any savor for me if I cannot communicate it. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
111 …she answered to what was implied, rather than expressed. Hawthorne, Fanshawe.
93 They [Larry O’Brien and Ken O’Donnell] shared that common understanding which abbreviates communication to swift phrases and imperceptible changes in facial expression. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
258 JFK: It is not that [Alan] Dulles is not a man of great ability...but I have never worked with him, and therefore I can’t estimate his meaning when he tells me things. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
388 Schlesinger: At the very least, each [Presidential] message should be (a) in English, (b) clear and trenchant in style, (c) logical in its structure and (d) devoid of gobbledygook. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
514 He [Kennedy] wanted to find out how foreign leaders saw their problems, to get them to understand something of his own problems and to establish personal relations which could be continued by correspondence. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
515 He [Kennedy] would mention personalities and issues, cite facts and statistics and comment on past or present in a way which led some of his guests to say afterward that the American president knew more about their countries than they did themselves. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
635 Their [Bobby and Jack] communication was virtually telepathic. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
787 The talks with Thorneycroft were a Pinero drama of misunderstanding: Thorneycroft expecting McNamara to propose Polaris, McNamara expecting Thorneycroft to request it. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
824 JFK: To move toward peace would “require increased understanding between the Soviets and ourselves…increased contact and communication." Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
147 But men will chatter and you and I will still shout our futilities to each other across the stage until the last silly curtain falls plump! upon our bobbing heads. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.
277 JFK: Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us. Sorenson, Kennedy
417 [Kennedy] kept his own comments to a minimum and often cut short others, no matter how important or friendly, who were dealing with generalities or repeating the obvious. Sorenson, Kennedy
302 I talked to the Russians a good deal, just to be friendly, and they talked to me from the same motive; I am sure that both enjoyed the conversation, but never a word of it either of us understood. Twain, Innocents Abroad.
391 …the failure to establish communication had been his fault rather than the patient’s, because he had begun with preconceived notions about the case…. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
153 Simenon: The fact that we are I don’t know how many millions of people, yet communication, complete communication, is completely impossible between two of these people is to me one of the biggest tragic themes in the world. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.
29 John Hersey: Oceans, boundaries, iron curtains; local prejudices, nationalisms, class lines; special interests, hardened traditions, intransigent beliefs—all these tend to block the flow of ideas and images between man and man. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.
587 How sincere and confidential we can be, saying all that lies in the mind, and yet go away feeling that all is yet unsaid, from the incapability of the parties to know each other, although they use the same words! Emerson, Nominalist and Realist.
75 About Harriman: He had taught all his protégés always to be brief when talking to a president; they have so little time, everyone is always telling them things, keep it short and simple, and brevity above all…one idea, a few brief sentences. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.
30 Robert Creeley: So communication is mutual feeling with someone, not a didactic process of information. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
490 No pleasure has any savor for me if I cannot communicate it. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas March 24, 2007
Colonialism
471 “…inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence….” [Resolution on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.] Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
Comedy
108 ‘True comedy,’ said Voltaire, ‘is the speaking picture of the follies and foibles of a nation.’ E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.
220 Robertson Davies: …comedy is fully as revealing in its probing of human problems as is tragedy. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
220 Stanley Elkin: There can be no consequences in comedy. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
2 The figures of comedy, historical or invented, are familiar contemporary types…. Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Aristophanes.
7 The tragic poet might explore large questions of the ways of god to man; the comic poet told his audiences what was wrong with foreign policy or politicians, or how educationists were corrupting sound learning or neoteric poets corrupting good taste, and he invited immediate action, not merely a change in attitude. Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Aristophanes.
11 …New Comedy represents the relationships and problems of Everyman, and is therefore the most exportable of all ancient dramatic forms. Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Aristophanes.
369 Johnson on comedy vs. farce: It is comedy, which exhibits the character of a species, as that of a miser gathered from many misers; it is a farce which exhibits individuals. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
Committees
xviii Ten thousand committees could never produce the Sistine ceiling. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.
Common Sense
285 I never understood what common sense meant applied to complicated problems—unless it means that a general practitioner can perform a better operation than a specialist. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.
48 Einstein: …common sense is actually nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind prior to the age of eighteen [and] every new idea one encounters in later years must combat this accretion of “self-evident” concepts. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein
133 On some bright tomorrow, so I hope and pray, someone will write a history of common sense. Mencken, Minority Report.
198 It would no doubt surprise the average man, even the average intelligent man, to learn that he harbors [within him] an epistemology…the epistemology of common sense. Mencken, Minority Report.
471 “…inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence….” [Resolution on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.] Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
Comedy
108 ‘True comedy,’ said Voltaire, ‘is the speaking picture of the follies and foibles of a nation.’ E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.
220 Robertson Davies: …comedy is fully as revealing in its probing of human problems as is tragedy. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
220 Stanley Elkin: There can be no consequences in comedy. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
2 The figures of comedy, historical or invented, are familiar contemporary types…. Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Aristophanes.
7 The tragic poet might explore large questions of the ways of god to man; the comic poet told his audiences what was wrong with foreign policy or politicians, or how educationists were corrupting sound learning or neoteric poets corrupting good taste, and he invited immediate action, not merely a change in attitude. Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Aristophanes.
11 …New Comedy represents the relationships and problems of Everyman, and is therefore the most exportable of all ancient dramatic forms. Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Aristophanes.
369 Johnson on comedy vs. farce: It is comedy, which exhibits the character of a species, as that of a miser gathered from many misers; it is a farce which exhibits individuals. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
Committees
xviii Ten thousand committees could never produce the Sistine ceiling. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.
Common Sense
285 I never understood what common sense meant applied to complicated problems—unless it means that a general practitioner can perform a better operation than a specialist. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.
48 Einstein: …common sense is actually nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind prior to the age of eighteen [and] every new idea one encounters in later years must combat this accretion of “self-evident” concepts. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein
133 On some bright tomorrow, so I hope and pray, someone will write a history of common sense. Mencken, Minority Report.
198 It would no doubt surprise the average man, even the average intelligent man, to learn that he harbors [within him] an epistemology…the epistemology of common sense. Mencken, Minority Report.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas March 23, 2007
Class (Social)
932 An Englishman shows no mercy to those below him in the social scale, as he looks for none from those above him: any forbearance from his superiors surprises him, and they suffer in his good opinion. Emerson, English Traits.
518 …and if the people should destroy class after class, until two men only were left, one of these would be the leader, and would be involuntarily served and copied by the other. Emerson, Manners.
161 In Rosamond’s romance it was not necessary to imagine much about the inward life of the hero, or of his serious business in the world: of course, he had a profession and was clever, as well as sufficiently handsome; but the piquant fact about Lydgate was his good birth, which distinguished him from all Middlemarch admirers, and presented marriage as a prospect of rising in rank…. George Eliot, Middlemarch.
222 Even when Caleb Garth was prosperous, the Vincys were on condescending terms with him and his wife, for there were nice distinctions of rank in Middlemarch; and though old manufacturers could not any more than dukes be connected with none but equals, they were conscious of an inherent social superiority which was defined with great nicety in practice, though hardly expressible theoretically. George Eliot, Middlemarch.
535 No matter what a man is--I wouldn’t give two pence for him...whether he was the prime minister or the rick-thatcher, if he didn’t do well what he undertook to do. George Eliot, Middlemarch.
83 …unlike the English, they [the French] just took you for what they were; they did not trouble themselves with the painful preliminaries of deciding whether they were your superiors or your inferiors. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.
Classic
xix A classic is, of course, among other things, a work which retains some of its initial freshness upon being reread and which continues to have an illuminating relevance to the themes it treats. Sidney Hook. Hoffer, The True Believer.
7 All the classic poets were looked upon and looked upon themselves as serious teachers…. Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Aristophanes.
Clinton
62 The Dole adviser said, “It is not so much a feeling of ‘I can’t believe I am losing to this guy’ as it is ‘I can’t believe a guy who is this much a phony and who has this sheer magnitude of ethical scandals all around him is going to pull this election off.’” The New Yorker, Nov. 11, 1996. Michael Kelly, “Ire in the Belly.”
Cliques
520 Passengers invariably divide up into cliques, on all ships. Twain, Innocents Abroad.
Clouds
164 Clouds …piled up blossoms of the sky…. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
Cocktail Parties
40 The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath: already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.
Cold War
329 Churchill: “From Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the continent… certainly not the liberated Europe we fought to build up[;] nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace. March 5, 1946, Fulton, Missouri. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg.
College
178 American college president...combined the academic and the man of business; he was supposed to apply learning to current affairs and to use business judgment for the world of learning...no counterpart in the Old World, he was the living symbol of the breakdown of the cloistered walls. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
181 The primary aim of the American college was not to increase the continental stock of cultivated men, but rather to supply its particular region with knowledgeable ministers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, and political leaders. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
932 An Englishman shows no mercy to those below him in the social scale, as he looks for none from those above him: any forbearance from his superiors surprises him, and they suffer in his good opinion. Emerson, English Traits.
518 …and if the people should destroy class after class, until two men only were left, one of these would be the leader, and would be involuntarily served and copied by the other. Emerson, Manners.
161 In Rosamond’s romance it was not necessary to imagine much about the inward life of the hero, or of his serious business in the world: of course, he had a profession and was clever, as well as sufficiently handsome; but the piquant fact about Lydgate was his good birth, which distinguished him from all Middlemarch admirers, and presented marriage as a prospect of rising in rank…. George Eliot, Middlemarch.
222 Even when Caleb Garth was prosperous, the Vincys were on condescending terms with him and his wife, for there were nice distinctions of rank in Middlemarch; and though old manufacturers could not any more than dukes be connected with none but equals, they were conscious of an inherent social superiority which was defined with great nicety in practice, though hardly expressible theoretically. George Eliot, Middlemarch.
535 No matter what a man is--I wouldn’t give two pence for him...whether he was the prime minister or the rick-thatcher, if he didn’t do well what he undertook to do. George Eliot, Middlemarch.
83 …unlike the English, they [the French] just took you for what they were; they did not trouble themselves with the painful preliminaries of deciding whether they were your superiors or your inferiors. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.
Classic
xix A classic is, of course, among other things, a work which retains some of its initial freshness upon being reread and which continues to have an illuminating relevance to the themes it treats. Sidney Hook. Hoffer, The True Believer.
7 All the classic poets were looked upon and looked upon themselves as serious teachers…. Hadas, ed., The Complete Works of Aristophanes.
Clinton
62 The Dole adviser said, “It is not so much a feeling of ‘I can’t believe I am losing to this guy’ as it is ‘I can’t believe a guy who is this much a phony and who has this sheer magnitude of ethical scandals all around him is going to pull this election off.’” The New Yorker, Nov. 11, 1996. Michael Kelly, “Ire in the Belly.”
Cliques
520 Passengers invariably divide up into cliques, on all ships. Twain, Innocents Abroad.
Clouds
164 Clouds …piled up blossoms of the sky…. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
Cocktail Parties
40 The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath: already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.
Cold War
329 Churchill: “From Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the continent… certainly not the liberated Europe we fought to build up[;] nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace. March 5, 1946, Fulton, Missouri. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg.
College
178 American college president...combined the academic and the man of business; he was supposed to apply learning to current affairs and to use business judgment for the world of learning...no counterpart in the Old World, he was the living symbol of the breakdown of the cloistered walls. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
181 The primary aim of the American college was not to increase the continental stock of cultivated men, but rather to supply its particular region with knowledgeable ministers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, and political leaders. Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas. March 22, 2007
Citizenship
64 If men had to earn [the right to vote] by some reasonably useful service to society, it would be much greater esteemed than it is now, and exercising it in a reckless or selfish way would become more or less shameful. Mencken, Minority Report.
1116 The majority of the people of that time paid no attention to the broad trend of the nation’s affairs, and were only influenced by their private concerns. Tolstoi, War and Peace
Civil Rights
873 MLK: “’Wait’ has always meant ‘Never.’” Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
531 Simple justice requires this program, he [Kennedy] would tell the Congress in concluding his Civil Rights message of June 19, 1963, “not merely for reasons of economic efficiency, world diplomacy and domestic tranquility—but, above all, because it is right.” Sorenson, Kennedy
Civil War
23 The men who fought for self-determination at Gettysburg were not the federals but the Confederates. Mencken, Minority Report.
Civility
277 JFK: ...civility is not a sign of weakness. Sorenson, Kennedy
Civilization
89 [Civilization] ...is a matter of imponderables, of delight in the things of the mind, of love of beauty, of honor, grace, courtesy, delicate feeling. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.
113 “Here where there are only bones asleep in their million-year long rotting, where the events of the Pliocene seem more real than those of civilization--that overnight fungus….” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley
354 Merlyn: What I meant by civilization when I invented it, was simply that people ought not to take advantage of weakness…. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
3 ...at certain epochs man has felt conscious of something about himself--body and spirit--which was outside the day-to-day struggle for existence and the night-to-night struggle with fear; and he has felt the need to develop these qualities of thought and feeling so that they might approach as nearly as possible to the ideal of perfection--reason, justice, physical beauty, all of them in equilibrium. Clark, Civilization.
3 ...however complex and solid [civilization] seems, it is actually quite fragile [and] can be destroyed. Clark, Civilization.
136 Sometimes of late years I find myself thinking the most beautiful sight in the world might be the birds taking over New York after the last man has run away to the hills. [civilization] Eiseley, The Immense Journey
315 Delacroix valued civilization all the more because he knew that it was fragile…. Clark, Civilization.
3 [Enemies of civilization]: Fear--fear of war, fear of invasion, fear of plague and famine, that makes it simply not worthwhile constructing things, or planting trees or even planning next year’s crops. Clark, Civilization.
4 ...[civilization] requires confidence--confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy, belief in its laws, and confidence in one’s own mental powers. Clark, Civilization.
4 Vigor, energy, vitality: all the great civilizations...have had a weight of energy behind them. Clark, Civilization.
4 So if one asks why the civilization of Greece and Rome collapsed, the real answer was that it was exhausted. Clark, Civilization.
14 Civilization means something more than energy and will and creative power...a sense of permanence. Clark, Civilization.
18 All great civilizations, in their early stages, are based on success in war. Clark, Civilization.
163 …the first requisites of civilization are intellectual energy, freedom of mind, a sense of beauty and a craving for immortality…. Clark, Civilization.
167 [According to the Protestant critics of Catholicism]…no society based on obedience, repression and superstition can be really civilized. Clark, Civilization.
204 If, as I suppose, sympathy with all sorts and conditions of men and tolerance of human diversity can be an attribute of civilized life. Clark, Civilization.
212 All the greatest exponents of civilization, from Dante to Goethe, have been obsessed by light. Clark, Civilization.
251 I think it absolutely essential to civilization that the male and female principles be kept in balance. Clark, Civilization.
290 The periods in which men can work together happily inspired by a single aim last only a short time—it’s one of the tragedies of civilization. Clark, Civilization.
320 Balzac, with his prodigious understanding of human motives, scorns conventional values, defies fashionable opinion, as Beethoven did, and should inspire us to defy all those forces that threaten to impair our humanity: lies, tanks, tear-gas, ideologies, opinion polls, mechanization, planners, computers—the whole lot. Clark, Civilization.
346 I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. Clark, Civilization.
347 I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. Clark, Civilization.
347 On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. Clark, Civilization.
347 I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven’t changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history [which is] ourselves. Clark, Civilization.
347 …I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people’s feelings by satisfying our own egos. Clark, Civilization.
347 …I think we should remember that we are part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature [and that] all living things are our brothers and sisters. Clark, Civilization.
347 Above all, I believe in the God-given genius of certain individuals, and I value a society that makes their existence possible. Clark, Civilization.
347 …it is lack of confidence, more than anything else, that kills a civilization[;] we can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs. Clark, Civilization.
3 …Rousseau…argued that nature is good, and civilization bad; that by nature all men are equal, becoming unequal only by class-made institutions; and that law is an invention of the strong to chain and rule the weak. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
284 Kant: …nations will not really be civilized until all standing armies are abolished. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.
284 Kant: If we compare the barbarian instances of inhospitality…with the inhuman behavior of the civilized…and the injustice practiced by them even in their first contact with foreign lands and people fills with horror…America, the Negro lands…the Spice Islands, the Cape of Good Hope, etc., on being discovered, were treated as countries that belonged to nobody; for the aboriginal inhabitants were reckoned as nothing…and all this has been done by nations who make a great ado about their piety…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.
21 No one really cares what the private morals of the other fellow may be, but there must be some confidence that he will react in ordinary situations according to the familiar patterns and without too much aberration. Mencken, Minority Report.
145 ...fifth-century Greece and twelfth-century Chartres and early fifteenth-century Florence got on very well without [printing] and who shall say that they were less civilized than we are. Clark, Civilization.
323 I have tried throughout this series to define civilization in terms of creative power and the enlargement of human faculties; and from that point of view slavery is abominable. Clark, Civilization.
123 Civilizations…are transmitted from one generation to another in invisible puffs of air known as words…. Eiseley, The Star Thrower
380 Spencer: Until war is outlawed and overcome, civilization is a precarious interlude between catastrophes. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Herbert Spencer.
95 The society he [Plato] introduces us to is eminently civilized, of men delighting to use their minds, loving beauty and elegance...keenly alive to all the amenities of life, and, above all, ever ready for a talk on no matter how abstract and abstruse a subject. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.
64 If men had to earn [the right to vote] by some reasonably useful service to society, it would be much greater esteemed than it is now, and exercising it in a reckless or selfish way would become more or less shameful. Mencken, Minority Report.
1116 The majority of the people of that time paid no attention to the broad trend of the nation’s affairs, and were only influenced by their private concerns. Tolstoi, War and Peace
Civil Rights
873 MLK: “’Wait’ has always meant ‘Never.’” Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
531 Simple justice requires this program, he [Kennedy] would tell the Congress in concluding his Civil Rights message of June 19, 1963, “not merely for reasons of economic efficiency, world diplomacy and domestic tranquility—but, above all, because it is right.” Sorenson, Kennedy
Civil War
23 The men who fought for self-determination at Gettysburg were not the federals but the Confederates. Mencken, Minority Report.
Civility
277 JFK: ...civility is not a sign of weakness. Sorenson, Kennedy
Civilization
89 [Civilization] ...is a matter of imponderables, of delight in the things of the mind, of love of beauty, of honor, grace, courtesy, delicate feeling. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.
113 “Here where there are only bones asleep in their million-year long rotting, where the events of the Pliocene seem more real than those of civilization--that overnight fungus….” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley
354 Merlyn: What I meant by civilization when I invented it, was simply that people ought not to take advantage of weakness…. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
3 ...at certain epochs man has felt conscious of something about himself--body and spirit--which was outside the day-to-day struggle for existence and the night-to-night struggle with fear; and he has felt the need to develop these qualities of thought and feeling so that they might approach as nearly as possible to the ideal of perfection--reason, justice, physical beauty, all of them in equilibrium. Clark, Civilization.
3 ...however complex and solid [civilization] seems, it is actually quite fragile [and] can be destroyed. Clark, Civilization.
136 Sometimes of late years I find myself thinking the most beautiful sight in the world might be the birds taking over New York after the last man has run away to the hills. [civilization] Eiseley, The Immense Journey
315 Delacroix valued civilization all the more because he knew that it was fragile…. Clark, Civilization.
3 [Enemies of civilization]: Fear--fear of war, fear of invasion, fear of plague and famine, that makes it simply not worthwhile constructing things, or planting trees or even planning next year’s crops. Clark, Civilization.
4 ...[civilization] requires confidence--confidence in the society in which one lives, belief in its philosophy, belief in its laws, and confidence in one’s own mental powers. Clark, Civilization.
4 Vigor, energy, vitality: all the great civilizations...have had a weight of energy behind them. Clark, Civilization.
4 So if one asks why the civilization of Greece and Rome collapsed, the real answer was that it was exhausted. Clark, Civilization.
14 Civilization means something more than energy and will and creative power...a sense of permanence. Clark, Civilization.
18 All great civilizations, in their early stages, are based on success in war. Clark, Civilization.
163 …the first requisites of civilization are intellectual energy, freedom of mind, a sense of beauty and a craving for immortality…. Clark, Civilization.
167 [According to the Protestant critics of Catholicism]…no society based on obedience, repression and superstition can be really civilized. Clark, Civilization.
204 If, as I suppose, sympathy with all sorts and conditions of men and tolerance of human diversity can be an attribute of civilized life. Clark, Civilization.
212 All the greatest exponents of civilization, from Dante to Goethe, have been obsessed by light. Clark, Civilization.
251 I think it absolutely essential to civilization that the male and female principles be kept in balance. Clark, Civilization.
290 The periods in which men can work together happily inspired by a single aim last only a short time—it’s one of the tragedies of civilization. Clark, Civilization.
320 Balzac, with his prodigious understanding of human motives, scorns conventional values, defies fashionable opinion, as Beethoven did, and should inspire us to defy all those forces that threaten to impair our humanity: lies, tanks, tear-gas, ideologies, opinion polls, mechanization, planners, computers—the whole lot. Clark, Civilization.
346 I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. Clark, Civilization.
347 I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. Clark, Civilization.
347 On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. Clark, Civilization.
347 I believe that in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven’t changed much in the last two thousand years; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history [which is] ourselves. Clark, Civilization.
347 …I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people’s feelings by satisfying our own egos. Clark, Civilization.
347 …I think we should remember that we are part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature [and that] all living things are our brothers and sisters. Clark, Civilization.
347 Above all, I believe in the God-given genius of certain individuals, and I value a society that makes their existence possible. Clark, Civilization.
347 …it is lack of confidence, more than anything else, that kills a civilization[;] we can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion, just as effectively as by bombs. Clark, Civilization.
3 …Rousseau…argued that nature is good, and civilization bad; that by nature all men are equal, becoming unequal only by class-made institutions; and that law is an invention of the strong to chain and rule the weak. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
284 Kant: …nations will not really be civilized until all standing armies are abolished. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.
284 Kant: If we compare the barbarian instances of inhospitality…with the inhuman behavior of the civilized…and the injustice practiced by them even in their first contact with foreign lands and people fills with horror…America, the Negro lands…the Spice Islands, the Cape of Good Hope, etc., on being discovered, were treated as countries that belonged to nobody; for the aboriginal inhabitants were reckoned as nothing…and all this has been done by nations who make a great ado about their piety…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.
21 No one really cares what the private morals of the other fellow may be, but there must be some confidence that he will react in ordinary situations according to the familiar patterns and without too much aberration. Mencken, Minority Report.
145 ...fifth-century Greece and twelfth-century Chartres and early fifteenth-century Florence got on very well without [printing] and who shall say that they were less civilized than we are. Clark, Civilization.
323 I have tried throughout this series to define civilization in terms of creative power and the enlargement of human faculties; and from that point of view slavery is abominable. Clark, Civilization.
123 Civilizations…are transmitted from one generation to another in invisible puffs of air known as words…. Eiseley, The Star Thrower
380 Spencer: Until war is outlawed and overcome, civilization is a precarious interlude between catastrophes. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Herbert Spencer.
95 The society he [Plato] introduces us to is eminently civilized, of men delighting to use their minds, loving beauty and elegance...keenly alive to all the amenities of life, and, above all, ever ready for a talk on no matter how abstract and abstruse a subject. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Perspectives on Ideas. March 21, 2007.
Christmas
221 It [Christmas dinner] is an annual gathering of all the accessible members of the family, young or old, rich or poor; and all the children look forward to it, for two months beforehand, in a fever of anticipation; formerly it was held at grandpapa’s; but grandpapa is getting old, and grandmama is getting old too, and rather infirm, they have given up house-keeping, and domesticated themselves with Uncle George, so the party always takes place at Uncle George’s house, but grandmama sends in most of the good things, and grandpapa always will toddle down, all the way to Newgate Market to buy the turkey, which he engages a porter to bring home behind him in triumph, always insisting on the man’s being rewarded with a glass of spirits, over and above his hire, to drink “a merry Christmas and a happy new year to Aunt George.” Dickens, Sketches by Boz.
CIA
134 The agency’s (CIA) continuing problem is that a big part of its mission runs counter to the best of American ideals. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.
512 [Lyndon] Johnson to John McCone of the CIA: “I thought you guys had people everywhere, that you knew everything, and now you don’t even know anything about a raggedy-ass little fourth-rate country.” Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest
Circumstances
299 Thus do all things preach the indifferency of circumstances. Emerson, Compensation.
Cities
47 [London]: The last drunken man, who shall find his way home before sunlight, has just staggered heavily along, roaring out the burden of the drinking song of the previous night: the last houseless vagrant whom penury and police have left in the streets, has coiled up his chilly limbs in some paved corner, to dream of food and warmth. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.
71 [London]: In addition to the numerous groups who are idling about the gin-shops and squabbling in the center of the road, every post in the open space has its occupant, who leans against it for hours, with listless perseverance…one class of men in London appear to have no enjoyment beyond leaning against posts…idea of a man dressing himself in his best clothes to lean against a post all day. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.
72 Now anybody who passed through the Dials on a hot summer’s evening, and saw the different women of the house gossiping on the steps would be apt to think that all was harmony among them…Alas! the man in the shop ill-treats his family; the carpet-beater extends his professional pursuits to his wife; the one-pair front has an undying feud with the two-pair front, in consequence of the two-pair front persisting in dancing over his (the one-pair front’s) head, when he and his family have retired for the night; the two-pair back will interfere with the front kitchen’s children; the Irishman comes home drunk every other night, and attacks everybody; and the one-pair back screams at everything…animosities spring up between floor and floor…Mrs. A. “smacks” Mrs. B’s child for “making faces”; Mrs. B. forthwith throws cold water over Mrs. A’s child for “calling names.” Dickens, Sketches by Boz.
607 JFK: …to take people already confused by broken homes, overcrowded schools, hostile communities and fill them with such desperate resentment that, to affirm their own impalpable identities, they could not stop short of violence and murder. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
69 The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.
261 Johnson on London: It is not in the…buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
261 Johnson on London: But the intellectual…is struck with it [London], as comprehending the whole of human life in all its variety, the contemplation of which is inexhaustible. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
57 At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others—poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner—young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.
221 It [Christmas dinner] is an annual gathering of all the accessible members of the family, young or old, rich or poor; and all the children look forward to it, for two months beforehand, in a fever of anticipation; formerly it was held at grandpapa’s; but grandpapa is getting old, and grandmama is getting old too, and rather infirm, they have given up house-keeping, and domesticated themselves with Uncle George, so the party always takes place at Uncle George’s house, but grandmama sends in most of the good things, and grandpapa always will toddle down, all the way to Newgate Market to buy the turkey, which he engages a porter to bring home behind him in triumph, always insisting on the man’s being rewarded with a glass of spirits, over and above his hire, to drink “a merry Christmas and a happy new year to Aunt George.” Dickens, Sketches by Boz.
CIA
134 The agency’s (CIA) continuing problem is that a big part of its mission runs counter to the best of American ideals. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.
512 [Lyndon] Johnson to John McCone of the CIA: “I thought you guys had people everywhere, that you knew everything, and now you don’t even know anything about a raggedy-ass little fourth-rate country.” Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest
Circumstances
299 Thus do all things preach the indifferency of circumstances. Emerson, Compensation.
Cities
47 [London]: The last drunken man, who shall find his way home before sunlight, has just staggered heavily along, roaring out the burden of the drinking song of the previous night: the last houseless vagrant whom penury and police have left in the streets, has coiled up his chilly limbs in some paved corner, to dream of food and warmth. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.
71 [London]: In addition to the numerous groups who are idling about the gin-shops and squabbling in the center of the road, every post in the open space has its occupant, who leans against it for hours, with listless perseverance…one class of men in London appear to have no enjoyment beyond leaning against posts…idea of a man dressing himself in his best clothes to lean against a post all day. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.
72 Now anybody who passed through the Dials on a hot summer’s evening, and saw the different women of the house gossiping on the steps would be apt to think that all was harmony among them…Alas! the man in the shop ill-treats his family; the carpet-beater extends his professional pursuits to his wife; the one-pair front has an undying feud with the two-pair front, in consequence of the two-pair front persisting in dancing over his (the one-pair front’s) head, when he and his family have retired for the night; the two-pair back will interfere with the front kitchen’s children; the Irishman comes home drunk every other night, and attacks everybody; and the one-pair back screams at everything…animosities spring up between floor and floor…Mrs. A. “smacks” Mrs. B’s child for “making faces”; Mrs. B. forthwith throws cold water over Mrs. A’s child for “calling names.” Dickens, Sketches by Boz.
607 JFK: …to take people already confused by broken homes, overcrowded schools, hostile communities and fill them with such desperate resentment that, to affirm their own impalpable identities, they could not stop short of violence and murder. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days
69 The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.
261 Johnson on London: It is not in the…buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
261 Johnson on London: But the intellectual…is struck with it [London], as comprehending the whole of human life in all its variety, the contemplation of which is inexhaustible. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
57 At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others—poor young clerks who loitered in front of windows waiting until it was time for a solitary restaurant dinner—young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.
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