Why do our bodies wear out? Why can't we just go on and on and on, accumulating a potentially infinite number of Frequent Flyer mi...leage points? These are the kinds of questions that philosophers have been asking ever since they realized that being a philosopher did not involve any heavy lifting. And yet the answer is really very simple. Our bodies are mechanical devices, they break down. Some devices, such as battery-operated toys costing $39.95, break down almost instantly upon exposure to the Earth's atmosphere. Other devices, such as stereo systems owned by your next-door neighbor's 13-year-old son who likes to listen to bands with names like "Nerve Damage," at a volume capable of disintegrating limestone, will continue to function perfectly for many years, even if you hit them with an ax. But the fundamental law of physics is that sooner or later every mechanism ceases to function for one reason or another, and it is never covered under the warranty.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Falling in love with a United States Senator is a splendid ordeal. One is nestled snugly into the bosom of power but also placed s...quarely in the hazardous path of exposure.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The triumph of morality: A thief who has broken into a bedroom claims his sense of shame had been outraged, and by threatening the... occupants with exposure of an immoral act he blackmails them into not bringing charges for burglary.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The dominant and most deep-dyed trait of the journalist is his timorousness. Where the novelist fearlessly plunges into the water ...of self-exposure, the journalist stands trembling on the shore in his beach robe.... The journalist confines himself to the clean, gentlemanly work of exposing the griefs and shames of others.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The enormous social change involved in a sexual revolution is basically a matter of altered consciousness, the exposure and elimin...ation of social and psychological realities underlying political and cultural structures. We are speaking, then, of a cultural revolution, which, while it must necessarily involve the political and economic reorganization traditionally implied by the term revolution, must go far beyond this as well.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Women endure all sorts of devitalizing conditions better than men: starvation, exposure, fatigue, shock, illness, and the like. Th...is immediately raises the question of the supposed "weakness" of the female. Is not the female supposed to be "the weaker vessel"? "Weakness" is a misleading word that has, in this connection, confused most people. "Feminine weakness" has generally meant that the female is more fragile and in general less strong than the male. But the fact is that the female is constitutionally stronger than the male and muscularly less powerful; she has greater stamina and lives longer. The male pays heavily for his larger body build and muscular power. Because his expenditure of energy is greater than that of the female, he burns himself out more rapidly and hence dies at an earlier age. The metabolic rate of the male ... is some 6 to 7 per cent higher than that of the female.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He was a man of Spartan habits, and at sixty was scrupulous about his diet at your table, excusing himself by saying that he must ...eat sparingly and fare hard, as became a soldier, or one who was fitting himself for difficult enterprises, a life of exposure.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »