Looking back over a decade one sees the ideal of a university become a myth, a vision, a meadow lark among the smoke stacks. Yet p...erhaps it is there at Princeton, only more elusive than under the skies of the Prussian Rhineland or Oxfordshire; or perhaps some men come upon it suddenly and possess it, while others wander forever outside. Even these seek in vain through middle age for any corner of the republic that preserves so much of what is fair, gracious, charming and honorable in American life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The men--the undergraduates of Yale and Princeton are cleaner, healthier, better-looking, better dressed, wealthier and more attra...ctive than any undergraduate body in the country.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Princeton is no longer a thing for Princeton men to please themselves with. Princeton is a thing with which Princeton men must sat...isfy the country.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Everything necessarily is or is not, and will be or will not be; but one cannot divide and say that one or the other is necessary.... I mean, for example: it is necessary for there to be or not to be a sea-battle tomorrow; but it is not necessary for a sea-battle to take place tomorrow, or for one not to take place--though it is necessary for one to take place or not to take place.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize.... And a man who is puzzled and wonder...s thinks himself ignorant ...; therefore since they philosophized in order to escape from ignorance, evidently they were pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able... to obtain the truth adequately, while on the other hand, no one fails entirely, but everyone says something true about the nature of things, and while individually they contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed. Therefore, since the truth seems to be like the proverbial door, which no one can fail to hit, in this way it is easy, but the fact that we can have a whole truth, and not the particular part we aim at shows the difficulty of it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of al...l.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good h...as rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Our discussion will be adequate; if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of; for precision is not to be sought fo...r alike in all discussions, and more than in all the products of the crafts. Now fine and just actions, which political science investigates, exhibit much variety and fluctuation, so that they may be thought to exist only by convention, and not by nature. And goods also exhibit a similar fluctuation.... We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premises, to indicate the truth roughly and in outline.... In the same spirit, therefore, should each of our statements be received; for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits: it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician demonstrative proofs.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »