Those who have handled sciences have either been men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of experiment are like the ant; they ...only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course; it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If I had my way books would not be written in English, but in an exceedingly difficult secret language that only skilled professio...nal readers and story-tellers could interpret. Then people like you would have to go to public halls and pay good prices to hear the professionals decode and read the books aloud for you. This plan would have the advantage of scaring off all amateur authors, retired politicians, country doctors and I- Married-a-Midget writers who would not have the patience to learn the secret language.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Too much traffic with a quotation book begets a conviction of ignorance in a sensitive reader. Not only is there a mass of quotabl...e stuff he never quotes, but an even vaster realm of which he has never heard.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Very roughly, the drama may be called that part of theatrical art which lends itself most readily to intellectual discussion; what... is left is theater. Drama is immensely durable; after a thousand critical disputes, it is still there, undiminished, ready for the next wranglers. Theater is magical and evanescent; examine it closely and it turns into tricks of lighting, or the grace of a particular gesture, or the tone of a voice--and these are not its substance, but the rubbish that is left when magic has departed. Theater is the response, the echo, which drama awakens within us when we see it on the stage.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »