Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions. A Republic i...s a government in which that attention is divided between many, who are all doing uninteresting actions. Accordingly, so long as the human heart is strong and the human reason weak, Royalty will be strong because it appeals to diffused feeling, and Republics weak because they appeal to the understanding.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It would be enough for me to have the system of a jury of twelve versus the system of one judge as a basis for preferring the U.S.... to the Soviet Union.... I would prefer the country you can leave to the country you cannot.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The purpose of a work of fiction is to appeal to the lingering after-effects in the reader's mind as differing from, say, the purp...ose of oratory or philosophy which respectively leave people in a fighting or thoughtful mood.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When we retreat to the country, we are hiding not from people, but from our pride, which, in the city and among people, operates u...nfairly and immoderately.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
How might one describe Max Beerbohm to someone who knows nothing about him? Well, for a start, one might imagine D.H. Lawrence. Pi...cture the shagginess of Lawrence, his thick beard, his rough-cut clothes, his disdain for all the social and physical niceties. Recall his passionateness--his passion, so to say, for passion itself--his darkness, his gloom. Think back to his appeal to the primary instincts, his personal messianism, his refusal to deal with anything smaller than capital "D" Destiny. Do not neglect his humorlessness, his distaste for all that otherwise passed for being civilized, his blood theories and manifold roiling hatreds. Have you, then, D.H. Lawrence firmly in mind? Splendid. Now reverse all of Lawrence's qualities and you will have a fair beginning notion of Max Beerbohm, who, after allowing that Lawrence was a man of "unquestionable genius," felt it necessary to add, "he never realized, don't you know--he never suspected that to be stark, staring mad is somewhat of a handicap to a writer."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Two more contrabands yesterday. These runaways are bright fellows. As a body they are superior to the average of the uneducated wh...ite population of this State. More intelligent, I feel confident. What a good-for-nothing people the mass of these western Virginians are! Unenterprising, lazy, narrow, listless, and ignorant. Careless of consequences to the country if their own lives and property are safe. Slavery leaves one class, the wealthy, with leisure for cultivation. They are usually intelligent, well-bred, brave, and high-spirited. The rest are serfs.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[The Republican Party] consists of those who, believing in the doctrine that mankind are capable of governing themselves and hatin...g hereditary power as an insult to the reason and an outrage to the rights of men, are naturally offended at every public measure that does not appeal to the understanding and to the general interest of the community.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A fact is a proposition of which the verification by an appeal to the primary sources of our knowledge or to experience is direct ...and simple. A theory, on the other hand, if true, has all the characteristics of a fact except that its verification is possible only by indirect, remote, and difficult means.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »