Psycho-analysis pretends to investigate the Unconscious. The Unconscious by definition is what you are not conscious of. But the A...nalysts already know what's in it--they should, because they put it all in beforehand.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All cultural products contain a mixture of two elements: conventions and inventions. Conventions are elements which are known to b...oth the creator and his audience beforehand--they consist of things like favorite plots, stereotyped characters, accepted ideas, commonly known metaphors and other linguistic devices, etc. Inventions, on the other hand, are elements which are uniquely imagined by the creator, such as new kinds of characters, ideas, or linguistic forms.... Convention and invention have quite different cultural functions. Conventions represent familiar shared images and meanings and they assert an ongoing continuity of values; inventions confront us with a new perception of meaning which we have not realized before. Both these functions are important to culture. Conventions help maintain a culture's stability while inventions help it respond to changing circumstances and provide new information about the world.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... the only way in which Mr. Brooke could be coerced into thinking of the right arguments at the right time was to be well plied ...with them till they took up all the room in his brain. But here there was the difficulty of finding room, so many things having been taken in beforehand. Mr. Brooke himself observed that his ideas stood rather in his way when he was speaking.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I do not think that what is called Love at first sight is so great an absurdity as it is sometimes imagined to be. We generally ma...ke up our minds beforehand to the sort of person we should like, grave or gay, black, brown, or fair; with golden tresses or raven locks;--and when we meet with a complete example of the qualities we admire, the bargain is soon struck.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round! Parents first season us; then schoolmasters... Deliver us to laws; they send us bound To rules of reason, holy messengers, Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin, Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes, Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in, Bibles laid open, millions of surprises, Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness, The sound of glory ringing in our ears: Without, our shame; within, our consciences; Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears. Yet all these fences and their whole array One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A historian is not always a prophet facing backwards, but a journalist is always someone who afterwards knew everything beforehand....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Compassion is frequently a sense of our own misfortunes, in those of other men; it is an ingenious foresight of the disasters that... may fall upon us hereafter. We relieve others, that they may return the like when our occasions call for it; and the good offices we do them are, in strict speaking, so many kindnesses done to ourselves beforehand.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The world is wonderful and beautiful and good beyond one's wildest imagination. Never, never, never could one conceive what love i...s, beforehand, never. Life can be great--quite god-like. It can be so. God be thanked I have proved it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »