The criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifyability. We say that a... sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express--that is, if he knows what observations would lead him, under certain conditions, to accept the proposition as true, or reject it as being false.... To make our position clearer, we may formulate it in another way. Let us call a proposition which records an actual or possible observation an experiential proposition. Then we may say that it is the mark of a genuine factual proposition, not that it should be equivalent to an experiential proposition, or any finite number of experiential propositions, but simply that some experiential propositions can be deduced from it in conjunction with certain other premises without being deducible from those other premises alone.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I thus could not live, and I admitted it, unless on the entire earth, all creatures, or at least the greatest number, were turned ...toward me, eternally vacant, deprived of an independent life, ready at any moment to respond to my call, given to sterility until the day I deigned to grace them with my light. In short, for me to live happily, it was necessary for those chosen by me not to live at all.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When we study human language, we are approaching what some might call the 'human essence,' the distinctive qualities of mind that ...are, so far as we know, unique to man and that are inseparable from any critical phase of human existence, personal or social. Hence the fascination of this study, and, no less, its frustration. The frustration arises from the coming to grips with the core problem of human language, which I take to be this: having mastered a language, one is able to understand an indefinite number of expressions that are new to one's experience, that bear no simply physical resemblance and are in no simple way analogous to the expressions that constitute one's linguistic experience; and one is able ... to produce such expressions on an appropriate occasion, despite their novelty.... The normal use of language is, in this sense, a creative activity. This creative aspect of normal language use is one fundamental factor that distinguishes human language from any known system of animal communication.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognise out of a number of facts which are incidental and... which are vital.... I would call your attention to the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." "The dog did nothing in the night-time." "That was the curious incident."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Adults have their defense against time; it is called "responsibility," and once one assumes it he can transform his life into a se...t of routines which will account for all those hours when he is stale or tired. It is not size or age or childishness that separates children from adults. It is "responsibility." Adults come in all sizes, ages, and differing varieties of childishness, but as long as they have "responsibility" we recognize, often by the light gone out of their eyes, that they are what we call grownup. When grownups cope with "responsibility" for enough number of years they are retired from it. They are given, in exchange, a "leisure problem." They sit around with their "leisure problem" and try to figure out what to do with it. Sometimes they go crazy. Sometimes they get other jobs. Sometimes it gets too much for them and they die. They have been handed an undetermined future of nonresponsible time and they don't know what to do about it. And that is precisely the way it is with children. Time is the everpresent factor in their lives. It passes slowly or fast, always against their best interests: good time is over in a minute; bad time takes forever. Short on "responsibility," they are confronted with a "leisure problem."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Even in ordinary speech we call a person unreasonable whose outlook is narrow, who is conscious of one thing only at a time, and w...ho is consequently the prey of his own caprice, whilst we describe a person as reasonable whose outlook is comprehensive, who is capable of looking at more than one side of a question and of grasping a number of details as parts of a whole.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Ah, I fancy it is just the same with most of what you call your "emancipation." You have read yourself into a number of new ideas ...and opinions. You have got a sort of smattering of recent discoveries in various fields--discoveries that seem to overthrow certain principles which have hitherto been held impregnable and unassailable. But all this has only been a matter of intellect, Miss West--superficial acquisition. It has not passed into your blood.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The serial number of a human specimen is the face, that accidental and unrepeatable combination of features. It reflects neither c...haracter nor soul, nor what we call the self. The face is only the serial number of a specimen.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The connection between ad and sale, so direct in classified ads, or between ad and consumer contact, reasonably direct in the Janu...ary white sale ad, is very remote in the national consumer-goods ad. It is indirect in both space and time. The commercial for Coca-Cola or Alka Seltzer does not say how the customer can buy the advertised product; it does not typically announce a phone number to call or a place to shop. It takes for granted the consumer's shopping skills and it assumes the successful distribution of the product to retail stores. In time, it does not presume a quick response of customers to its efforts. It does not presume that the consumers it wants to reach will see any given showing of the ad or, seeing it, quickly respond by buying. It is a general reminder or reinforcer, not an urgent appeal to go out and buy. What the ad says or pictures, then, is obliged to be relatively placeless and relatively timeless. National consumer-goods advertising is highly abstracted and self-contained.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account... of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Suffragists, hear this last call to a suffrage convention! The officers of the National American Woman Suffrage Association hereby call their State auxiliaries, through their elected delegates, to meet in annual convention at Chicago, Congress Hotel, February 12th to 18th, inclusive. In other days our members and friends have been summoned to annual conventions to disseminate the propaganda for their common cause, to cheer and encourage each other, to strengthen their organized influence, to counsel as to ways and means of insuring further progress. At this time they are called to rejoice that the struggle is over, the aim achieved and the women of the nation about to enter into the enjoyment of their hard-earned political liberty. Of all the conventions held within the past fifty-one years, this will prove the most momentous. Few people live to see the actual and final realization of hopes to which they have devoted their lives. That privilege is ours.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »