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 »
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; i...t is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician demonstrative proofs.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Waldo Lydecker: Laura considered me the wisest, the wittiest, the most interesting man she'd ever met. I was in complete accord wi...th her on that point.... She thought me also the kindest, the gentlest, the most sympathetic man in the world. Detective Mark McPherson: Did you agree with her there, too? Waldo Lydecker: McPherson, you won't understand this, but I've tried to become the kindest, gentlest, the most sympathetic man in the world. Detective Mark McPherson: Have any luck? Waldo Lydecker: Let me put it this way: I shall be sincerely sorry to see my neighbor's children devoured by wolves.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For all our penny-wisdom, for all our soul-destroying slavery to habit, it is not to be doubted that all men have sublime thoughts...; that all men value the few real hours of life; they love to be heard; they love to be caught up into the vision of principles. We mark with light in the memory the few interviews we have had, in the dreary years of routine and of sin, with souls that made our souls wiser; that spoke what we thought; that told us what we knew; that gave us leave to be what we only were.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I know that I will always be expected to have extra insight into black texts--especially texts by black women. A working-class Jew...ish woman from Brooklyn could become an expert on Shakespeare or Baudelaire, my students seemed to believe, if she mastered the language, the texts, and the critical literature. But they would not grant that a middle-class white man could ever be a trusted authority on Toni Morrison.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Ermined and minked and Persian-lambed, Be-puffed (be-painted, too, alas!)... Be-decked, be-diamonded--be-damned! The Women of the Better Class.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Had middle class black women begun a movement in which they had labeled themselves "oppressed," no one would have taken them serio...usly.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No matter how well-born, how intelligent, how highly educated, how virtuous, how rich, how refined, the women of to-day constitute... a political class below that of every man, no matter how base-born, how stupid, how ignorant, how vicious, how poverty-stricken, how brutal. The pauper in the almshouse may vote; the lady who devotes her philanthropic thought to making that almshouse habitable, may not. The tramp who begs cold victuals in the kitchen may vote; the heiress who feeds him and endows universities may not.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I assure you that in our next class we will concern ourselves solely with the history of Egypt, and not with the more lurid and no...n-curricular subject of living mummies.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To most middle-class feminists, as to most middle-class non-feminists, working-class women remain mysterious creatures to be "reac...hed out to" in some abstract way. No connection. No solidarity.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »