It's a damn shame we have this immediate ticking off in the mind about how people sound. On the other hand, how many people really... want to be operated upon by a surgeon who talks broad cockney?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Christianity has operated with an unmitigated arrogance and cruelty--necessarily, since a religion ordinarily imposes on those who... have discovered the true faith the spiritual duty of liberating the infidels.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Why do our bodies wear out? Why can't we just go on and on and on, accumulating a potentially infinite number of Frequent Flyer mi...leage points? These are the kinds of questions that philosophers have been asking ever since they realized that being a philosopher did not involve any heavy lifting. And yet the answer is really very simple. Our bodies are mechanical devices, they break down. Some devices, such as battery-operated toys costing $39.95, break down almost instantly upon exposure to the Earth's atmosphere. Other devices, such as stereo systems owned by your next-door neighbor's 13-year-old son who likes to listen to bands with names like "Nerve Damage," at a volume capable of disintegrating limestone, will continue to function perfectly for many years, even if you hit them with an ax. But the fundamental law of physics is that sooner or later every mechanism ceases to function for one reason or another, and it is never covered under the warranty.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The art of the critic in a nutshell: to coin slogans without betraying ideas. The slogans of an inadequate criticism peddle ideas ...to fashion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
With two sons born eighteen months apart, I operated mainly on automatic pilot through the ceaseless activity of their early child...hood. I remember opening the refrigerator late one night and finding a roll of aluminum foil next to a pair of small red tennies. Certain that I was responsible for the refrigerated shoes, I quickly closed the door and ran upstairs to make sure I had put the babies in their cribs instead of the linen closet.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The shrewd guess, the fertile hypothesis, the courageous leap to a tentative conclusion--these are the most valuable coin of the t...hinker at work. But in most schools guessing is heavily penalized and is associated somehow with laziness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For he could coin, or counterfeit New words, with little or no wit;... Words so debas'd and hard, no stone Was hard enough to touch them on; And when with hasty noise he spoke 'em; The ignorant for current took 'em;LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Constancy ... that small change of love, which people exact so rigidly, receive in such conterfeit coin, and repay in baser metal.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Now blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep: it covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; 'tis mea...t for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot. 'Tis the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap; and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise-man even. There is only one thing ... that I dislike in sleep; 'tis that it resembles death; there's very little difference between a man in his first sleep, and a man in his last sleep.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is not funny that a man should be killed, but it is sometimes funny that he should be killed for so little, and that his death ...should be the coin of what we call civilization.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »