The laws of custom make our [returning a visit] necessary. O how I hate this vile custom which obliges us to make slaves of oursel...ves! to sell the most precious property we boast, our time;--and to sacrifice it to every prattling impertinent who chooses to demand it!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,... And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their perch and not their terror.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Roughly speaking, the President of the United States knows what his job is. Constitution and custom spell it out, for him as well ...as for us. His wife has no such luck. The First Lady has no rules; rather each new woman must make her own.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Let it be your constant method to look into the design of people's actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is pract...icable; and to make this custom the more significant, practise it first upon yourself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes. For all... men who say yes, lie; and all men who say no,--why, they are in the happy condition of judicious, unincumbered travellers in Europe; they cross the frontiers into Eternity with nothing but a carpet-bag,--that is to say, the Ego. Whereas those yes-gentry, they travel with heaps of baggage, and, damn them! they will never get through the Custom House.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Roman, remember that you shall rule the nations by your authority, for this is to be your skill, to make peace the custom, to spar...e the conquered, and to wage war until the haughty are brought low.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Having achieved political liberty for women this organization pledges itself to make an end to the subjection of women in all its ...remaining forms. Among our tasks we emphasize these: 1. To remove all barriers of law or custom or regulation which prevent women from holding public office--the highest as well as the lowest--from entering into and succeeding in any profession, from going into or getting on in any business, from practicing any trade of joining the union of her trade. 2. So to remake the marriage laws and so to modify public opinion that the status of the woman whose chosen work is homemaking shall no longer be that of the dependent entitled to her board and keep in return for her services, but that of a full partner. 3. To rid the country of all laws which deny women access to scientific information concerning the limitation of families. 4. To re-write the laws of divorce, of inheritance, of the guardianship of children, and the laws for the regulation of sexual morality and disease, on a basis of equality, equal rights, equal responsibilities, equal standards. 5. To legitimatize [sic] all children. 6. To establish a liberal endowment of motherhood.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue.... Moreover this activity ...must occupy a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All the scientists hope to do is describe the universe mathematically, predict it, and maybe control it. The philosopher, by contr...ast, seems unbecomingly ambitious. He wants to understand the universe; to get behind phenomena and operation and solve the logically prior riddles of being, knowledge, and value. But the artist, and in particular the novelist, in his essence wishes neither to explain nor to control nor to understand the universe. He wants to make one of his own, and may even aspire to make it more orderly, meaningful, beautiful, and interesting than the one God turned out. What's more, in the opinion of many readers of literature, he sometimes succeeds.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »