I'm self-centered, inconsiderate, and what was the third adjective? Oh, yes, and I have this infantile fantasy that one day I'll a...mount to something as an actress.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As words go crying after themselves, leaving the dream Upended in a puddle somewhere... As though "dead" were just another adjective.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The beginning of sense, not to say wisdom, is to realize that 'doing an action,' as used in philosophy, is a highly abstract expre...ssion--it is a stand-in used in the place of any (or almost any?) verb with a personal subject, in the same sort of way that 'thing' is a stand-in for any ... noun substantive, and 'quality' a stand-in for the adjective.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To suppose that "I know" is a descriptive phrase, is only one example of the descriptive fallacy, so common in philosophy. Even if... some language is now purely descriptive, language was not in origin so, and much of it is still not so. utterance of obvious ritual phrases, in the appropriate circumstances, is not describing the action we are doing, but doing it ("I do"): in other cases it functions, like tone and expression, or again like punctuation and mood, as an intimation that we are employing language in a special way ("I warn," "I ask," "I define"). Such phrases cannot, strictly, be lies, though they can "imply" lies, as "I promise" implies that I fully intend, which may be true.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Science is analytical, descriptive, informative. Man does not live by bread alone, but by science he attempts to do so. Hence the ...deadliness of all that is purely scientific.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One day the Nouns were clustered in the street. An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty.... The Nouns were struck, moved, changed. The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As the adjective is lost in the sentence, So I am lost in your eyes, ears, nose, and throat--... You have enchanted me with a single kiss Which can never be undone Until the destruction of language.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words.... Whoever writes English is involved in ...a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »