Richard Burton is now my epitaph, my cross, my title, my image. I have achieved a kind of diabolical fame. It has nothing to do wi...th my talents as an actor. That counts for little now. I am the diabolically famous Richard Burton.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
On a tree by a river a little tom-tit Sang "Willow, titwillow, titwillow!"... And I said to him, "Dicky-bird, why do you sit Singing, 'Willow, titwillow, titwillow'? Is it a weakness of intellect, birdie?" I cried, "Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The two great things yet to be discovered are these--The Art of rejuvenating old age in men, & oldageifying youth in books.--Who i...n the name of the trunk-makers would think of reading Old Burton were his book published for the first to day.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I never wear my best coat on a journey, though perchance I could show a certificate to prove that I have a more costly one, at lea...st, at home, if that were all that a gentleman required. It is not wise for a traveler to go dressed. I should no more think of it than of putting on a clean dicky and blacking my shoes to go a-fishing; as if you were going out to dine, when, in fact, the genuine traveler is going out to work hard, and fare harder,--to eat a crust by the wayside whenever he can get it. Honest traveling is about as dirty work as you can do, and a man needs a pair of overalls for it. As for blacking my shoes in such a case, I should as soon think of blacking my face.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You know I'd a shot her when she come runnin' up here, but she's got the blame best lookin' legs I ever seen.... Well, I'll be a s...uck egg mule--legs like that and can shoot too.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Burke and Adams had much in common. Adams read Burke's Philosophical Inquiry, for example, as part of his preparation for life and... a career. Burke--who had sympathized with the American Revolution--after all, the patriots were only seeking their rights as Englishmen--became the avowed enemy of the French Revolution. Adams for his part was not only a thinker, he was a doer: a daring patriot, diplomat, vice-president and president. Yet he never abandoned the life of the mind, as his discourse against the French Revolution attests. Burke and Adams had their similar views on events because they each saw man as disposed to selfishness, requiring public institutions to which civic allegiance is owed to restrain those ignoble instincts so that the virtuous side of people would have a chance to flourish. It was, oddly, an optimism based on a pessimistic estimate of human nature.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »