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 »
Hail, hail, plump paunch, O the founder of taste For fresh meats, or powdered, or pickle, or paste;... Devourer of broiled, baked, roasted or sod, And emptier of cups, be they even or odd; All which have now made thee so wide i' the waist As scarce with no pudding thou art to be laced; But eating and drinking until thou dost nod, Thou break'st all thy girdles, and break'st forth a god.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sanders: Oh Brown, I implore you to listen. Has your whole life been so filled with filthy, treacherous brawling and lust. And her...e and now, perhaps close to your death, the only thing for you to do is live it all over again in your mind.... But Brown, Brown, you're a gentleman, you've got breeding. You must have faith. Brown: Why? Sanders: Why? Why in heaven's name man, what do you believe in? Brown: What do I believe in? Would it really interest you? Oh, a lot of things. A good horse. Steak and kidney pudding. A fellow named George Brown. The asinine futility of this war. Being frightened. Being drunk enough to be brave and brave enough to be drunk. The feel of the sea when you swim. The taste and strength of wine. The love of innocent woman. [angrily] The splendid and unspeakable joy of killing Arabs. The smell of incense and bacon. The weight of a fist. An old pair of shoes. A toothache. Triumph.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Moving, you roll down the garment, down that pink snapper and hoarder,... as your belly, soft as pudding, slops into the empty space....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
That trunk of humors, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that .../>stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... when the Spaniards persecuted heretics they may have been crude, but they were not being unreasonable or unpractical. They wer...e at least wiser than the people of to-day who pretend that it does not matter what a man believes, as who should say that the flavour and digestibility of a pudding will have nothing to do with its ingredients.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »