Thinking is seeing.... Every human science is based on deduction, which is a slow process of seeing by which we work up from the e...ffect to the cause; or, in a wider sense, all poetry like every work of art proceeds from a swift vision of things.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The higher the state of civilization, the more completely do the actions of one member of the social body influence all the rest, ...and the less possible is it for any one man to do a wrong thing without interfering, more or less, with the freedom of all his fellow-citizens.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In France it is rude to let a conversation drop; in England it is rash to keep it up. No one there will blame you for silence. Whe...n you have not opened your mouth for three years, they will think: "This Frenchman is a nice quiet fellow." Be modest. An Englishman will say, "I have a little house in the country"; when he invites you to stay with him you will discover that the little house is a place with three hundred bedrooms. If you are a world tennis-champion, say, "Yes, I don't play too badly." If you have crossed the Atlantic alone in a small boat, say, "I do a little sailing."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
...these little girls spoke of going to one school or the other later on, of perhaps they would decide not to practice their music... that day, or see if they could put off their dancing lesson till another hour. Things seemed to happen with them, sometimes one way, sometimes another, while with me there was a definite aim, and things just had to happen at a certain time. My one aim was to do a thing well, and to excel if possible. This outside life, where things seemed to go on without apparent necessity, held me in thrall.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There are a sort of men whose visages Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,... And do a willful stillness entertain, With purpose to be dressed in an opinion Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit, As who should say, "I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[I have] been in love with one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so, till I die, being firmly persu...aded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I've dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and sh...aved it down till the average is three and a half.... I never write "metropolis" for seven cents, because I can get the same money for "city." I never write "policeman," because I can get the same price for "cop." ... I never write "valetudinarian" at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn't do it for fifteen.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I don't think men respect women ... [ellipsis in original] I don't think they really respect their opinions. I don't think they re...ally respect their ability to do a job. And, therefore, when it comes to the business of hiring somebody, they're always sort of hanging back and suspicious whether the woman would actually be able to do it. Meantime, these people that are doing this to you are people that you swamped when you were going through school. I don't mean that in a bitter way. I mean this is a fact of life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Next we come to the bronchial buster, or the man (it is usually a man) who, being in the throes of a terrific throat and tube trou...ble chooses that night for theater-going.... He will soon learn to pick his pauses with finesse. It does no good to cough while there is a great deal of noise going on on the stage. No one can hear. The time is just as the star is about to do a little low speaking to her dying lover or when the hero, alone in his garret, goes silently over to the fireplace and tears up the letter. There for a good rousing bark, my hearty, followed by a series of short sharp ones like those of a coxswain! If possible the appearance of apoplexy should be simulated.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »