Then he took his staff in his hand, and chose five smooth stones from the wadi, and put them in his shepherd s bag, in the pouch; ...his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Though Americans talk a good deal about the virtue of being serious, they generally prefer people who are solemn over people who a...re serious. In politics, the rare candidate who is serious, like Adlai Stevenson, is easily overwhelmed by one who is solemn, like General Eisenhower. This is probably because it is hard for most people to recognize seriousness, which is rare, especially in politics, but comfortable to endorse solemnity, which is as commonplace as jogging.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As for types like my own, obscurely motivated by the conviction that our existence was worthless if we didn't make a turning point... of it, we were assigned to the humanities, to poetry, philosophy, painting--the nursery games of humankind, which had to be left behind when the age of science began. The humanities would be called upon to choose a wallpaper for the crypt, as the end drew near.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Now that Stevenson is dead I can think of but one English- speaking author who is really keeping his self-respect and sticking for... perfection. Of course I refer to that mighty master of language and keen student of human actions and motives, Henry James.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As we walked homeward across the fields, the sun dropped and lay like a great golden globe in the low west. While it hung there, t...he moon rose in the east, as big as a cart-wheel, pale silver and streaked with rose colour, thin as a bubble or a ghost-moon. For five, perhaps ten minutes, the two luminaries confronted each other across the level land, resting on opposite edges of the world. In that singular light every little tree and shock of wheat, every sunflower stalk and clump of snow-on-the-mountain, drew itself up high and pointed; the very clods and furrows in the fields seemed to stand up sharply. I felt the old pull of the earth, the solemn magic that comes out of those fields at nightfall. I wished I could be a little boy again, and that my way could end there.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day, I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away,... And, turning from my nursery window, drew A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian ...steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi'ite fundamentalists.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A woman drew her long black hair out tight And fiddled whisper music on those strings... And bats with baby faces in the violet light Whistled, and beat their wings And crawled head downward down a blackened wall....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »