What if we fail to stop the erosion of cities by automobiles?... In that case America will hardly need to ponder a mystery that ha...s troubled men for millennia: What is the purpose of life? For us, the answer will be clear, established and for all practical purposes indisputable: The purpose of life is to produce and consume automobiles.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Most people can swim a narrow river. Water is an alien element, but with labor we can force ourselves through it. A good swimmer c...an cross a wide river, a lake, even the English Channel; no one, as far as we know, has ever swum the Atlantic Ocean, or is likely to do so. Even a champion swimmer, if he had business which required to spend alternate weeks in Paris and London, would not make the trip regularly by swimming the English Channel. Although we can force ourselves through water by skill and main strength, for all practical purposes our ability to traverse water is only as good as our ships or our airplanes. And so with the activities of our brains. Thinking is probably as foreign to human nature as is water; it is an unnatural element into which we throw ourselves with hesitation, and in which we flounder once we are there. We have learned, during the millenniums, to do rather well with thinking, but only if we buoy ourselves up with words. Some thinking of a simple sort we can do without words, but difficult and sustained thinking, presumably, is completely impossible without their aid, as traversing the Atlantic Ocean is presumably impossible without instruments or supramarine transportation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It will be no excuse to an idle and untoward servant, who would not attend his business by candle-light, to plead that he had not ...broad sun-shine. The candle, that is set up in us, shines bright enough for all our purposes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A man is reputed to have thought and eloquence; he cannot, for all that, say a word to his cousin or his uncle. They accuse his si...lence with as much reason as they would blame the insignificance of a dial in the shade. In the sun it will mark the hour. Among those who enjoy his thought, he will regain his tongue.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For all the saints who from their labors rest, Who, to the world their steadfast faith confessed,... your name, O Jesus, be forever blessed Alleluia!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It should be noted that when he seizes a state the new ruler ought to determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He ...should inflict them once and for all, and not have to renew them every day.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday ...purposes amounts to certainty; the new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Is it true or false that Belfast is north of London? That the galaxy is the shape of a fried egg? That Beethoven was a drunkard? T...hat Wellington won the battle of Waterloo? There are various degrees and dimensions of success in making statements: the statements fit the facts always more or less loosely, in different ways on different occasions for different intents and purposes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The nature of Man and his condition in the world, for the first time within the period of certain history, controlled the formatio...n of the State. The necessity of the colonists wrote the law. Their wants, their poverty, their manifest convenience made them bold to ask of the Governor and of the General Court, immunities, and to certain purposes, sovereign powers. The townsmen's words were heard and weighed, for all knew that it was a petitioner that could not be slighted; it was the river, or the winter, or famine, or the Pequots, that spoke through them to the Governor and Council of Massachusetts.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »