Most works of literature have a beginning, middle, and an end. Most works of pornography do not. A typical piece of pornographic f...iction will usually have some kind of crude excuse for a beginning, but having once begun, it goes on and on and ends nowhere. This impulse or compulsion to repeat, to repeat endlessly, is one of pornography's most striking qualities. A pornographic work of fiction characteristically develops by unremitting repetition and minute mechanical variation--the words that may describe the process are again, again, again, and more, more, more. We also observed that although pornography is obsessed with the idea of pleasure, of infinite pleasure, the idea of gratification, of an end to pleasure (pleasure being here an endless experience of retentiveness, without release) cannot develop. If form in art consists in the arousal in the reader of certain expectations and the fulfillment of those expectations, then in this context too pornography is resistant to form and opposed to art. For fulfillment implies completion, gratification, an end; and it is as an end, a conclusion of any kind, that pornography most resists. The ideal pornographic novel, I should repeat, would go on forever.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.... Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And the shuttle never falters, but to draw an encouraging conclusion From this would be considerable, too odd. Why not just...r />Breathe in with the courage of each day, recognizing yourself as one Who must with difficulty get down from high places?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The shrewd guess, the fertile hypothesis, the courageous leap to a tentative conclusion--these are the most valuable coin of the t...hinker at work. But in most schools guessing is heavily penalized and is associated somehow with laziness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The source of our actions resides in an unconscious propensity to regard ourselves as the center, the cause, and the conclusion of... time. Our reflexes and our pride transform into a planet the parcel of flesh and consciousness we are.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The English public are not yet ripe to comprehend the essential difference between the reason and the understanding,--between a pr...inciple and a maxim--an eternal truth and a mere conclusion from a generalization of a great number of facts.... Suppose Adam watching the sun sinking under the horizon for the first time; he is seized with gloom and terror, relieved with scarce a ray of hope of ever seeing the glorious light again. The next evening when it declines, his hopes are stronger but mixed with fear, and even at the end of 1000 years, all that a man can feel, is hope and an expectation so strong as to preclude anxiety. Compare this in its highest degree with the assurance which you have that the two sides of any triangle are greater than the third. This demonstrated of one triangle is seen to be eternally true of all imaginable triangles. This is the truth perceived at once by the reason, wholly independently of experience. It is and must ever be so, multiply and vary the shapes and sizes of triangles as you may.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes thoughts; and these thoughts, although making a visual design on the chess-bo...ard, express their beauty abstractly, like a poem.... I have come to the personal conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »