Traditionally Southern statesmen have been orators. A society emphasizing social rituals and manners requires a kind of reverence ...for words to adequately express sentiment and feeling. The dregs of this rhetoric remain the stock in trade of the grass roots politicians. The Southerner generally does not shy away--to the extent the Northerner does--from a use of language that is something more than bare statement. The Northerner, with his conditioned respect for practicality and getting-to-the-point is more likely to possess a far greater reading than speaking vocabulary and to associate anything more than simple expression with ostentation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is nothing in our book, the Koran, that teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peace...ful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery. That's a good religion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It's just like when you've got some coffee that's too black, which means it's too strong. What do you do? You integrate it with cr...eam, you make it weak. But if you pour too much cream in it, you won't even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it puts you to sleep.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
But speak the truth, and all nature and all spirits help you with unexpected furtherance. Speak the truth, and all things alive or... brute are vouchers, and the very roots of the grass underground there do seem to stir and move to bear you witness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All the distinguished writers of that period [the Renaissance] possess a greater vigor and naturalness than the more modern,--for ...it is allowed to slander our own time,--and when we read a quotation from one of them in the midst of a modern author, we seem to have come suddenly upon a greener ground, a greater depth and strength of soil. It is as if a green bough were laid across the page, and we are refreshed as by the sight of fresh grass in midwinter or early spring. You have constantly the warrant of life and experience in what you read. The little that is said is eked out by implication of the much that was done. The sentences are verdurous and blooming as evergreen and flowers, because they are rooted in fact and experience, but our false and florid sentences have only the tints of flowers without their sap or roots.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The beach-grass is "two to four feet high, of a sea-green color," and it is said to be widely diffused over the world. In the Hebr...ides it is used for mats, pack-saddles, bags, hats, etc.: paper has been made of it at Dorchester in this State, and cattle eat it when tender. It has heads somewhat like rye, from six inches to a foot in length, and it is propagated both by roots and seeds. To express its love for sand, some botanists have called it Psamma arenaria, which is the Greek for sand, qualified by the Latin for sandy,--or sandy sand. As it is blown about by the wind, while it is held fast by its roots, it describes myriad circles in the sand as accurately as if they were made by compasses.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »