The man whose action habitually bears the stamp of his mind is a genius, but the greatest genius is not always equal to himself, o...r he would cease to be human.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The gaze implies a concentration of the spectator's activity into that of looking, the glance implies that no extraordinary effort... is being invested in the activity of looking. The very terms we habitually use to designate the person who watches TV or the cinema screen tend to indicate this difference. The cinema-looker is a spectator: caught by the projection yet separate from its illusion. The TV looker is a viewer, casting a lazy eye over proceedings, keeping an eye on events, or, as the slightly archaic designation had it, "looking in."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is so manifestly incompatible with those precautions for our peace and safety, which all the great powers habitually observe an...d enforce in matters affecting them, that a shorter water way between our eastern and western seaboards should be dominated by any European government, that we may confidently expect that such a purpose will not be entertained by any friendly power.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What the South most needs is "peace," and peace depends upon the supremacy of the law. There can be no enduring peace if the const...itutional rights of any portion of the people are habitually disregarded.... All parts of the Constitution are sacred and must be sacredly observed--the parts that are new no less than the parts that are old. The moral and national prosperity of the Southern States can be most effectively advanced by a hearty and generous recognition of the rights of all, by all--a recognition without reserve or exception. With such a recognition fully accorded it will be practicable to promote, by the influence of all the legitimate agencies of the General Government, the efforts of the people of those States to obtain for themselves the blessings of honest and capable local government.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A full-dressed ecclesiastic is a sort of go-cart of divinity; an ethical automaton. A clerical prig is, in general, a very dangero...us as well as contemptible character. The utmost that those who thus habitually confound their opinions and sentiments with the outside coverings of their bodies can aspire to, is a negative and neutral character, like wax-work figures, where the dress is done as much to the life as the man, and where both are respectable pieces of pasteboard, or harmless compositions of fleecy hosiery.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What were habitually his final meditations? Of some one sole unique advertisement to cause passers to stop in wonder, a poster nov...elty, with all extraneous accretions excluded, reduced to its simplest and most efficient terms not exceeding the span of casual vision and congruous with the velocity of modern life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Here is one of the fundamental defects of American fiction--perhaps the one character that sets it off sharply from all other know...n kinds of contemporary fiction. It habitually exhibits, not a man of delicate organization in revolt against the inexplicable tragedy of existence, but a man of low sensibilities and elemental desires yielding himself gladly to his environment, and so achieving what, under a third-rate civilization, passes for success. To get on: this is the aim. To weigh and reflect, to doubt and rebel: this is the thing to be avoided.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[He] didn't dare to, because his father had a weak heart and habitually threatened to drop dead if anybody hurt his feelings. You ...may have noticed that people with weak hearts are the tyrants of English married life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »