Wit is a lean creature with sharp inquiring nose, whereas humor has a kindly eye and a comfortable girth. Wit, if it be necessary,... uses malice to score a point--like a cat it is quick to jump--but humor keeps the peace in an easy chair. Wit has a better voice in a solo, but humor comes into the chorus best. Wit is as sharp as a stroke of lightning, whereas humor is diffuse like sunlight. Wit keeps the season's fashions and is precise in the phrases and judgments of the day, but humor is concerned with homely eternal things. Wit wears silk, but humor in homely-spun endures the wind. Wit sets a snare, whereas humor goes off whistling without a victim in its mind. Wit is sharper company at the table, but humor serves better in mischance and in the rain. When it tumbles wit is sour, but humor goes uncomplaining without its dinner. Humor laughs at another's jest and holds its sides, while wit sits wrapped in study for a lively answer.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The cowboy ... is well on his way to becoming a figure of magnificent proportions. Bowlegged and gaunt, he stands as the apotheosi...s of manly perfection. Songs, novels, movies, magazines, and operettas have made the least inquiring of us well acquainted with his extraordinary courage, unfailing gallantry, and uncanny skill with gun or lariat. The farmer, meanwhile, sits stolidly on his tractor, bereft of romance and adventure.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have discovered the most exciting, the most arduous literary form of all, the most difficult to master, the most pregnant in cur...ious possibilities. I mean the advertisement.... It is far easier to write ten passably effective Sonnets, good enough to take in the not too inquiring critic, than one effective advertisement that will take in a few thousand of the uncritical buying public.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is no call for indignation or resentment at anyone whatsoever inquiring, holding, or propounding views concerning the d...ivine, for it is not the authority of the disputant, but the truth of the disputation that is in the request.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Still, it will sometimes strike a scientific man that the philosophers have been less intent on finding out what the facts are, th...an on inquiring what belief is most in harmony with their system.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Only the other day I was inquiring of an entire bed of old- fashioned roses, forced to listen to my ramblings on the meaning of th...e universe as I sat cross-legged in the lotus position in front of them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If there is nothing new on the earth, still the traveler always has a resource in the skies. They are constantly turning a new pag...e to view. The wind sets the types on this blue ground, and the inquiring may always read a new truth there.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The next day the Indian told me their name for this light,--artoosoq',--and on my inquiring concerning the will-o'-the-wisp, and t...he like phenomena, he said that his "folks" sometimes saw fires passing along at various heights, even as high as the trees, and making a noise. I was prepared after this to hear of the most startling and unimagined phenomena, witnessed by "his folks"; they are abroad at all hours and seasons in scenes so unfrequented by white men. Nature must have made a thousand revelations to them which are still secrets to us.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The best generals I have known were ... stupid or absent-minded men.... Not only does a good army commander not need any special q...ualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest and best human attributes--love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he is doing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient patience), and only then will he be a brave leader. God forbid that he should be humane, should love, or pity, or think of what is just and unjust.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It's a bad town to bring an appetite to, soldier. We've been here since yesterday morning and we've been living on boiled hay and ...razor blades.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »