The white man regards the universe as a gigantic machine hurtling through time and space to its final destruction: individuals in ...it are but tiny organisms with private lives that lead to private deaths: personal power, success and fame are the absolute measures of values, the things to live for. This outlook on life divides the universe into a host of individual little entities which cannot help being in constant conflict thereby hastening the approach of the hour of their final destruction.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There are various forms of the disease which the victim is unable to say "No." Some of these forms are more serious than others, a...nd often lead to electrocution or marriage.... "No-phobia" reaches its height of futility when someone is giving you directions as to how to reach some place that you really want to reach.... The result is, I spend the night crashing up and down the wrong streets and am known as a boor who never arrives on time. And all because I didn't have the guts to say, "I haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It might easily be made a physical impossibility for criminals, hereditary paupers, imbeciles, profligates, and others suffering f...rom gross bodily or mental defects, to propagate their failings and their vices. In no long time our prisons, workhouses, and asylums would be empty.... Prostitution would become a forgotten calling. Pauperism would cease. Disease would be almost unknown. By the same methods which breeders adopt, our race could be raised to the highest pitch of perfection and of excellence. The people who shall first have the moral courage to do this, will take the lead among the nations of the world.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, read...ing and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
But in a hundred high schools and colleges, this warfare against common-sense still goes on. Four, or six, or ten years, the pupil... is parsing Greek and Latin, and as soon as he leaves the University, as it is ludicrously called, he shuts those books for the last time. Some thousands of young men are graduated at our colleges in this country every year, and the persons who, at forty years, still read Greek, can all be counted on your hand. I never met with ten. Four or five persons I have seen who read Plato. But is not this absurd, that the whole liberal talent of this country should be directed in its best years on studies which lead to nothing?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have often been downcast, but never in despair; I regard our hiding as a dangerous adventure, romantic and interesting at the sa...me time. In my diary I treat all the privations as amusing. I have made up my mind now to lead a different life from other girls and, later on, different from ordinary housewives. My start has been so very full of interest, and that is the sole reason why I have to laugh at the humorous side of the most dangerous moments.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I pray that when historians write the story of this time, of our lives, that it may be recorded that this president tried--tried t...o lead his nation with justice and with compassion, and with courage; and there was faith, and there was firmness in his heart. May it further be written that the people of the United States cast out their doubts, looked with great pride on their achievements, and bravely made of this land and this world a brighter, happier place for all mankind. This is our choice. This is our decision. Let us all be greatly determined that this society shall survive and this society shall succeed. And what it should be will be for all time to come.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There was a time we was on the land. There was a boundary to us then. Old folks died off and little fellers come. We was always on...e thing. We was the family, kinda whole and clear. But now we ain't clear no more. There ain't nothin' that keeps us clear. Al, he's a hankerin' and a jibberin' to be on his own. John's just draggin' around, Pa's lost his place. He ain't the lead no more. We're crackin' up, Tom. They ain't no family now.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is ... useful to distinguish between the pornographic, condemned in every society, and the bawdy, the ribald, the shared vulgar...ities and jokes, which are the safety valves of most social systems. Pornography is a most doubtful safety valve. In extreme cases it may feed the perverted imagination of the doomed man who starts by pulling a little girl's braid and ends by cutting off a little girl's head, as each increasing stimulus loses its effectiveness and must be replaced by a more extreme one. This is particularly true of the pornography primarily designed to be brooded over in secret. But is quite otherwise with the music hall jokes, the folk ribaldry at a wedding, the innocent smut of the smoking rooms, where men who are perennially faithful to their wives exchange stories which release explosive laughter. Pornography does not lead to laughter, it leads to deadly serious pursuit of sexual satisfaction divorced from personality and from every other meaning. The uproarious laugh of the group who recognize a common dilemma--the laughter of a group of women at the story of the intractable unborn who refused to budge and merely shivered under the effects of the quart of ice cream hopefully eaten by its poor mother, the laughter of a group of men at the story of the bride who asked to be "frightened" a fourth time--is the laughter of human beings who are making the best of the imperfect social arrangements within which their life here on earth is conducted.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The greatest waste of time he knew of was to count the hours--what good can come of it?--and the greatest illusion in the world, t...o lead one's day by the sound of the clock, and not by precepts of common sense and understanding.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »