Weak as we are, compared to the health strength we are conscious would be desirable; ignorant as we are, compared to the height, a...nd breadth, and depth of knowledge which extends around us as far as the universal range of matter itself; miserable as we are, compared to the happiness of which we feel ourselves capable; yet in this living principle we see nothing beyond or above us, nothing to which we or our descendants may not attain, of great, of beautiful, of excellent. But to feel the power of this mighty principle, to urge it forward in its course and accelerate the change in our condition which it promises, we must awaken to its observation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The lies fall like flaxen threads from the skies All over America, and the fact that some of them are true of course... Doesn't so much not matter as serve to justify The whole mad organizing force under the billows of correct delight.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The way to go to the circus, however, is with someone who has seen perhaps one theatrical performance before in his life and that ...in the High School hall.... The scales of sophistication are struck from your eyes and you see in the circus a gathering of men and women who are able to do things as a matter of course which you couldn't do if your life depended on it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Homer sweeps us away by the irresistible movement of lines through a whole passage to a splendid climax. What counts is the single...ness of his effect, the unbroken maintenance of a heroic or tragic mood, the concentration on some action vividly imagined and clearly portrayed without irrelevance or second thoughts or even those hints that lure into bypaths of fancy and suggest that there is more in the words than is obvious at first sight. But in Virgil, great though the paragraphs are, compelling though the climax is when it is reached, we are more concerned with the details, with each small effect and each deftly placed word, than with the whole. We linger over the richness of single phrases, over the "pathetic half-lines," over the precision or potency with which a word illuminates a sentence or a happy sequence of sounds imparts an inexplicable charm to something that might otherwise have been trivial. Of course, Homer has his magical phrases and Virgil his bold effects, but the distinction stands. It is a matter of composition, of art, and it marks the real difference between the two kinds of epic, which are not so much "authentic" and "literary" as oral and written.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You remind me of a child-friend who once wrote to tell me about her sister being married. "Now I will tell you all about Bessie's ...wedding." Then came a long account of bridesmaids, and breakfast, and everything else, except the name of the bride-groom! That of course didn't matter: the great thing was to get married somehow.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Roughly speaking, any man with energy and enthusiasm ought to be able to bring at least a dozen others round to his opinion in the... course of a year no matter how absurd that opinion might be. We see every day in politics, in business, in social life, large masses of people brought to embrace the most revolutionary ideas, sometimes within a few days. It is all a question of getting hold of them in the right way and working on their weak points.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is unheard-of, uncivilized barbarism that any woman should still be forced to bear such monstrous torture. It should be remedie...d. It should be stopped. It is simply absurd that, with our modern science, painless childbirth does not exist as a matter of course.... I tremble with indignation when I think of ... the unspeakable egotism and blindness of men of science who permit such atrocities when they can be remedied.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is also a reasonable tolerance: reason tolerates the reasonable. It is, however, almost tautological to call this 'tolerance...' any longer, as it becomes a matter of course.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And, shrilling from the solar course, Or from fruit of chemic force,... Procession of a soul in matter, Or the speeding change of water, Or out of the good of evil born, Came Uriel's voice of cherub scorn, And a blush tinged the upper sky, And the gods shook, they knew not why.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Women cannot claim the right to be considered mature and responsible until they decide the course of their lives for themselves an...d refuse to be a "manipulated group." They will not be truly emancipated until ... the right to work is a matter of course and not of discussion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »