What one really wants is youth, and what one really loses is years. Life becomes at last a mere piece of acting. One goes on by ha...bit, playing more or less clumsily that one is still alive. It is ludicrous and at times humiliating, but there is a certain style in it which youth has not. We become all, more or less, gentlemen; we are ancien régime; we learn to smile while gout racks us.... We get out of bed in the morning all broken up, without nerves, color or temper, and by noon we are joking with young women about the play. One lives in constant company with diseased hearts, livers, kidneys and lungs; one shakes hands with certain death at closer embrace every day; one sees paralysis in every feature and feels it in every muscle; all one's functions relax their action day by day; and, what is worse, one's grasp on the interests of life relaxes with the physical relaxation; and, through it all, we improve; our manners acquire refinement; our sympathies grow wider; our youthful self-consciousness disappears; very ordinary men and women are found to have charm; our appreciations have weight; we should almost get to respect ourselves if we knew of anything human to respect.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The wealth and prosperity of the country are only the comeliness of the body, the fullness of the flesh and fat; but the spirit is... independent of them; it requires only muscle, bone and nerve for the true exercise of its functions. We cannot lose our liberty, because we cannot cease to think.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We as women know that there are no disembodied processes; that all history originates in human flesh; that all oppression is infli...cted by the body of one against the body of another; that all social change is built on the bone and muscle, and out of the flesh and blood, of human creators.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is an esoteric doctrine of society that a little wickedness is good to make muscle; as if conscience were not good for hands an...d legs.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Think of those barren places where men gather To act in the terrible name of rectitude,... Of acned shame, punk's pride, muscle or turf, The bully's thin superiority.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Our challenge as parents is to be patient enough to allow our children to take ten minutes to do something that would take us two ...seconds. We need to allow our children to develop what I call their "struggle muscle." This is developed the same way any other muscle develops, through regular exercise.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is difficult to compare Chaplin's and Keaton's gifts. Chaplin's fertile period lasted 38 years (some say even longer); Keaton's... lasted about ten. Chaplin's art depended upon a minute perfection and precision; Keaton's relied on speed and a tumult of imaginative, farfetched ideas. Although Chaplin the director was more an intellect than Keaton the director, Charlie the character was less an intellect than Buster the character. Although women were important metaphorically in Chaplin's films, sexual attraction and masculine virility were far more dominant in Keaton's pictures. The Chaplin films were smaller--centering on small facial gestures and objects; the Keaton films were larger--centering on human figures against a vast physical environment and huge, complicated objects. The Chaplin films moved slowly and quietly; the Keaton films with great pace and vigor. And yet Charlie was the character who laughed, smiled, and cried, whereas Buster was the one who rarely moved a facial muscle.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »