For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem,--a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the spirit of... a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Let us say, then, that both the realist and the antirealist accept the results of scientific investigations as "true," on a par wi...th more homely truths.... And call this acceptance of scientific truths the "core position." What distinguishes realists from antirealists, then, is what they add onto this core position ... a third alternative emerges--and an attractive one at that. It is the core position itself, and all by itself.... Let me introduce the acronym NOA (pronounced as in "Noah"), for natural ontological attitude, and, henceforth, refer to the core position under that designation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
English general and singular terms, identity, quantification, and the whole bag of ontological tricks may be correlated with eleme...nts of the native language in any of various mutually incompatible ways, each compatible with all possible linguistic data, and none preferable to another save as favored by a rationalization of the native language that is simple and natural to us.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Like most vigorous-minded men, seeing that there was no stopping-place between dogma and negation, he preferred to accept dogma. O...f all weaknesses he most disliked timed and half-hearted faith. He would rather have jumped at once to Strong's pure denial, than yield an inch to the argument that a mystery was to be paltered with because it could not be explained.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In a Kelton church, when a heated argument once began at morning services, a devout old deacon arose from his seat in the 'amen co...rner' and announced he was going to do for the church what the devil had never done--leave it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
...I didn't consider intellectuals intelligent, I never liked them or their thoughts about life. I defined them as people who care... nothing for argument, who are interested only in information; or as people who have a preference for learning things rather than experiencing them. They have opinions but no point of view.... Their talk is the gloomiest type of human discourse I know.... This is a red flag to my nature. Intellectuals, to me have no natures ...LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Argument is conclusive ... but ... it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless ...it finds it by the method of experiment.... For if any man who never saw fire proved by satisfactory arguments that fire burns ... his hearer's mind would never be satisfied, nor would he avoid the fire until he put his hand in it ... that he might learn by experiment what argument taught.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Edith: This complete loveliness will fade. And we shall forget what it was like. Edward: Edith, don't.... Edith: Oh, it's bound to. Just a few years and the gilt wears off the gingerbread. Edward: Darling, answer me one thing truthfully. Have you ever seen gingerbread with gilt on it? Edith: [laughing] Fool! Edward: Then the whole argument is disposed of.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »