A letter is an unannounced visit, and the postman is the intermediary of impolite surprises. Every week we ought to have one hour ...for receiving letters, and then go and take a bath.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The flour merchant, the house-builder, and the postman charge us no less on account of our sex; but when we endeavor to earn money... to pay all these, then, indeed, we find the interest.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When other helpers fail and comforts flee, when the senses decay and the mind moves in a narrower and narrower circle, when the gr...asshopper is a burden and the postman brings no letters, and even the Royal Family is no longer quite what it was, an obituary column stands fast.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If, for instance, they have heard something from the postman, they attribute it to "a semi-official statement"; if they have falle...n into conversation with a stranger at a bar, they can conscientiously describe him as "a source that has hitherto proved unimpeachable." It is only when the journalist is reporting a whim of his own, and one to which he attaches minor importance, that he defines it as the opinion of "well-informed circles."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is no great religious leader--from the Buddha to Moses to Jesus to Mohammed to Luther--who offered people what they want. On...ly what they need. But television is not well-suited to offering people what they need. It is "user friendly." It is too easy to turn off. It is at its most alluring when it speaks the language of dynamic visual imagery. It does not accommodate complex language or stringent demands. As a consequence, what is preached on television is not anything like the Sermon on the Mount. Religious programs are filled with good cheer. They celebrate affluence. Their featured players become celebrities. Though their messages are trivial, the shows have high ratings, or rather, because their messages are trivial, the shows have high ratings.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The way in which the photograph records experience is also different from the way of language. Language makes sense only when it i...s presented as a sequence of propositions. Meaning is distorted when a word or sentence is, as we say, taken out of context; when a reader or listener is deprived of what was said before, and after. But there is no such thing as a photograph taken out of context, for a photograph does not require one. In fact, the point of photography is to isolate images from context, so as to make them visible in a different way.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »