Holidays are in no sense an alternative to the congestion and bustle of cities and work. Quite the contrary. People look to escape... into an intensification of the conditions of ordinary life, into a deliberate aggravation of those conditions: further from nature, nearer to artifice, to abstraction, to total pollution, to well above average levels of stress, pressure, concentration and monotony--this is the ideal of popular entertainment. No one is interested in overcoming alienation; the point is to plunge into it to the point of ecstasy. That is what holidays are for.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Darwin was, like Copernicus, a one-idea man. Each had his "nuclear inspiration" early in life, and spent the rest of his life work...ing it out--the ratio of inspiration to perspiration being heavily in favor of the second. Both lacked the many-sidedness, that universality of interest and amazing multitude of achievement in unrelated fields of research which characterised Kepler, Newton, Descartes, Franklin, Faraday, Maxwell, and hundreds of lesser but equally versatile geniuses. It is perhaps no coincidence that both Darwin and Copernicus, after the decisive turning point when their course was set, led a life of duty, devotion to task, rigorous self-discipline, and spiritual desiccation. It looks as if the artesian wells of their inspiration had been replaced by a mechanical water supply kept under pressure by sheer power of will.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
People having speech defects sometimes learn part of the practice by laborious study, but good speech is always mainly unconscious... speech. Any tennis player, even if he could not explain this enigma, could provide an analogy for it. When he sees a rapidly flying tennis ball coming toward him, he knows what he must do. He must maneuver himself into the proper position, be poised with his weight properly distributed, meet the ball with the proper sweep of his arm and with his racket held at just the right pitch, and all this must be timed to stop the flying ball at a precise point. But if the tennis player pauses to think of all these actions and how he will perform them, he is lost. The ball will not skim back over the net, building air pressure as it goes until it buzzes down into the opponent's corner. If the tennis player thinks about anything except where he wants the ball to go and what he plans for the next stroke, he will probably become so awkward that he will be lucky to hit the ball at all. Rapid, precise muscular actions can be successfully carried out only by the unconscious part of the brain. And so with the speaker. He cannot speak well unless he speaks unconsciously, for his movements are as precise, as complicated, and as exactly timed as those of the tennis player.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The tabloids are like animals, with their own behavioural patterns. There's no point in complaining about them, any more than comp...laining that lions might eat you.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature: to show<...br />virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Write to the point: say immediately what you want to say most, even if it doesn't "come first." There are three reasons for doing ...this. First, you will then have said it, even if nothing else gets said. Second, your readers will then have read it, even if they read no more. Third, having said it, you are likely to have to say something more, because you will have to explain and justify what you chose to say.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Christ? I... am talking like a madman -I am a better one: with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near death. Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as s...omething to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death M even death on a cross.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens ...to you, you have regained that one.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »