The tourist is first of all an adventurer. The dream is of the pioneer, the explorer, the great voyager or the conquering emperor.... He leaves the security of home far behind and sets out beyond the perimeters of the known world for fame, fortune and excitement. He wants to take on the minotaur, scale the Matterhorn, discover a lost Amazonian tribe or sample the delights of a Thai brothel.... The essence of the tourist adventure is exhibited in the contours of the excitements that it provides. And these contours are best inferred from the stories that are told and re-told with animation to relatives, friends and colleagues at home. It is virtually never what has been seen that is recounted with enthusiasm. When the sites are described it is in the form of ritualized cliches: the Eiffel Tower really is a wonder--we went up it, and you get such a nice view. It is rather the personal moments of the tour, moments of near-crisis, that in retrospect were exciting: when one of the suitcases failed to arrive off the luggage chute at Frankfort Airport. Touring itself has been turned into a routine, restricting adventure to those moments when routine breaks down.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In the shift from direct democracy to representational democracy, the printed book became an embodiment of thought for the physica...lly absent author; and so the popular art form of the popular book and the pamphlet re-presented ideas and contributed to the public space of political philosophies of the Enlightenment. Television, however, now brings forth this new kind of public space, and it calls into being this new world, not of the educated citizenry in a republic, but of the electropeasantry in the state of Entertainment. Recall how people stopped singing in pubs when they brought in the TV set, and you will appreciate the new passivity in which people stop voting for their representatives as TV takes over the electoral campaigns.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the sp...irit is the true self, not that physical figure which can be pointed out by your finger.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I ask you to join in a re-United States. We need to empower our people so they can take more responsibility for their own lives in... a world that is ever smaller, where everyone counts.... We need a new spirit of community, a sense that we are all in this together, or the American Dream will continue to wither. Our destiny is bound up with the destiny of every other American.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Classical art, in a word, stands for form; romantic art for content. The romantic artist expects people to ask, What has he got to... say? The classical artist expects them to ask, How does he say it?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The measure discriminates definitely against products which make up what has been universally considered a program of safe farming.... The bill upholds as ideals of American farming the men who grow cotton, corn, rice, swine, tobacco, or wheat and nothing else. These are to be given special favors at the expense of the farmer who has toiled for years to build up a constructive farming enterprise to include a variety of crops and livestock.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Bill: I have champagne, caviar, marinated truffles, brilliant foie gras and half-a-dozen assorted Hungarian gypsies. Lili: So...unds delicious. Bill: I thought we'd go on a picnic. Lili: At three in the morning? Bill: It's the best time--no ants.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Bill: I think maybe you have to come up with excuses just to avoid the moment of truth. Lili: What?... Bill: In a word, Miss Smith, I think it's just possible you're a virgin.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »