Printed prose is historically a most peculiar, almost an aberrant way of telling stories, and by far the most inherently anestheti...c: It is the only medium of art I can think of which appeals directly to none of our five senses. The oral and folk tradition in narrative made use of verse or live-voice dynamics, embellished by gesture and expression--a kind of rudimentary theater--as do the best raconteurs of all times. Commonly there was musical accompaniment as well: a kind of one-man theater-of-mixed-means.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In my early life, and probably even today, it is not sufficiently understood that a child's education should include at least a ru...dimentary grasp of religion, sex, and money. Without a basic knowledge of these three primary facts in a normal human being's life--subjects which stir the emotions, create events and opportunities, and if they do not wholly decide must greatly influence an individual's personality--no human being's education can have a safe foundation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
People named John and Mary never divorce. For better or for worse, in madness and in saneness, they seem bound together for eterni...ty by their rudimentary nomenclature. They may loathe and despise one another, quarrel, weep, and commit mayhem, but they are not free to divorce. Tom, Dick, and Harry can go to Reno on a whim, but nothing short of death can separate John and Mary.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Animals struggle with each other for food or for leadership, but they do not, like human beings, struggle with each other for that... that stands for food or leadership: such things as our paper symbols of wealth (money, bonds, titles), badges of rank to wear on our clothes, or low-number license plates, supposed by some people to stand for social precedence. For animals the relationship in which one thing stands for something else does not appear to exist except in very rudimentary form.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is one thing to say, "Some men shall rule," quite another to declare, "All men shall rule," and that in virtue of the most prim...itive, the most rudimentary attribute they possess, that namely of sex.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »