When you consider the radiance, that it does not withhold itself but pours its abundance without selection into every... nook and crannyLESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The difference between a photograph and even the most realistic painting--say, one of Courbet's landscapes--is that in the latter ...there has been selection, emphasis and some discreet distortion. The painter's deep instinctive feeling for mass and force has rearranged everything.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for... the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of the watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is unwise to equate scientific activity with what we call reason, poetic activity with what we call imagination. Without the im...aginative leap from facts to generalisation, no theoretic discovery in science is made. The poet, on the other hand, must not imagine but reason--that is to say, he must exercise a great deal of consciously directed thought in the selection and rejection of his data: there is a technical logic, a poetic reasoning in his choice of the words, rhythms and images by which a poem's coherence is achieved.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Your pier-glass or extensive surface of polished steel ... will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but p...lace now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially, and it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a concentric arrangement, its light falling with an exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The scratches are events, and the candle is the egoism of any person now absent.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Again, the great number of cultivated men keep each other up to a high standard. The habit of meeting well-read and knowing men te...aches the art of omission and selection.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Placing too much importance on where a child goes rather than what he does there . . . doesn't take into account the child's needs... or individuality, and this is true in college selection as well as kindergarten.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The most condensed format of the conversionist motif is the TV commercial, which has become essential to both network and religiou...s broadcasting. Embedded in its structure are sentiments from our religious and political heritage: salvation and choice. Newness of life can now be associated with a change of heart about politics, the purchase of a new car, or the selection of a beverage. A Pepsi commercial, for example, designed to fit the charismatic personality and gifts of singer Michael Jackson, became an invitation to make a decision and join in. Images and sounds of the soft-drink ad drew viewers into a growing throng of happy, dancing people following the steps of a dynamic cultural hero. Even couch potatoes might have been roused, vicariously at least, to skip lightly behind the agile Jackson as he led his ecstatic followers to the right choice. The conversionist call in this instance is to come on up to the good life through Pepsi. Nonetheless it plays upon the persuasive motifs of turning around and becoming a part of something larger.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The President should not be required to take up the question of the selection of a successor before the last offices of affection ...and respect have been paid to the dead. If the proprieties of an occasion as sad as that which now overshadows us are observed, possibly one-half of the brief time allowed is gone before, with due regard to the decencies of life, the President and those with whom he should advise can take up the consideration of the grave duty of selecting a head for one of the greatest Departments of the Government.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »