My general opinion about this doctrine is that it is a typically scholastic, view, attributable, first, to an obsession with a few... particular words, the uses of which are over- simplified, not really understood or carefully studied or correctly described; and second, to an obsession with a few (and nearly always the same) half-studied 'facts.'LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A tragic poet will never think of grouping around the chief character in his play secondary characters to serve as simplified copi...es, so to speak, of the former. The hero of a tragedy represents an individuality unique of its kind. It may be possible to imitate him, but then we shall be passing, whether consciously or not, from the tragic to the comic. No one is like him, because he is like no one. But a remarkable instinct, on the contrary, impels the comic poet, once he has elaborated his central character, to cause other characters, displaying the same general traits, to revolve as satellites round him.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The eating of a MacDonald's meal is like the reading of Reader's Digest--small, easily digested, carefully processed, carefully cu...t down, abridged. Reader's Digest gives us knowledge that is easily compartmentalized, simplified, ideologically sound.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable... and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Parents must begin to discover their children as individuals of developing tastes and views and so help them be, and see, themselv...es as thinking, feeling people. It is far too easy for a middle-years child to absorb an over-simplified picture of himself as a sloppy, unreliable, careless, irresponsible, lazy creature and not much more--an attitude toward himself he will carry far beyond these years.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have no scheme about it,--no designs on men at all; and, if I had, my mode would be to tempt them with the fruit, and not with t...he manure. To what end do I lead a simple life at all, pray? That I may teach others to simplify their lives?--and so all our lives be simplified merely, like an algebraic formula? Or not, rather, that I may make use of the ground I have cleared, to live more worthily and profitably?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is doubtless wise, when a reform is introduced, to try to persuade the British public that it is not a reform at all; but appea...rances must be kept up to some extent at least.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »