When a mother quarrels with a daughter, she has a double dose of unhappiness--hers from the conflict, and empathy with her daughte...r's from the conflict with her. Throughout her life a mother retains this special need to maintain a good relationship with her daughter.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We have imagined ourselves a special creation, set apart from other humans. In the last twentieth century, we see that our poverty... is as absolute as that of the poorest nations. We have attempted to deny the human condition in our quest for power after power. It would be well for us to rejoin the human race, to accept our essential poverty as a gift, and to share our material wealth with those in need.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The artistic performance of a stage actor is definitely presented to the public by the actor in person; that of the screen actor, ...however, is presented by a camera, with a twofold consequence. The camera that presents the performance of the film actor to the public need not respect the performance as an integral whole. Guided by the cameraman, the camera continually changes its position with respect to the performance. The sequence of positional views which the editor composes from the material supplied him constitutes the completed film. It comprises certain factors of movement which are in reality those of the camera, not to mention special camera angles, close-ups, etc.... Also, the film actor lacks the opportunity of the stage actor to adjust to the audience during his performance, since he does not present his performance to the audience in person. This permits the audience to take the position of a critic, without experiencing any personal contact with the actor. The audience's identification with the actor is really an identification with the camera.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"Have we any control over being born?," my friend asked in despair. "No, the job is done for us while we're sleeping, so to speak,... and when we wake up everything is all set. We merely appear, like an ornate celebrity wheeled out in a wheelchair." "I don't remember," my friend claimed. "No need to," I said: "what need have us free-loaders for any special alertness? We're done for."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Given the choice, children who don't want for anything will not save....We have an obligation as parents to give our children what... they need. What they want we can give them as a special gift, or they can save their money for it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The fetish of the great university, of expensive colleges for young women, is too often simply a fetish. It is not based on a genu...ine desire for learning. Education today need not be sought at any great distance. It is largely compounded of two things, of a certain snobbishness on the part of parents, and of escape from home on the part of youth. And to those who must earn quickly it is often sheer waste of time. Very few colleges prepare their students for any special work.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If I wanted a special doll, and I begged my mother for it, she would give me a speech about how I had three dolls at home and I di...dn't need another one, and remind me of how fortunate I was compared to all the poor little girls all over the world who didn't have dolls. And when she finished telling me why I shouldn't want what I wanted, I still wanted it just as badly--only I felt ashamed of myself for wanting it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The best generals I have known were ... stupid or absent-minded men.... Not only does a good army commander not need any special q...ualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest and best human attributes--love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he is doing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient patience), and only then will he be a brave leader. God forbid that he should be humane, should love, or pity, or think of what is just and unjust.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For the musician, before he has begun his work, all is in readiness so that the operation of his creative spirit may find, right f...rom the start, the appropriate matter and means, without any possibility of error. He will not have to make this matter and means submit to any modification; he need only assemble elements which are clearly defined and ready-made. But in how different a situation is the poet! Before him is ordinary language, this aggregate of means which are not suited to his purpose, not made for him. There have not been physicians to determine the relationships of these means for him; there have not been constructors of scales; no diapason, no metronome, no certitude of this kind. He has nothing but the coarse instrument of the dictionary and the grammar. Moreover, he must address himself not to a special and unique sense like hearing, which the musician bends to his will, and which is, besides, the organ par excellence of expectation and attention; but rather to a general and diffused expectation, and he does so through a language which is a very odd mixture of incoherent stimuli.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »