Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature's monotony. The sublime idea men have of the universe would collaps...e with dizzying speed. The order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish. Everything would break up in chaos. There would be no seasons, no civilization, no thought, no humanity; even life would give way, and the impotent void would reign everywhere.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Human visual perception is a far more complex and selective process than that by which a film records. Nevertheless the camera len...s and the eye both register images--because of their sensitivity to light--at great speed and in the face of an immediate event. What the camera does, however, and what the eye in itself can never do is to fix the appearance of that event. It removes its appearance from the flow of appearances and it preserves it, not perhaps forever but for as long as the film exists. The essential character of this preservation is not dependent upon the image being static; unedited film rushes preserve in essentially the same way. The camera saves a set of appearances from the otherwise inevitable supercession of further appearances. It holds them unchanging. And before the invention of the camera nothing could do this, except, in the mind's eye, the faculty of memory.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Spig Wead: I've been thinking what a heel I've been about you and about my own kids. I don't know, when I do something, I go all t...he way. Living. Gambling. Flying. I tap myself out. I guess that's the way I want it to be. Maybe even the way I am. Minne Wead: Star-spangled Spig. Damn the martinis, full speed ahead and don't give up the ship.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have been required to put roots and shoots and little stems and tendrils together much as their author did, to wander discourage...d and confused as Hansel and Gretel through a dark wood of witches, to strike the hot right way suddenly, but just as suddenly to mire, to drag, to speed, to shout Urreek! to fall asleep, to submit to revelations, certainly to curl a lip, to doubt, unnose a disdainful snort, snick a superior snicker, curse, and then at some point not very pleasantly to realize that the game I'm playing is the game of creation itself, because Tender Buttons is above all a book of kits like those from which harpsichords or paper planes or model bottle boats are fashioned, with intricacy no objection, patience a demand, unreadable plans a pleasure.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Major sex differences in intellectual function seem to lie in patterns of ability rather than in overall level of intelligence (IQ...).... Men, on average, perform better than women on certain spatial tasks. In particular, men have an advantage in tests that require the subject to imagine rotating an object or manipulating it in some other way. They outperform women in mathematical reasoning tests and in navigating their way through a route. Further, men are more accurate in tests of target-directed motor skills--that is, in guiding or intercepting projectiles. Women tend to be better than men at rapidly identifying matching items, a skill called perceptual speed. They have greater verbal fluency, including the ability to find words that begin with a specific letter or fulfill some other constraint. Women also outperform men in arithmetic calculation and in recalling landmarks from a route. Moreover, women are faster at certain precision manual tasks, such as placing pegs in designated holes on a board.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Progress celebrates Pyrrhic victories over nature. Progress makes purses out of human skin. When people were traveling in mail coa...ches, the world got ahead better than it does now that salesmen fly through the air. What good is speed if the brain has oozed out on the way? How will the heirs of this age be taught the most basic motions that are necessary to activate the most complicated machines? Nature can rely on progress; it will avenge it for the outrage it has perpetrated on it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Speed is good only when wisdom leads the way. The end of this journey, whether to the high horizons of hope or the depths of destr...uction, will be determined by the collective wisdom of the people who live on this shrinking planet.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Let the torpid Monk seek heaven comfortless and alone--GOD speed him! For my own part, I fear, I should never so find the way: let... me be wise and religious--but let me be MAN: wherever thy Providence places me, or whatever be the road I take to get to thee--give me some companion in my journey, be it only to remark to, How our shadows lengthen as the sun goes down.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There are many persons ready to do what is right because in their hearts they know it is right. But they hesitate, waiting for the... other fellow to make the first move--and he, in turn, waits for you. The minute a person whose word means a great deal dares to take the open- hearted and courageous way, many others follow. Not everyone can be turned aside from meanness and hatred, but the great majority of Americans is heading in that direction. I have a great belief in the future of my people and my country.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Not to find one's way in a city may well be uninteresting and banal. It requires ignorance--nothing more. But to lose oneself in a... city--as one loses oneself in a forest--that calls for a quite different schooling. Then, signboard and street names, passers-by, roofs, kiosks, or bars must speak to the wanderer like a cracking twig under his feet in the forest.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »