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 »
New England likes to think it has a civilization based on character. The South likes to think it has a character based on civiliza...tion. A big difference.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For, when men shall meet as they ought, each a benefactor, a shower of stars, clothed with thoughts, with deeds, with accomplishme...nts, it should be the festival of nature which all things announce. Of such friendship, love in the sexes is the first symbol, as all other things are symbols of love. Those relations to the best men, which, at one time, we reckoned the romances of youth, become, in the progress of character, the most solid enjoyment.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Character wants room; must not be crowded on by persons, nor be judged from glimpses got in the press of affairs, or on few occasi...ons. It needs perspective, as a great building.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Character repudiates intellect, yet excites it; and character passes into thought, is published so, and then is ashamed before new... flashes of moral worth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Nature never rhymes her children, nor makes two men alike. When we see a great man, we fancy a resemblance to some historical pers...on, and predict the sequel of his character and fortune, a result which he is sure to disappoint. None will ever solve the problem of his character according to our prejudice, but only in his high unprecedented way.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A full-dressed ecclesiastic is a sort of go-cart of divinity; an ethical automaton. A clerical prig is, in general, a very dangero...us as well as contemptible character. The utmost that those who thus habitually confound their opinions and sentiments with the outside coverings of their bodies can aspire to, is a negative and neutral character, like wax-work figures, where the dress is done as much to the life as the man, and where both are respectable pieces of pasteboard, or harmless compositions of fleecy hosiery.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »