'What is truth?' said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Pilate was in advance of his time. For 'truth' itself is a...n abstract noun, a camel, that is, of a logical construction, which cannot get past the eye even of a grammarian. We approach it cap and categories in hand: we ask ourselves whether Truth is a substance ... or a quality ... or a relation.... But philosophers should take something more nearly their own size to strain at. What needs discussing rather is the use, or certain uses, of the word 'true.' In vino, possibly, 'veritas,' but in a sober symposium 'verum.'LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Irish are often nervous about having the appropriate face for the occasion. They have to be happy at weddings, which is a stra...in, so they get depressed; they have to be sad at funerals, which is easy, so they get happy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We went on, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the soldier, binding up his wounds, harboring the stranger, ...visiting the sick, ministering to the prisoner, and burying the dead, until that blessed day at Appomattox Court House relieved the strain.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am come, young ladies, in a very moralizing strain, to observe that our pleasures of this world are always to be for, and that w...e often purchase them at a great disadvantage, giving readi-monied actual happiness for a draft on the future, that may not be honoured.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The pipe, with solemn interposing puff, Makes half a sentence at a time enough;... The dozing sages drop the drowsy strain, Then pause, and puff--and speak, and pause again.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You're driving along the highway licketty-split, see. You're in a hurry and you're worried about whether you're goin' to lose your... job and whether that blonde's going to be at that drug store tonight like she said she would an' about whether there's enough oil an' that knock in the motor. You see modern man lives in conditions of strain, affect we students of psychology call it. You go along staring straight in front of you, crazy to get someplace and what do you see?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The commonwealth of learning is not at this time without master-builders, whose mighty designs in advancing the sciences, will lea...ve lasting monuments to the admiration of posterity; but every one must not hope to be a Boyle, or a Sydenham; and in an age that produces such masters as the great Huygenius, and the incomparable Mr. Newton, with some others of that strain; it is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You are all alike, you respectable people. You can't tell me the bursting strain of a ten-inch gun, which is a very simple matter;... but you all think you can tell me the bursting strain of a man under temptation. You daren't handle high explosives; but you're all ready to handle honesty and truth and justice and the whole duty of man, and kill one another at that game. What a country! What a world!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »