We are in the process of creating what deserves to be called the idiot culture. Not an idiot sub-culture, which every society has ...bubbling beneath the surface and which can provide harmless fun; but the culture itself. For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Science is a system of statements based on direct experience, and controlled by experimental verification. Verification in science... is not, however, of single statements but of the entire system or a sub-system of such statements.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
My one pupil has begun his work with me, and I will give you a description how the lecture is conducted. It is the most important ...point, you know, that the tutor should be dignified and at a distance from the pupil, and that the pupil should be as much as possible degraded.... So I sit at the further end of the room; outside the door (which is shut) sits the scout; outside the outer door (also shut) sits the sub-scout: half-way downstairs sits the sub- sub-scout: and down in the yard sits the pupil. The questions are shouted from one to the other, and the answers come back in the same way--it is rather confusing till you are well used to it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
About the London shop girls of the meaner short no derogatory remarks can be too strong, just as no commendation can be too high o...f the courtesy, honest, and good nature of the girls who wait on you in the shops on Oxford and Bond Streets. This court-born, alley- nursed, street-bred girl is everywhere. Sometimes she is sober, oftener she is not. She sells you flowers and fruit on every corner, serves in bars and cheap eating-houses. We have nothing at all at home to correspond to her ...She wears flowers and paste jewels, but she seldom bathes, never has enough hairpins, and considers toothbrushes necessary only for members of the royal family.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of thin...gs today. That is the atomic, and sub-atomic, and galactic structure of things today. And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature! And you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A multitude of little superfluous precautions engender here a population of deputies and sub-officials, each of whom acquits himse...lf with an air of importance and a rigorous precision, which seemed to say, though everything is done with much silence, "Make way, I am one of the members of the grand machine of state."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Cry cry what shall I cry? The first thing to do is to form the committees:... The consultative councils, the standing committees, select committees and sub-committees. One secretary will do for several committees.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am now experiencing one of the "ups" of political life. Congress adjourned on the first after a session of almost seventy-five d...ays, mainly taken up with a contest against me. Five vetoes, a number of special messages, and oral consultations with friends and opponents have been my part in it. At no time ... has the stream of commendation run so full. The great newspapers, and the little, have been equally profuse of flattery. Of course, it will not last. But I think I have the confidence of the country. When the [New York] Tribune can say, "The President has the courtesy of a Chesterfield and the firmness of a Jackson" (!), I must be prepared for the reactionary counterblast.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »