It is commonly said, and more particularly by Lord Shaftesbury, that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will not stic...k where it is not just. I deny it. A truth learned in a certain light, and attacked in certain words, by men of wit and humour, may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far, that the truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the sources of our troubles, we shouldn't ...test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
His hair has the long jesuschrist look. He is wearing the costume clothes. But most of all, he now has a very tolerant and therefo...re withering attitude toward all those who are still struggling in the old activist political ways ... while he, with the help of psychedelic chemicals, is exploring the infinite regions of human consciousness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We are always acting on what has just finished happening. It happened at least 1/30th of a second ago. We think we're in the prese...nt, but we aren't. The present we know is only a movie of the past.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have come to believe ... that the stage may do more than teach, that much of our current moral instruction will not endure the t...est of being cast into a lifelike mold, and when presented in dramatic form will reveal itself as platitudinous and effete. That which may have sounded like righteous teaching when it was remote and wordy will be challenged afresh when it is obliged to simulate life itself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The only way therefore to try a Piece of Wit, is to translate it into a different Language: If it bears the Test you may pronounce... it true; but if it vanishes in the Experiment you may conclude it to have been a Punn.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
These pages reproduce me very imperfectly, and there are many things in me of which I find no trace in them. I suppose it is becau...se, in the first place, sadness takes up the pen more readily than joy; and, in the next, because I depend so much upon surrounding circumstances. When there is no call upon me, and nothing to put me to the test, I fall back into melancholy; and so the practical man, the cheerful man, the literary man, does not appear in these pages. The portrait is lacking in proportion and breadth; it is one-sided, and wants a center; it has, as it were, been painted from too near.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am willing, for a money consideration, to test this physical strength, this nervous force, and muscular power with which I've be...en gifted, to show that they will bear a certain strain. If I break down, if my brain gives way under want of sleep, my heart ceases to respond to the calls made on my circulatory system, or the surcharged veins of my extremities burst--if, in short, I fall helpless, or it may be, dead on the track, then I lose my money.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »