Far less brilliant, original, and versatile than the Greeks, the Romans were content to borrow most of their culture from them. Th...ey gave it their own practical bent, however, translating it into terms more suitable for universal use. They were able to transmit it to the barbaric West and thereby to lay the foundations of modern Europe. Then they systematized education, bequeathing the seven liberal arts to the Middle Ages. They adapted Greek philosophy to daily needs, applying it to government and recasting it into a philosophy of life available to men without high gifts. They developed the type of cultivated gentleman--the type of Cicero, Horace, and Pliny the Younger, who were less spontaneous and exciting than the Greeks but more moderate, urbane and sensible.... The practical sense of the Romans also led to some original contributions, notably their monumental architecture. While the Greeks stuck to their simple post and lintel, the Romans exploited the possibilities of the arch, the dome, and the vault to erect baths, palaces, amphitheaters, and government buildings.... Their architecture was more humanistic than the Greek in that it contributed much more to civic life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is one of those distinctions which is obvious, without being sharp or clear. It is obvious, and remains obvious, to every norma...l mind, although when we come to analyze it, we may not be able to rule a boundary line. It remains obvious, as the distinction between day and night remains obvious, though, when we begin to analyze that distinction, we come up against such refinements as dusk and twilight. There is more than one way of characterizing the difference. Perception is essentially a passive experience, something that happens to us; thinking is an active one, something that we do. Or if you don't like this distinction, because of refinements such as the "intentionality" which some have detected (rightly, I would say) in perception, or on the other hand because of the passivity of that uncontrolled type of thinking called "reverie," then thoughts are something that comes from within; perceptions something that comes from without.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We have two kinds of "conference." One is that to which the office boy refers when he tells the applicant for a job that Mr. Blevi...tch is "in conference." This means that Mr. Blevitch is in good health and reading the paper, but otherwise unoccupied. The other type of "conference" is bona fide in so far as it implies that three or four men are talking together in one room, and don't want to be disturbed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The perfect detective story cannot be written. The type of mind which can evolve the perfect problem is not the type of mind that ...can produce the artistic job of writing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
They look for a victim to chivy, and howl him down, and finally lynch him in a sheer storm of sexual frenzy which they honestly im...agine to be moral indignation, patriotic passion or some equally avowable emotion, it may be an innocent Negro, a Jew like Leo Frank, a harmless half-witted German; a Christ-like idealist of the type of Debs, an enthusiastic reformer like Emma Goldman.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mediocre people have an answer for everything and are astonished at nothing. They always want to have the air of knowing better th...an you what you are going to tell them; when, in their turn, they begin to speak, they repeat to you with the greatest confidence, as if dealing with their own property, the things that they have heard you say yourself at some other place.... A capable and superior look is the natural accompaniment of this type of character.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In abnormal times like our own, when institutions are changing rapidly in several directions at once and the traditional framework... of society has broken down, it becomes more and more difficult to measure any type of behavior against any other.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The book of Nature is the book of Fate. She turns the gigantic pages,--leaf after leaf,--never returning one. One leaf she lays do...wn, a floor of granite; then a thousand ages, and a bed of slate; a thousand ages, and a measure of coal; a thousand ages, and a layer of marl and mud; vegetable forms appear; her first misshapen animals, zoophyte, trilobium, fish; then, saurians,--rude forms, in which she has only blocked her future statue, concealing under these unwieldy monsters the fine type of her coming king. The face of the planet cools and dries, the races meliorate, and man is born. But when a race has lived its term, it comes no more again.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This type of man who is devoted to the study of wisdom is always most unlucky in everything, and particularly when it comes to pro...creating children; I imagine this is because Nature wants to ensure that the evils of wisdom shall not spread further throughout mankind.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »