Good writing is always a breaking of the soil, clearing away prejudices, pulling up of sour weeds of crooked thinking, stripping t...he turf so as to get at what is fertile beneath. It would be amusing to carry the simile further. Those bulbs that flower in the sand and wither! The gay fiction annual that has to be planted again every year! Those experimental plants from Russia, France, and Greenwich Village that are always getting winter killed--confound 'em!--is it worth while planting them again? The stocky perennial that keeps coming up and coming up--so easy to grow and so ugly. Scarlet sage that gives a touch of fiery sin to the edge of the suburbanite's concrete walk! And then the good flowers--as honest as they are beautiful! The well-ordered gar den! The climbing rose that escapes and is the most beautiful of all!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
it pleaseth me when I see through the meadows The tents and pavilions set up, and great joy have I... When I see o'er the campana knights armed and horses arrayed.
And it pleaseth me when the scouts set in flight the folk with their goods; And it pleaseth me when I see coming together after them an host of armed men.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
How much time, approximately, can a worker in a hectic, speeded-up world give to his work and be a sane, all-round, informed, and ...recreated citizen? Unless he lives near his work, due allowance must be made for going and coming. Eight hours for sleep and eight hours for family and social life, education, recreation, and other activities which include, in the case of many women workers, keeping house and clothes in order and taking care of a family, and in the case of all workers, occasional visits to dentists and doctors, paying gas bills and the thousand and one other things an increasingly complicated life thrusts upon even the humblest, seem minimal for the "mechanics of living."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Things happen to us, all the time. It was like that for a century, and it is again. It's not like here: People always do things, b...ecause you are born with it; you are brought up in this spirit, the active approach to life: "Stand up and go." We were not. We were always passive in our lives.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Noble and wise men once believed in the music of the spheres: noble and wise men still continue to believe in the "moral significa...nce of existence." But one day even this sphere-music will no longer be audible to them! They will wake up and take note that their ears were dreaming.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What terrible questions we are learning to ask! The former men believed in magic, by which temples, cities, and men were swallowed... up, and all trace of them gone. We are coming on the secret of a magic which sweeps out of men's minds all vestige of theism and beliefs which they and their fathers held and were framed upon.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Many divorces are not really the result of irreparable injury but involve, instead, a desire on the part of the man or woman to sh...atter the setup, start out from scratch alone, and make life work for them all over again. They want the risk of disaster, want to touch bottom, see where bottom is, and, coming up, to breathe the air with relief and relish again.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Tonight I will speak up and interrupt your letters, warning you that wars are coming,... that the Count will die, that you will accept your America back to live like a prim thing on the farm in Maine.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »