... in every State there are more women who can read and write than the whole number of illiterate male voters; more white women w...ho can read and write than all Negro voters; more American women who can read and write than all foreign voters.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The highest proof of civility is that the whole public action of the State is directed on securing the greatest good of the greate...st number.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Moreover, the universe as a whole is infinite, for whatever is limited has an outermost edge to limit it, and such an edge is defi...ned by something beyond. Since the universe has no edge, it has no limit; and since it lacks a limit, it is infinite and unbounded. Moreover, the universe is infinite both in the number of its atoms and in the extent of its void.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Because of the enormous size of the public, television advertisers face problems of a different nature to advertisers in the press... or even on posters. The readers of even the most widely circulated newspapers represent only a relatively small section of the population, and quite a number of facts have been accumulated about the interests, prejudices and habits of the readers of different papers; posters are placed in definite localities and the population of that locality, in contrast to other localities in that area, and of the different regions of England can, if necessary, be estimated. But with television, all these sensational calculations disappear; the advertiser is reaching practically the whole population within range of the transmitter. He may well ignore the poorest people, because they are not likely to have a set, and the richest and best educated because (as Dorothy Sayers shrewdly pointed out) they "buy what they want when they want it" and are not likely to be influenced by mass advertisements; but between those two extremes he has to try to please and portray Everyman and Everywoman and, above all, must try to offend none of them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The great leading distinction between writing and speaking is, that more time is allowed for the one than the other, and hence dif...ferent faculties are required for, and different objects attained by each. He is properly the best speaker who can collect together the greatest number of apposite ideas at a moment's warning; he is properly the best writer who can give utterance to the greatest quantity of valuable knowledge in the course of his whole life. The chief requisite for the one, then, appears to be quickness and facility of perception--for the other, patience of soul and a power increasing with the difficulties it has to master. He cannot be denied to be an expert speaker, a lively companion, who is never at a loss for something to say on every occasion or subject that offers. He, by the same rule, will make a respectable writer who, by dint of study, can find out anything good to say upon any one point that has not yet been touched upon before, or who by asking for time, can give the most complete and comprehensive view of any question. The one must be done off-hand, at a single blow; the other can only be done by a repetition of blows, by having time to think and do better.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Even in ordinary speech we call a person unreasonable whose outlook is narrow, who is conscious of one thing only at a time, and w...ho is consequently the prey of his own caprice, whilst we describe a person as reasonable whose outlook is comprehensive, who is capable of looking at more than one side of a question and of grasping a number of details as parts of a whole.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Some crimes get honor and renown by being committed with more pomp, by a greater number, and in a higher degree of wickedness than... others. Hence it is that public robberies, plunderings, and sackings have been looked upon as excellencies and noble achievements, and the seizing of whole countries, however unjustly and barbarously, is dignified with the glorious name of gaining conquests.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If you look into your own mind, which are you, Don Quixote or Sancho Panza? Almost certainly you are both. There is one part of yo...u that wishes to be a hero or a saint, but another part of you is a fat little man who sees very clearly the advantages of staying alive with a whole skin. He is your unofficial self, the voice of the belly protesting against the soul, his tastes lie towards safety, soft beds, no work, pots of beer and women with "voluptuous" figures. He it is who punctures your fine attitudes and urges you to look after Number One, to be unfaithful to your wife, to bilk your debts, and so on and so forth. Whether you allow yourself to be influenced by him is a different question. But it is simply a lie to say that he is not part of you, just as it is a lie to say that Don Quixote is not part of you either.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In the savage state every family owns a shelter as good as the best, and sufficient for its coarser and simpler wants; but I think... that I speak within bounds when I say that, though the birds of the air have their nests, and the foxes their holes, and the savages their wigwams, in modern civilized society not more than one half the families own a shelter. In the large towns and cities, where civilization especially prevails, the number of those who own a shelter is a very small fraction of the whole. The rest pay an annual tax for this outside garment ... which would buy a village of Indian wigwams, but now helps to keep them poor as long as they live.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Y'see it's sort of a game with me. Its whole object is to prove that two plus two equals four. That seems to make sense, but you'd... be surprised at the number of people who try to stretch it to five.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »