The nature of Man and his condition in the world, for the first time within the period of certain history, controlled the formatio...n of the State. The necessity of the colonists wrote the law. Their wants, their poverty, their manifest convenience made them bold to ask of the Governor and of the General Court, immunities, and to certain purposes, sovereign powers. The townsmen's words were heard and weighed, for all knew that it was a petitioner that could not be slighted; it was the river, or the winter, or famine, or the Pequots, that spoke through them to the Governor and Council of Massachusetts.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It would be easy ... to regard the whole of world 3 as timeless, as Plato suggested of his world of Forms or Ideas.... I propose a... different view--one which, I have found, is surprisingly fruitful. I regard world 3 as being essentially the product of the human mind.... More precisely, I regard the world 3 of problems, theories, and critical arguments as one of the results of the evolution of human language, and as acting back on this evolution.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A picture wants solidity, a statue wants colour. But we see the want of colour as a palpably glaring defect, and we do not see the... want of solidity, the effects of which to the spectator are supplied by light and shadow. A picture is as perfect an imitation of nature as is conveyed by a looking-glass; which is all that the eye can require, for it is all it can take in for the time being. A fine picture resembles a real living man; the finest statue in the world can only resemble a man turned to stone. The one is an image, the other a cold abstraction of nature. It leaves out half the visible impression.... It appears to me that sculpture, though not proper to express health or life or motion, accords admirably with the repose of the tomb; and that it cannot be better employed than in arresting the fleeting dust in imperishable forms, and in embodying a lifeless shadow. Painting, on the contrary, from what I have seen of it in Catholic countries, seems to be out of its place on the walls of churches; it has a flat and flimsy effect contrasted with the solidity of the building, and its rich flaunting colours harmonize but ill with solemnity of the surrounding scene.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Surely knowledge of the natural world, knowledge of the human condition, knowledge of the nature and dynamics of society, knowledg...e of the past so that one may use it in experiencing the present and aspiring to the future--all of these, it would seem reasonable to suppose, are essential to an educated man. To these must be added another--knowledge of the products of our artistic heritage that mark the history of our esthetic wonder and delight.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mr. Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but he wisely refrains from saying whether... they are good or bad things.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The darkened theatre; a soft, comfortable seat; controlled temperature and humidity; and thousands of shadowy images moving across... the screen--these strongly suggest the dream world each of us occupies while sleeping. It is possible to think of cinema as the deliberate manufacture of dreams. Psychological experiments reveal that individuals deprived of dreams--allowed to sleep but awakened when they begin to dream--move into a psychotic state. Clearly, dreaming is a biological and cultural necessity. In some way, our human psychobiological equipment is purged and regenerated while we sleep. Sanity is maintained, it seems, by the curious, illogical flow of images we call dreams. But why do we require dreams during the waking state?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Be reflective ... and stay away from the theater as much as you can. Stay out of the theatrical world, out of its petty interests,... its inbreeding tendencies, its stifling atmosphere, its corroding influence. Once become "theatricalized," and you are lost, my friend; you are lost.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Is it the breath, merely, of the performer on a wind- instrument, or the skillful, supple fingers of the performer on a stringed i...nstrument which evoke those tones which lay upon us a spell of such power, and awaken that inexpressible feeling, akin to nothing else on earth--the sense of a distant spirit world, and of our own higher life in it? Is it not, rather, the mind, the soul, the heart, which merely employ those bodily organs to give forth into our external life what we feel in our inner depths?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Here is the mistake of the cut-and-dried man of culture. He goes about with the secret of having learned to appreciate the "grand ...style." He has lived in Homer till he can recall the roll of that many-sounding sea. He has pored over the lofty and pictorial thought of Plato till he begins to pique himself upon its grandeur. His fancy has been fed on the quaint old-world genius of Herodotus, his judgment on the melancholy wisdom of Tacitus and the complacent cynicism of Gibbon--and of all this he is conscious and proud.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »