William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
- The Elements of Style
A writer may err by making his sentences too compact and periodic. An occasional loose sentence prevents the style from becoming too formal and gives the reader a certain relief. Consequently, loose sentences are common in easy, unstudied writing. The danger is that there may be too many of them.
Emile Durkheim
- The Rules of Sociological Method
If a science of societies exists, one must certainly not expect it to consist of a mere paraphrase of traditional prejudices. It should rather cause us to see things in a different way from the ordinary man, for the purpose of any science is to make discoveries, and all such discoveries more or less upset accepted opinions.
George Orwell
- Looking Back on the Spanish War
Atrocities are believed in or disbelieved in solely on the grounds of political predilection. Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence.
George Orwell
- Looking Back on the Spanish War
We have become too civilized to grasp the obvious. For the truth is very simple. To survive you often have to fight, and to fight you have to dirty yourself. War is evil, and it is often the lesser evil. Those who take the sword perish by the sword, and those who don't take the sword perish by smelly diseases.
George Orwell
- The Lion and the Unicorn
A military parade is really a kind of ritual dance, something like a ballet, expressing a certain philosophy of life. The goose-step, for instance, is one of the most horrible sights in the world, far more terrifying than a dive bomber. It is simply an affirmation of naked power; contained in it, quite consciously and intentionally, is the vision of a boot crashing down on a face.
Maria Konnikova
- The Psychology of Online Comments
Whether online, on the phone, by telegraph, or in person, we are governed by the same basic principles. The medium may change, but people do not. The question instead is whether the outliers, the trolls and the flamers, will hold outsized influence - and the answer seems to be that, even protected by the shade of anonymity, a dog will often make himself known with a stray, accidental bark. Then, hopefully, he will be treated accordingly.
James Joyce
- Ulysses
He drank to the undoing of his foes, a race of mighty valorous heroes, rulers of the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster silent as the deathless gods.
James Joyce
- Ulysses
Fed and feeding brains about me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers: and in my mind's darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds. Thought is the thought of thought. Tranquil brightness. The soul is, in a manner, all that is: the soul is the form of forms. Tranquility sudden, vast, candescent: form of forms.
James Joyce
- The Dead
His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
Abraham Lincoln
- Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society
The old general rule was that educated people did not perform manual labor. They managed to eat their bread, leaving the toil of producing it to the uneducated. This was not an insupportable evil to the working bees, so long as the class of drones remained very small. But now, especially in these free states, nearly all are educated - quite too nearly all, to leave the labor of the uneducated in any wise adequate to the support of the whole.
Michel Foucault
- The Government of Self and Others
It is only by breaking with rhetoric that philosophical discourse, in the very act of expelling it, can constitute itself and affirm itself as a constant and permanent relationship to truth.
Michel Foucault
- The Government of Self and Others
The philosophical life is a manifestation of the truth. It is a testimony. Through the type of life one leads, the set of choices one makes, the things one renounces and those one accepts, how one dresses, and how one speaks, the philosophical life should be from start to finish the manifestation of this truth.
M.C. Burritt.
- Apple Growing
Pruning is not an entirely artificial operation as one might at first thought suppose. It is one of nature's most common processes. Nature accomplishes this result through the principle of competition, by starting many more trees on a given area than can possibly survive. In the same way there is a surplus of buds and branches on each individual tree. It is only by the crowding out and the perishing of many buds, branches, and trees that others are enabled to reach maturity.
Edith Wharton
- French Ways and Their Meanings
Hasty generalizations are always tempting to travelers, and now and then they strike out vivid truths that the observer loses sight of after closer scrutiny. But nine times out of ten they hit wild.
The Mountaineers
- The Freedom of the Hills
Mountaineering takes place in an environment indifferent to human needs, and not everyone is willing to pay the price for its intense physical and spiritual rewards.
The Mountaineers
- The Freedom of the Hills
Humans are biased toward downplaying risk. The human brain convincingly justifies exposures to hazards. But, always remember: the outcome of an exposure to a hazard is unpredictable no matter what you think, how experienced or skilled you are, or how steadfastly you believe otherwise.
The Mountaineers
- Mountaineering - The Freedom of the Hills
Studying respected leaders is always worthwhile, but it may be a mistake to model yourself on anyone too closely. A group must believe that their leader is genuine, and therefore all leaders must develop their own style. Exercising leadership is not always easy, but it should be done in a way that is natural for each person.
G. W. Mortimer
- A Manual of Pyrotechny; or a Familiar System of Recreative Fire-Works
Rockets have ever held the first place among single fireworks since the invention of the art; and to which they are justly entitled, both for the pleasing appearance they produce when fired by themselves, and the extensive application of them to increase the beauty of other exhibitions.
Earl H. Reed
- Sketches in Duneland
The flowers have a kingdom in the dunes. From the secluded nooks and fertile crevices, from among the shadows of the trees, and along the margins of the marshes and little pools, their silent songs of color go out over the landscapes. In no form is beauty so completely expressed, and in no form is it so accessible to us.
