Category Archives: Quotes

As every second post on this site is a quote. You’ll find a deep and broad variety of quotes under this category, which overlap with several other tags and categories. Many of the quotes are larded with links for deeper reading on the subject of the quote, or connections between the subject of the quotes and other people, things, or ideas. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

Term of Art: Voice

“Voice: The attribute of a verb that indicates whether its subject is active (Janet played the guitar) or passive (The guitar was played by Janet).”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

Jonathan Swift, Famously, on a Confederacy of Dunces

“When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him.”

Jonathan Swift

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

A Rotten Reviews Omnibus: Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell

“It’s hard to believe that a lady from Kansas City with a house in the best residential section, one full-time maid, one mink coat and a Lincoln for her very own, should finish up as timorous and ephemeral as a lunar moth on the outside of a window.”

Florence Crowther, New York Times Book Review

“It is hard to imagine a creep like Bridge ever lived. If he did, so what? Connell fails to show that he has any relevance to what’s happening in America, 1969.”

Cleveland Press

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.    

Gesamtkunstwerk

“Gesamtkunstwerk: (Ger., total work of art) Term applied to the art of the Baroque and Rococo periods, which sought unification of architecture, sculpture, painting, and sometimes even the applied and decorative arts into a ‘total work of art.’ For example, Gianlorenzo Bernini’s execution of the Coronaro Chapel in S. Maria della Vittoria in Rome. By extension, the same idea applies to other periods.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.

Term of Art: Verbal

“Verbal: A verb form that functions in a sentence as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb rather than as a principal verb. Thinking can be fun. An embroidered handkerchief. (See also gerund, infinitive, and participle.)”

Excerpted from: Strunk, William Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. New York: Longman, 2000.

Term of Art: Bilateral Agreement

“Bilateral agreement: Agreement to which there are two parties as opposed to a multilateral agreement involving several parties.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.

Write It Right: Bar for Bend

Bar for Bend. ‘Bar sinister.’ There is no such thing in heraldry as a bar sinister.

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

Book of Answers: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

“When did ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion‘ first appear? The anti-Semitic forgery first appeared in a St. Petersburg newspaper in 1903. It purported to document the conspiracy of Judaism to take over the world. It may have been written by Czar Nicholas II’s secret police.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

Term of Art: Brains Trust

Brains Trust: Nickname given to a group of economists and businessmen in the USA who acted as advisers to Pres. Roosevelt (1882-1945) in formulating the New Deal policy. The term has since been widely used to denote bodies of experts believed to have influence on government policy. In the UK the term ‘brains trust’ was extended to include groups of experts assembled to answer questions put to them by the public, especially the BBC’s wartime panel of experts who broadcast on the wireless.”

Excerpted from: Cook, Chris. Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Gramercy, 1998.

Multiculturalism

“Multiculturalism: This movement focuses primarily on changing traditional canons throughout the humanities. With the expansion of canonical traditions and exposure of students at all levels to artists, writers, and historical movements previously marginalized in general bodies of knowledge, the next generation is expected to have a better grasp of an increasingly diverse society in a world in flux. In the realm of art in the United States, this has resulted in a greater emphasis on and interest in non-Western art and on works produced in communities without previous access to museum and gallery exposure (e.g. African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, women, gays, and lesbians).”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.