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.

Rotten Reviews: Raymond Carver

Posted on November 15, 2019 | Leave a comment

“There is nothing here to appease a reader’s basic literary needs.”

Atlantic Monthly

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged ,

Write it Right: Allude to for Mention

Posted on November 15, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Allude to for Mention. What is alluded to is not mentioned, but referred to indirectly. Originally, the word implied a playful, or sportive reference. That meaning is gone out of it.”

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged

Brewer’s Curious Titles: Down and Out in Paris and London

Posted on November 15, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Down and Out in Paris and London: An autobiographical study (1933) by George Orwell (1903-50), the author’s first published book. It is an account of working with the poor in London’s East End, and performing menial jobs in a working-class district of Paris, while trying to get his writing published. A useful piece of advice in the book is to stick to the cheaper restaurants in Paris, as in the more glamorous establishments the waiters are likely to spit in the soup.”

Excerpted from: Crofton, Ian, ed. Brewer’s Curious Titles. London: Cassell, 2002.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged ,

Mark Twain on the Sacred and the Profane

Posted on November 15, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.”

Mark Twain

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

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , ,

Term of Art: Psychosocial Stressor

Posted on November 15, 2019 | Leave a comment

“psychosocial stressor: n. Any life event or change, such as divorce, marriage, bereavement, loss or change of a job, or moving house, that causes stress and may be associated with the onset or deterioration of a mental disorder. See also adjustment disorder.”

Excerpted from: Colman, Andrew M., ed. Oxford Dictionary of Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Leave a comment

Posted in Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , ,

7 Chemicals of Alchemist’s Arcana

Posted on November 14, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Sulphuric Acid * Iron Oxide * Sodium Carbonate * Sodium Nitrate * Liquor Hepatis * Red Pulvis Solaris * Black Pulvis Solaris

The alchemist’s vocabulary does not always translate directly into a modern formula. They were keen on Natron, which was a generic word that included both the salts of sodium carbonate and sodium nitrate. Vitriol, however, is what we know as sulphuric acid and Aqua Fortis was nitric acid. Black pulvis solaris was formed from ground black antimony (stibnite–a sulphide of antimony) mixed with ground sulphur. Red pulvis solaris was a mixture of mercury (which could be extracted by heating cinnabar) and sulphur.

The alchemists also made a strong connection between the seven prime metals and the planets. The sun was linked to gold, the moon to silver, Mars to iron, Mercury to quicksilver, Saturn to lead, Jupiter to tin, and Venus to copper.”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged ,

Malediction

Posted on November 12, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Malediction (noun): An invoking of evil or harm upon somebody or something; pronounced curse; evil talk or slander. Adjective: maledictive, maledictory.

‘He caught up the empty pewter mug at his right and threw it at the clumsy lad with a malediction.'”

Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop

Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged ,

Term of Art: Realpolitik

Posted on November 12, 2019 | Leave a comment

“Realpolitik: (Germ., politics of realism) Term coined in 1859 by the liberal journalist and historian Rochau, to describe Bismarck’s policy. Bismarck believed that a naked struggle for power and a ruthless pursuit of self-interest were the only realistic options for a great state.”

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

Leave a comment

Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged , ,

Thomas Reed Powell on the Legal Mind

Posted on November 12, 2019 | Leave a comment

“If you think you can think about a thing inextricably attached to something else without thinking of the thing which it is attached to, then you have a legal mind.”

Thomas Reed Powell

Quoted in Thurman W. Arnold, The Symbols of Government

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged , , ,

Jerome Bruner on Narrative

Posted on November 8, 2019 | Leave a comment

“A ‘story’ (fictional or actual) involves an Agent who Acts to achieve a Goal in a recognizable Setting by the use of certain Means. What drives the story, what makes it worth telling, is Trouble: some misfit between Agent, Acts, Goals, Settings, and Means.”

Jerome Bruner

The Culture of Education

Excerpted from: Wiggins, Grant, and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 1998.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

Tagged , ,