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.

A Brief History of Time

Posted on August 4, 2018 | Leave a comment

“A book (1988) subtitled ‘From the Big Bang to Black Holes,’ by the British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking (1942-2018), which attempts to explain to a lay audience his ideas about the beginning of the universe, the nature of space-time and black holes, and the possible synthesis of quantum mechanics with the theory of relativity. In it the author asks such questions as ‘Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?’ The book was a surprise success, remaining on the UK bestseller list for more than three years, though it was axiomatically more bought than read.”

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

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Rotten Rejections: C.P. Snow

Posted on August 3, 2018 | Leave a comment

“It’s polite, literate, plodding, sententious narrative of considerable competence but not a trace of talent or individuality;… Real dull stuff for us Americans. The values in it are so bloody sanctimonious English that I found it hard to take.”

[Rejection of The New Men]

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

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Eric Hoffer on Fanaticism

Posted on August 3, 2018 | Leave a comment

“No so the fanatic. Chaos is his element. When the old order begins to crack, he wades in with all his might and recklessness to blow the whole hated present to high heaven. He glories in the sight of a world coming to a sudden end. To hell with reforms! All that already exists is rubbish. He justifies his will to anarchy with the plausible assertion that there can be no new beginning so long as the old clutters the landscape. He shoves aside the frightened men of words, if they are still around, though he continues to extol their doctrines and mouth their slogans. He alone knows the innermost craving of the masses in action; the craving for communion, for the mustering of the host, for the dissolution of cursed individuality in the majesty and grandeur of a mighty whole. Posterity is king; and woe to those, inside and outside the movement, who hug and hang on to the present.”

Excerpted from: Hoffer, Eric. The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951.

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Posted in English Language Arts, Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences

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The Algonquin Wits: Edna Ferber on Nobel Laureates and Critics

Posted on August 2, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Speaking about reviewers who seemed unable to render honest, objective critiques on the works of such writers as had won the Nobel Prize, Miss Ferber described them as ‘awestruck by the Nobelity.'”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference

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Plinth (n)

Posted on August 2, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Square member on which a column or statue rests; a narrow rectangular platform of stone.”

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

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Denis Diderot on Skepticism

Posted on July 27, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Skepticism is the first step on the road to philosophy.”

Denis Diderot

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

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Term of Art: Argument

Posted on July 27, 2018 | Leave a comment

“To argue is to produce considerations designed to support a conclusion. An argument is either the process of doing this (in which sense an argument may be heated or protracted) or the product, i.e., the set of propositions adduced (the premises), the pattern of inference, and the conclusion reached. An argument may be deductively valid, in which case the conclusion follows from the premises, or it may be persuasive in other ways. Logic is the study of valid and invalid forms of argument.”

Excerpted from: Blackburn, Simon. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Descent

Posted on July 25, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Descent, n. Going lower. Popularly used to indicated the existing generation is a peg worse that than which fathered it. Thus one Darwin justly discourses upon the superiority of the ancestral baboon in a melancholy essay, called ‘The Descent of Man.’” 

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

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Jonathan Swift: The Battle of the Books

Posted on July 25, 2018 | Leave a comment

“A prose satire by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), written in 1697 and published in 1704. The complete title, A Full and True Account of the Battle Fought Last Friday, between the Ancient and Modern Books in St. James’s Library, more or less explains the gist of the piece. Swift was disinterestedly mocking the contemporary debate as to the relative merits of the ancient and modern authors. In Swift’s fantasy, Plato, Homer, Euclid, and Virgil are ranged against moderns such as Dryden, Hobbes, Milton, and Descartes. The work ends while the outcome is still uncertain.

‘Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders

do generally discover everybody’s face but their own’”

Jonathan Swift, The Battle of the Books, preface

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

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The Cinq-Cents

Posted on July 25, 2018 | Leave a comment

“Cinq-Cents—the Council of 500—was the elective assembly which ruled France at the end of the Revolution, between the end of the Terror and the seizure of power by General Bonaparte (1795-99). Much overlooked now, the so-called Directory period was an attempt at creating a stable and balanced democracy, with the Assembly empowered to nominate five directors, who, once they had been approved by the 250-strong Senate of ‘Ancients,’ ruled the Republic.

The Assembly consciously looked back to the democracy of ancient Athens, which was governed through the Boule, an assembly of 500. However, the ancient model attempted to avoid the perils of influence peddling and the factionalism of party politics by cutting out the voting process; instead, each of the ten tribes of Athens and its hinterland held a ballot to send fifty of their men to attend this standing council for a year. After a year’s service, they had to resign.”

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.

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