Stalin was the most audible and powerful spokesman in the campaign against what he contemptuously called uravnilovka (leveling). His hostility - voiced in sarcastic and dismissive terms - was so deep and so clearly enunciated that it rapidly became s...
If Gissing is less compassionately observant than Mrs Gaskell, less overtly polemical than Kingsley, still and would be sympathetically endorsed by either of them, or by their typical readers. Yet Gissing does introduce an important new element, and ...
All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their failure is ours, too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped to create.....
Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. The...
The desire to “do more in less time” is not a neutral force in our culture; it is the handmaiden of miserable experts, specialists, and leaders. Not everyone has rushed to become efficient. Something else exists on the periphery: an inefficient u...
Adieu, mon cher vieux. Relis et rebûche ton conte. Laisse-le reposer et reprends-le, les livres ne se font pas comme les enfants, mais comme les pyramides, avec un dessin prémédité, et en apportant des grands blocs l´un par-dessus l´autre, à f...
If Thecla had symbolized love of which I felt myself undeserving, as I know now that she did, then did her symbolic force disappear when I locked the door of her cell behind me? That would be like saying that the writing of this book, over which I ha...
What does it take to break a person? Torturers and interrogators would be able to provide statistics. This many nights without sleep, this many needles, this much water, this voltage of current on this many occasions. But there is considerable variat...
...and yet the idea is hard to accept, it's so hard to succeed in making something happen, even what's been decided on and planned out, not even the will of a god seems forceful enough to manage it, if our own will is made in its semblance. It may be...
As with our earlier worship of saints and facts, there is something silly about grown men and women striving to reduce their vision of themselves and of civilization to bean counting. The message of the competition/efficiency/marketplace Trinity seem...
Nationalism and socialism as actually lived and applied in the 20th century are the same thing (and in the 18th and 19th century, nationalism was often a force for classical liberalism!). It’s all a kind of reactionary tribalism (another “ism” ...
If you have a story to tell, put it out there. Get the thing done. No excuses. No procrastinating. No apologies. It will never be as good as you want it to be, so forget about perfection. Just be satisfied that you've done the best work you can do at...
[Chaplin tells Sennett he intends to leave Sennett's employ and open his own studio] Mack Sennett: Charlie, I've been so rotten to you. I don't know if you can forgive me. I forced you to leave Butte, Montana. I made you accept a hundred and fifty pe...
[the Joker has rigged two ferries to explode, one filled with prison inmates, one with ordinary people, giving each ferry one detonator and telling them they have to blow up the other, or he'll blow up both. A prisoner approaches the warden, who's ho...
Dr. Barringer, Clinic Director: There is one outside chance for a cure. I think of it as shock treatment - as I said, it's a very outside chance... Have you ever heard of exorcism? Well, it's a stylized ritual in which the rabbi or the priest try to ...
Mr. Incredible: [Everyone is trapped in Syndrome's containment unit] I'm sorry. I've been a lousy father, blind to what I have. So obsessed with being undervalued that I undervalued all of you. [while Bob is talking, Violet frees herself using her fo...
[Thorwald forces Jeff's apartment door open and stands before him, closing the door behind him] Lars Thorwald: What do you want from me? [Jeff does not reply] Lars Thorwald: Your friend, the girl, could have turned me in. Why didn't she? [no reply] L...
[first title cards] Title card/crawl: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... Title card/crawl: It is a dark time for the Rebellion. Although the Death Star has been destroyed, Imperial troops have driven the Rebel forces from their hidden base ...
Marianne: Always resignation and acceptance. Always prudence and honour and duty. Elinor, where is your heart? Elinor Dashwood: What do you know of my heart? What do you know of anything but your own suffering. For weeks, Marianne, I've had this pres...
[after Anakin is assigned by the Jedi to spy on Chancellor Palpatine] Obi-Wan Kenobi: Anakin did not take to his new assignment with much enthusiasm. Mace Windu: It's very dangerous, putting them together. I don't think the boy can handle it. I don't...
Luke Skywalker: Come on. Why don't you take a look around? You know what's about to happen, what they're up against. They could use a good pilot like you. You're turning your back on them. Han Solo: What good's a reward if you ain't around to use it?...
