"Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly proverb. "Necessity is the mother of futile dodges" is much nearer the truth. |
A race preserves its vigor so long as it harbors a real contrast between what has been and what may be; and so long as it is nerved by the vigor to adventure beyond the safeties of the past. Without adventure civilization is in full decay. |
Actors are loved because they are unoriginal. Actors stick to their script. The unoriginal man is loved by the mediocrity because this kind of "artistic" expression is something to which the merest five-eighth can climb. |
Almost all new ideas have a certain aspect of foolishness when they are first produced |
An enormous part of our mature experience cannot not be expressed in words. |
Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self. |
Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure. |
Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure. |
Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern. |
But you can catch yourself entertaining habitually certain ideas and setting others aside; and that, I think, is where our personal destinies are largely decided. |
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking. |
Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilized. |
Common sense is genius in homespun. |
Education which is not modern share the fate of all organic things which are kept too long |
Education with inert ideas is not only useless; it is above all things harmful. |