A Quote by George Santayana

Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better.

George Santayana

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Advertising Appear Argument Better Function Make Modern Substitute Worse

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George Santayana
Spanish - Novelist
December 16, 1863 - September 26, 1952

Advertising is the modern substitute for argument, its function is to make the worse appear the better article. A confused competition of all propagandas -- those insults to human nature -- is carried on by the most expert psychological methods -- for instance, by always repeating a lie.

George Santayana

Cynicism is the intellectual cripple's substitute for intelligence. It is the dishonest businessman's substitute for conscience. It is the communicator's substitute, whether he is advertising man or editor or writer, for self-respect.

Russell Lynes

The trial lawyer does what Socrates was executed for: making the worse argument appear the stronger.

Irving Kaufman

But all was false and hollow; though his tongue Dropp'd manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, 4 to perplex and dash Maturest counsels.

John Milton

Advertising prods people into wanting more and better things. Of course advertising makes people dissatisfied with what they have - makes them raise their sights. Mighty good thing it does. Nothing could be worse for the United States than 200,000,000 satisfied Americans.

Bernice Fitz-Gibbon

The function of football, soccer, basketball and other passion-sports in modern industrial society is the transference of boredom, frustration, anger and rage into socially acceptable forms of combat. A temporary substitute for war; for nationalism; identification with something bigger than the self.

Edward Abbey

The function of art is to make that understood which in the form of argument would be incomprehensible.

Constantin Brancusi

The function of good software is to make the complex appear to be simple.

Grady Booch

The old style hypocrite was a person who tried to appear better than he actually was; the new style hypocrite tries to appear worse than he or she is.

Charles Templeton

I think we must fully face the fact that when Christianity does not make a man very much better, it makes him very much worse... Conversion may make of one who was, if no better, no worse than an animal, something like a devil.

C. S. Lewis

Yes. The original argument is defective. Substitute the word 'male' for 'gay,' and you'll see the flaw: 'Male people cannot be normal. If everyone were male starting tomorrow, the human race would die out, so being male cannot be nature's intended way.' Or you could substitute the word 'female.' In either case, the argument makes no sense: Being male or female is perfectly normal.

Marilyn vos Savant

I don't think theory adds to criticism. (Methodology does, for better or worse.) Theory's function is to make criticism self-conscious, maybe even a little sheepish, about its ex cathedra pronouncements.

Paul Fry

For comic writers charge Socrates with making the worse appear the better reason.

Quintilian

The argument of the broken window pane is the most valuable argument in modern politics.

Emmeline Pankhurst

Hope for the best, be prepared for the worse. Life is shocking, but you must never appear to be shocked. For no matter how bad it is it could be worse and no matter how good it is it could be better.

Maya Angelou

When you set about your composing, it may be necessary for your ease, and better distillation of wit, to put on your worst clothes, and the worse the better; for an author, like a limbeck, will yield the better for having a rag about him: besides that, I have observed a gardener cut the outward rind of a tree (which is the surtout of it) to make it bear well; and this is a natural account of the usual poverty of poets, and is an argument why wits, of all men living, ought to be ill clad.

Jonathan Swift

A Quote by George Santayana

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