A Quote by Oscar Wilde
The crude commercialism of America, its materialising spirit, its indifference to the poetical side of things, and its lack of imagination and of high unattainable ideals, are entirely due to that country having adopted for its national hero a man who, according to his own confession, was incapable of telling a lie, and it is not too much to say that the story of George Washington and the cherry-tree has done more harm, and in a shorter space of time, than any other moral tale in the whole of literature.
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On my visits to America, I discovered that the old Marxist dictum, "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs," was probably more in force in America-that holy of holies of capitalism-than in any other country in the world.
His heavy-lidded gaze reflected a languor that had nothing to do with having just awakened, and there was no doubt what was on his mind. But this is no safe cherry picker, Gwen thought, growing more concerned by the moment. This man looks like a cherry tree chopper-downer.
The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects - his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity.
Juvenile crime is not naturally born in the boy, but is largely due either to the spirit of adventure that is in him, to his own stupidity, or to his lack of discipline, according to the nature of the individual.
The historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of literature from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order.
There's a natural tendency to sanitize and polish any historical icon whether it be George Washington chopping down the cherry tree or Martin Luther King saying, "I have a dream."
I often say flippantly that the short story is... shorter; you can be done with it more easily. It's much less of a commitment of time and energy than a big project like a novel or long nonfiction book.
In order to have a literature, a nation must live, not merely on the practical, but on the moral and spiritual plane as well, contributing through its national life to the development of some side of the universal spirit of man.
The Unitarian Church has done more than any other church to substitute character for creed, and to say that a man should be judged by his spirit; by the climate of his heart; by the autumn of his generosity; by the spring of his hope; that he should be judged by what he does; by the influence that he exerts, rather than by the mythology he may believe.
Mediocrity is perhaps due not so much to lack of imagination as to lack of faith in the imagination, lack of the capacity for this abandon.
Every country has a founding mythology. For Americans, it starts with our first president's youthful encounter with a cherry tree and refusal to tell a lie. Mr. Trump would do well to find inspiration in that story, which goes to the heart of what makes America different - and our foreign policy effective - around the world.
And along with indifference to space, there was an even more complete indifference to time. "There seems to be plenty of it", was all I would answer when the investigator asked me to say what I felt about time. Plenty of it, but exactly how much was entirely irrelevant. I could, of course, have looked at my watch but my watch I knew was in another universe. My actual experience had been, was still, of an indefinite duration. Or alternatively, of a perpetual present made up of one continually changing apocalypse.
I've always held the view that great states need strategic space. I mean, George Washington took his space from George III. Britain took it from just about everybody. Russia took all of Eastern Europe. Germany's taken it from everywhere they can, and China will want its space too.
From the hindsight of history George Washington seems larger than life, more statuesque than man. Too bad! Washington's greatness as a leader was courage under fire and persistence in the face of obstacles. Yet even he at times doubted himself. But he put those doubts aside and forged ahead, convinced of his noble purpose.
The young Obama's lack of playing time on the high school basketball team was due more to his ability than the coach's preference for white players.
But . . . I may as well say what I should not otherwise have said, that I always knew in my heart Walt Whitman’s mind to be more like my own than any other man’s living. As he is a very great scoundrel this is not a pleasant confession.
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