Quotations

«I sometimes compare press officers to riflemen on the Somme -- mowing down wave upon wave of distortion, taking out rank upon rank of supposition, deduction and gossip.»

«Suppose we were able to share meanings freely without a compulsive urge to impose our view or conform to those of others and without distortion and self-deception. Would this not constitute a real revolution in culture.»

«All the gestures of children are graceful; the reign of distortion and unnatural attitudes commences with the introduction of the dancing master»

«There is no true expertise in the humanities without knowing all of the humanities. Art is a vast, ancient interconnected web-work, a fabricated tradition. Over-concentration on any one point is a distortion.»

«It is not enough for theory to describe and analyze, it must itself be an event in the universe it describes. In order to do this theory must partake of and become the acceleration of this logic. It must tear itself from all referents and take pride only in the future. Theory must operate on time at the cost of a deliberate distortion of present reality.»

«Laughter is an interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable.»

«WHANGDEPOOTENAWAH, n. In the Ojibwa tongue, disaster; an unexpected affliction that strikes hard.Should you ask me whence this laughter, Whence this audible big-smiling, With its labial extension, With its maxillar distortion And its diaphragmic rhythmus Like the billowing of an ocean, Like the shaking of a carpet, I should answer, I should tell you: From the great deeps of the spirit, From the unplummeted abysmus Of the soul this laughter welleth As the fountain, the gug-guggle, Like the river from the canon [sic], To entoken and give warning That my present mood is sunny. Should you ask me further question -- Why the great deeps of the spirit, Why the unplummeted abysmus Of the soule extrudes this laughter, This all audible big-smiling, I should answer, I should tell you With a white heart, tumpitumpy, With a true tongue, honest Injun: William Bryan, he has Caught It, Caught the Whangdepootenawah!Is't the sandhill crane, the shankank, Standing in the marsh, the kneedeep, Standing silent in the kneedeep With his wing-tips crossed behind him And his neck close-reefed before him, With his bill, his william, buried In the down upon his bosom, With his head retracted inly, While his shoulders overlook it? Does the sandhill crane, the shankank, Shiver grayly in the north wind, Wishing he had died when little, As the sparrow, the chipchip, does? No 'tis not the Shankank standing, Standing in the gray and dismal Marsh, the gray and dismal kneedeep. No, 'tis peerless William Bryan Realizing that he's Caught It, Caught the Whangdepootenawah!»

«Hypocrisy and distortion are passing currents under the name of religion»

«We must believe that 'emotion recollected in tranquillity' is an inexact formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor without distortion of meaning, tranquillity. It is a concentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration of a very great number of experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to be experiences at all; it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation. These experiences are not 'recollected' and they finally unite in an atmosphere which is ''tranquil'' only in that it is a passive attending upon the event.»

«When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth suffers a considerable and often a radical distortion. The complex is made over into the simple, the hypothetical into the dogmatic. . .»