The cardinal sin, strange as it may seem in an institution of learning, is talking. There are others, of course - sins, I mean, and I seem to have committed a good number. Yesterday I was playing my record of Gielgud reading Shakespeare. I had brought my own phonograph to school (no one could find the Requisition Forms for "Audio-Visual Aids" - that's the name for the school record player) and I had succeeded, I thought, in establishing a mood. I mean, I got them to be quiet, when - enter Admiral Ass, in full regalia, epaulettes quivering with indignation. He snapped his fingers for me to stop the phonograph, waited for the turntable to stop turning, and pronounced: "There will be a series of three bells rung three times indicating Emergency Shelter Drill. Playing records does not encourage the orderly evacuation of the class."
Bel KaufmanRelated topics
admiral ass cardinal class commit course drill emergency enter establishing evacuation find full good indignation institution learning mean mood name number orderly phonograph playing player quiet quivering reading record regalia requisition rung school series shelter sin snap stop strange talking thought three times turning turntable yesterday others aids gielgud shakespeare bellsRelated quotes
Reputation runs in a vicious circle, and Merit limps behind it, mortified and abashed at its own insignificance. It has been said that the test of fame or popularity is to consider the number of times your name is repeated by others ... So, if you see the same name staring you in the face in great letters at the corner of every street, you involuntarily think the owner of it must be a great man to occupy so large a space in the eye of the town. The appeal is made, in the first instance, to the senses, but it sinks below the surface into the mind. There are various ways of playing one's-self off before the public, and keeping one's name alive. The newspapers, the lamp-posts, the walls of empty houses, the shutters of windows, the blank covers of magazines and reviews, are open to every one.
William Hazlitt
I heard a heavy step approaching behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back.
Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver lamp, in which the flame burned without a chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation.
"Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will!"
Bram Stoker
I fear that in a few years there may be a kind of 'panic', in this form: 'since Millet' we have sunk very low - the word decadence, now whispered or pronounced in veiled terms (see Herkomer), will then sound like an alarm bell. Many, like I myself, now keep quiet, because they already have the reputation of being awkward customers,5 and talking about it doesn't help. That - namely, talking - isn't what one needs to do - one must work, though with sorrow in the heart. Those who later cry out the loudest about decadence will themselves belong to it the most. I repeat: by this shall ye know them, [from: Matt. 7:16. ] by their work, and it won't be the most eloquent who say the truest things. See Millet himself, see Herkomer, they're certainly not orators, and speak almost reluctantly.
Vincent van Gogh
Experience also shows that to be effective, we must adopt a model of partnership, not paternalism. This approach is based on our conviction that people in the developing world have the capacity to improve their own lives, and will rise to meet high expectations if we set them. America has sought to apply this model in our Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Every nation that receives American support through this initiative develops its own plan for fighting HIV/AIDS and measures the results. And so far, these results are inspiring. Five years ago, 50,000 people in sub-Sahara Africa were receiving treatment for HIV/AIDS. Today, that number is nearly 1.7 million. We're taking a similar approach to fighting malaria, and so far, we've supported local efforts to protect more than 25 million Africans.
George W. Bush
Just talking about the illogicality behind so many of these systems: Tarot cards, which are obviously very, very popular. The deck is mixed and you choose a number of cards, they're laid out and then your fortune and fate is read from them. Of course, the interesting conundrum there is that if you did the same thing five minutes later you'd pick out very different cards so presumably your fate and the reading would be necessarily very different if it's relying on those cards. Five minutes later it would be completely different and when there have been questions about this the answer is ‘oh, that's because your fate changes from minute to minute'. But then you have to think, presumably, to get a Tarot reading you'd have to constantly be having a Tarot reading over and over again in order to know what the accurate situation is, if it constantly changes from minute to minute.
Derren Brown
