"The act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people."
"Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, squares, and the like, but for the human emotions. If one has a mind which inclines to magic rather than science, one will prefer to speak of these equations as spells or incantations; it sounds more arcane, mysterious, recondite."
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Source: The ABC of Reading ch. 2 (1934)
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"The Image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy."
"Genius... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one."
"The technique of infamy is to start two lies at once and get people arguing heatedly over which is the truth."
"The only chance for victory over the brainwash is the right of every man to have his ideas judged one at a time. You never get clarity as long as you have these packaged words, as long as a word is used by twenty-five people in twenty-five different ways. That seems to me to be the first fight, if there is going to be any intellect left."
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