josh blog
Ordinary language is all right.
One could divide humanity into two classes:
those who master a metaphor, and those who hold by a formula.
Those with a bent for both are too few, they do not comprise a class.
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An introductory trope: 'My project contributes to so many different ongoing debates!'.
I don't know anything about Robert Service, at all, but one of my prejudices is that I think people who like Robert Service's writing must do so because of some vague uplift of spirit they feel because of his name. Why, yes: Service. A fine thing!
'people should listen to this instead of working because this is better than their lives' —YouTube commenter
'Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate circumstances?'
'10. What of a poetry that lacks surprise? That lacks form, theme, development? Whose language rejects interest? That examines itself without curiosity? Will it survive?'
'I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. Some have asked what I had got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who lave large families, how many poor children I maintained. I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no particular interest in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of these questions in this book.'
Mulhall writes of a sentence of Cavell's: 'it does not directly answer the preceding question, but rather restates it—as if this investigation neither begins nor ends with theses but is rather a matter of continuously renewed questioning, as if this sentence itself constitutes a new beginning to the investigation, as if every sentence in this book aspires to be a new beginning (and so, a new end)'.