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Century Quotes

“Cobden was the greatest statesman and prophet of the century. His speeches are an inspiration. A man whose disciple I am willing to confess I am.”

Men Inspiration Century Willing Speech Prophet Disciple Statesmen

Author:Richard Cobden

“I don't particularly care about having [my characters] talk realistically, that doesn't mean very much to me. Actually, a lot of people speak more articulately than some critics think, but before the 20th century it really didn't occur to many writers that their language had to be the language of everyday speech. When Wordsworth first considered that in poetry, it was considered very much of a shocker. And although I'm delighted to have things in ordinary speech, it's not what I'm trying to perform myself at all: I want my characters to get their ideas across, and I want them to be articulate.”

People Thinking Want Writing Trying Firsts Mean Ideas Character Care Speak Language Century Speech Ordinary Critics Everyday 20th Century Delighted Wordsworth

Author:Louis Auchincloss

“Time in China has no immediacy as in America. Here I find the swift passage of our few earthly years accepted as naturally as the fall of flower and leaf. ... I hear and speak a language in which grammar has no tense. Both scholars and illiterates, in ordinary daily speech, tell an event of centuries ago as casually as an incident of the hour. Only as my knowledge has accumulated have I been able to know whether something related happened just then or in some past dynasty.”

Knows Years Able America Past Time Fall Speak Language Hours Happened Century Events Flower Speech Ordinary China Accepted Related Passages Scholar Leafs Grammar Incidents Tense Dynasty Immediacy

Author:Nora Waln

“Ideas about the scope and meaning of freedom of speech do expand and contract with the times. At the moment, we live in an age that is very permissive, both legally and socially, on a wide range of subjects from Karl Marx to kinky sex. This has not always been the case. Things that even children freely see and read and hear today -- writings, pictures, words -- would have been banned as just plain obscene, even for adults, as recently as the middle of the twentieth century.”

Writing Children Has Beens Ideas Moments Age Today Sex Cases Middle Subjects Century Speech Adults Wide Range Contracts Freedom Of Speech Scope Twentieth Century Banned Obscene Kinky

Author:Lawrence M. Friedman

“Over the centuries, we've moved on from Scripture to accumulate precepts of ethical, legal and moral philosophy. We've evolved a liberal consensus of what we regard as underpinnings of decent society, such as the idea that we don't approve of slavery or discrimination on the grounds of race or sex, that we respect free speech and the rights of the individual. All of these things that have become second nature to our morals today owe very little to religion, and mostly have been won in opposition to the teeth of religion.”

“We must take the best from the left and the best from the right to devise new strategies for the global twenty-first century. The reluctance of liberal professors to speak out against rampant abuses committed on their side (e.g., suppression of free speech, the excesses of women's studies and French theory) has simply increased the power of the right.”

Firsts Left Speak Sides Study Century Theory Speech Abuse Twenties Strategy Committed Professors Excess Free Speech Speaks Out Suppression Reluctance

Book:Vamps & Tramps: New Essays

Source: Vamps & Tramps: New Essays

“Evaluating countries is senseless and I would never put things in those terms, but that some of America's advances, particularly in the area of free speech, that have been achieved by centuries of popular struggle, are to be admired.”

Has Beens Country America Term Struggle Century Speech Areas Free Speech

Author:Noam Chomsky

“The best stuff that Cicero wrote, in the first century in Rome, were the Philippics, a series of speeches that he delivered against Marc Antony, whom he thought was irreparably dismantling the Republic of Rome. Those speeches are powerful because they're not only really pointed but they're thrillingly beautiful - and that's precisely what made them dangerous: the fact that people wanted to read them.”

People Firsts Made Facts Wanted Beautiful Stuff Powerful Century Dangerous Speech Series Republic Rome Antony

Author:John D'Agata

“God Bless America started to become an almost ritualistic incantation at the end of political speeches really with Ronald Reagan. It appears occasionally before, but it was not that common. And of course since it was a song that wasn't written by Irving Berlin until the 20th century (laughter), none of the 19th century presidents said God Bless America at the end of speeches, either. I think that the symbolism which suggests that everybody is religious and that even presidents who believe in church and state feel obliged to do this.”