Critics From The United States

"And even I can remember A day when the historians left blanks in their writings, I mean, for things they didn't know, But that time seems to be passing."

"If a man have not order within him He can not spread order about him; And if a man have not order within him His family will not act with due order; And if the prince have not order within him He can not put order in his dominions."

"It is difficult to write a paradiso when all the superficial indications are that you ought to write an apocalypse."

"Not one man in a thousand can be aroused to an interest in economics until he definitely suffers from the effects of an evil system."

"The art of letters will come to an end before A.D. 2000. I shall survive as a curiosity."

"I never was. When I left the hospital I was still in America and all America is an insane asylum."

"My worst mistake was the stupid suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism, all along."

"Both in Greece and in Provence the poetry attained its highest rhythmic and metrical brilliance at times when the arts of verse and music were most closely knit together, when each thing done by the poet had some definite musical urge or necessity bound up within it."

"If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good."

"Our own consciousness is incapable of having produced the universe. God, therefore, exists. That is to say, there is no reason for not applying the term God, Theos, to the intimate essence"

"But the one thing you shd. not do is suppose that when something is wrong with the arts, it is wrong with the arts ONLY."

"Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand."

"Genius is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one."

"Make it new!"

"Hang it all, Robert Browning, there can be but the one "Sordello.""

"The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation."

"Artists are the antennae of the race but the bullet-headed many will never learn to trust their great artists."

"It has been complained, with some justice, that I dump my note-books on the public."

"Poetry must be as well written as prose."

"One discards rhyme, not because one is incapable of rhyming neat, fleet, sweet, meet, treat, eat, feet but because there are certain emotions or energies which are nor represented by the over-familiar devices or patterns."

"Who brought this to pass? Who has brought the flaming imperial anger? Who has brought the army with drums and with kettle-drums? Barbarous kings. A gracious spring, turned to blood-ravenous autumn, A turmoil of wars-men, spread over the middle kingdom, Three hundred and sixty thousand, And sorrow, sorrow like rain."

"The apparition of these faces in the crowd: Petals on a wet, black bough."

"Image…that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time."

"It is better to present one image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous work."

"Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, spheres, 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."

"Though he knows that knowledge is imperfect, he trusts it alone. If he takes, therefore, the less delight in metaphysics, he takes the more in physics."

"I perceive that the race of men, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity."

"Whoever says he knows that immortality is a fact is merely hoping that it is."

"There is no trustworthy evidence as to a god's absolute existence."

"Yes, it's hard to write. But it's harder not to."

"The race of man, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity."

"A classic is a book that doesn't have to be written again."

"The most familiar quotations are the most likely to be misquoted. Some misquotations are still variable, some have settled down to false versions that have obscured the true ones. They have passed over from literature into speech."

"Neither creator nor critic can make himself universal by barely taking thought about it. He is what he lives. The measure of the creator is the amount of life he puts Into his work. The measure of the critic is the amount of life he finds there."

"It is obvious that no difficulty in the way of world government can match the danger of a world without it."

"The opponents of the Constitution declared that the larger states would disturb the United States by their powerful contentions; the supporters replied that those contentions were sure to disturb the continent if the larger states were not united, much less sure to do it if they were united and so could be expected to arrive at peaceable agreements. The opponents of the Constitution were convinced that the people of the individual states could be protected only by their states armed with full, or at least substantial sovereignty. The supporters of the Constitution knew that conflicting sovereignties had been the causes of most wars, in which the people have regularly suffered. The opponents of the Constitution in 1787 could talk only of the difficulties of forming a new government The supporters of the Constitution aware of the dangers facing the Confederation, demanded that a new government be attempted, no matter what the difficulties."

"The parallel between 1787 and 1948 is naturally not exact. Even if it were, 1787 would have no authority over 1948. Each age must make or keep its own government and determine its own future. Nor do those citizens of the world who In 1948 desire to see a federal world government created assume that the process would have to follow the example of the United States of 1787 in the details of the new government. The Federal Convention did not follow any single example. Neither should a General Conference of the United Nations be expected to."

"The most momentous chapter in American history is the story of the making and ratifying of the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution has so long been rooted so deeply in American life — or American life rooted so deeply in it — that the drama of its origins is often overlooked. Even historical novelists, who hunt everywhere for memorable events to celebrate, have hardly touched the event without which there would have been a United States very different from the one that now exists; or might have been no United States at all. The prevailing conceptions of those origins have varied with the times. In the early days of the Republic it was held, by devout friends of the Constitution, that its makers had received it somewhat as Moses received the Tables of the Law on Sinai. During the years of conflict which led to the Civil War the Constitution was regarded, by one party or the other, as the rule of order or the misrule of tyranny. In still later generations the Federal Convention of 1787 has been accused of evolving a scheme for the support of special economic interests, or even a conspiracy for depriving the majority of the people of their liberties. Opinion has swung back and forth, while the Constitution itself has grown into a strong yet flexible organism, generally, if now and then slowly, responsive to the national circumstances and necessities."

""To the Illuminati, this is a year for which they've long awaited -- the triple witching of the Beast year." (November 1997)."

""Is the NIV the Feminist Bible for the New Age?" (August 1997)."

""The UN and its elitist masters don't want you on their property! And in case you do "trespass" and enter forbidden areas of these pristine UN lands, you might just be shot. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents and park personnel are now taught to love nature's Mother Earth and to despise and loathe human beings. They are being given firearms and instructed to use them. Meanwhile, foreign immigrants from India, China, Pakistan, Bulgaria, Russia and other nations are being recruited for this national park service police duty because, unlike U.S. nationals, non-English speaking foreigners will not hesitate to carry out orders and shoot American citizen "intruders"." (June 1997)."

""Yes, you and I will continue to pay taxes for the maintenance and upkeep of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But we no longer own it. Now, the UN has ultimate jurisdiction"."

""Even our children are being stealthily indoctrinated into the new faith... The Mattel Toy Co. has introduced its new 'Goddess of the Sun' Barbie doll. Is this the Whore of Babylon spirit, alive and with us today?" (March 1997)."

""As the above report and photos … indicate, foreign troops are now permanently stationed in our country... We must steel ourself [sic] for what may soon come. The dark clouds surely are gathering. We may not have much more time." (January 1997)."

"When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence."

"There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs."

"While the photos at the D.M.V. (New York) will still be taken in color, the engraving is done in grayscale, hence the Ansel Adams feel."

"His attacks on Reagan’s Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, have received so much attention that Watt was asked about the 'thunderous denunciations of his policies by Ansel Adams.' Watt replied with a shrug, 'Ansel Adams never took a picture with a human being in it in his life.' Adams’ friend photographer James Alinder responded, 'James Watt is no better historian of photography than Secretary of the Interior. Ansel Adams has not only made pictures of people, but his portraits form a major part of his photographic production.' In fact, the Carter Administration broke with tradition by having the Presidential portrait done not by a painter but by a photographer—Adams. Although the break with tradition was highly criticized, the Polaroid photo now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington."

"At one with the power of the American landscape, and renowned for the patient skill and timeless beauty of his work, photographer Ansel Adams has been visionary in his efforts to preserve this country's wild and scenic areas, both in film and on Earth. Drawn to the beauty of nature's monuments, he is regarded by environmentalists as a monument himself, and by photographers as a national institution. It is through his foresight and fortitude that so much of America has been saved for future Americans."

"The only things in my life that compatibly exist with this grand universe are the creative works of the human spirit."