William Graham Sumner Quotes
It is the tendency of the social burdens to crush out the middle class, and to force society into an organization of only two classes, one at each social extreme.
Quotes to Explore
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The moral of a fable is eternal. The moral of a story is temporary to a story.
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I feel quite connected to the past, and my memory. Everything that I've ever done I can still relate to, and feel connected to it in a way. There's no part of my life that I look at and go, 'I don't recognize that person at all.'
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My style's not for everyone - I'm an extremist.
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I tried to take seriously the idea that if you tortured language you might arrive at some new truth. Later it became clear to me that I was retreading ground by fighting the literary battles of the 1950s and 1960s, and that I was actually a bit bored by some of the books I professed to love.
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I always say spend more on classics, like a good pair of leather trousers, an amazing tailored jacket, or a classic handbag. Then you can just mix your everyday tops from the high street.
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I love a lot of music that's considered folk music, but I also love a lot of music that's considered punk or considered rap. I don't mind being called a folk singer. But it seems a bit limiting. I want to be able to write whatever kind of song I want.
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Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
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The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian but an American.
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I used to say, 'There is a God-shaped hole in me.' For a long time I stressed the absence, the hole. Now I find it is the shape which has become more important.
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Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily. Every day one should meditate on being carried away by surging waves, falling from thousand-foot cliffs, dying of disease.
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I have friends who have a CD mastering plant in Hollywood and they are very sceptical about European record labels' understanding of digital technology.
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There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.
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You can not only do great things for an urban core by moving your employee base there, you're also going to be a better business.
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The only prize much cared for by the powerful is power.
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I've sat down and written with a more or less supportable or insupportable idea or thing to say, and it ends. When it's not 200 pages, people want to call it a story. I guess they're entitled to do that. In my view, if it were a supportable idea, it would have gone 200 pages, and it didn't.
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I increasingly see organized religion as actually my enemy. They treat me as their enemy. Not all Christians, of course. Not all Jews, not all Muslims.
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The thing about Chicago is that it really isn't like any other place. The architecture and the layout of the city are the best. I'm from the Midwest, and consider myself a Midwesterner. I feel most at home there. I love California. I have great friends in California. I just have always considered Illinois to be home.
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My mother said I would have more chances to become a tennis player than a football player.
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To be honest, there are parts of 'How Literature Saved My Life' that began as interviews. Someone was telling me that they think the book sounds very phonic: that it sounds like me speaking. And I don't think it's a coincidence that there are six to ten passages that I cadged from various interviews that I did post-'Reality Hunger'.
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'X Factor' did a lot for me, but things truly started to take off for me when I went to social media.
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Yoga teaches you how to listen to your body.
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The greatest poets are those with memories so great that they extend beyond their strongest experiences to their minutest observations of people and things far outside their own self-centeredness.
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It is the tendency of the social burdens to crush out the middle class, and to force society into an organization of only two classes, one at each social extreme.
