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;void(0)) . . . CLARITY see "COMMUNICATION" for related links When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence. --Ansel Easton Adams (19021984) American photographer. In James R. Miller _Visions from Earth_, p. 10 [2004]. If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist. In "Reader's Digest" [October 1977] according to Larry Chang in _Wisdom for the Soul ..._ p. 653 [2006]. When I was young, I admired clever people; now that I am old, I admire kind people. --Abraham Joshua Heschel (19071972) Polish-born American theologian and philosopher. Quoted by his student, Harold S. Kushner, in _When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough_ [1986] - The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words. --Hippocrates (c. 460377 BC) Greek physician. Attributed in Laurence J. Peter _Peter's Quotations: Ideas For Our Time_ [1977]. & note: The chief merit of language is clearness, and we know that nothing detracts so much from this as do unfamiliar terms. --Galen (129199) Greek physician, anatomist, and writer on medicine and philosophy. _On the Natural Faculties_ - Those who know they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound. It is timid and dislikes going into the water. --Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (18441900) German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture. _Die fr๖hilche Wissenschaft_ [1882] Plain as a nose in a man's face. --Fran็ois Rabelais (c. 1494c. 1553] French humanist, satirist, and physician. _Gargantua and Pantagruel_ [1552] bk. 5 - Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said at all can be said clearly. But not everything that can be thought can be said. --Ludwig Wittgenstein (18891951) Austrian philosopher. In Susan Sontag _Styles of Radical Will_, p. 18 "The Aesthetics of Silence" [2002]. What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent. --Ludwig Wittgenstein (18891951) Austrian philosopher. _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1922] - ----- clarion [KLAIR-ee-uhn], noun: 1. A kind of trumpet having a clear and shrill note. 2. The sound of this instrument or a sound similar to it. 3. Sounding like the clarion; loud and clear. elucidate (verb) [๊-'lu-s๊-deyt] Make clear, clarify. explicate (transitive verb) To make clear or explain completely. Cr.Syn.: show, explain, get across, expound, illuminate, exhibit Related: review, construe, analyze, demonstrate, reason, clarify, define, interpret, articulate. explicator: noun incisive [in-SAHY-siv], adjective: 1. Penetrating; cutting; biting; trenchant. 2. Remarkably clear and direct; sharp; keen; acute. limpid [LIM-pid], adjective: 1. Characterized by clearness or transparency; 2. Calm; untroubled; serene. 3. Clear in style; easily understandable. Synonyms: clear, crystalline, lucid, transparent. Ex.: Lying on the sand one limpid afternoon, Margarita-drowsed, gazing out at the turquoise water through half-closed eyes, following the seaweed swaying back and forth just beneath the surface, I fancied (as any self-respecting writer must do) that it would be my turn to write a book about Mexico some day. --Neil Baldwln, _Legends of the Plumed Serpent_ obscure [uhb-SKYOOR], adjective: 1. Not clearly expressed; hard to understand. 2. To hide from view; dim, darken. pellucid [puh-LOO-sid], adjective: 1. Transparent; clear; not opaque. 2. Easily understandable. turbid [TUR-bid], adjective: 1. Muddy; thick with or as if with roiled sediment; not clear; -- used of liquids of any kind. 2. Thick; dense; dark; -- used of clouds, air, fog, smoke, etc. 3. Disturbed; confused; disordered. Ex.: Rough or smooth, the Irish Sea at Blackpool is always turbid. Beneath the murk float unspeakable things. --David Walker, "Is Labour right to end its affair with Blackpool? YES says David," _Independent_, [26 March 1998]  ;void(0)) CLASS . . see: "SOPHISTICATION" see "CHARACTER" for other related links That which in England we call the middle class is in America virtually the nation. --Matthew Arnold (18221888) English Victorian poet and literary and social critic. _A Word About America_ [1882] - O let us love our occupations, Bless the squire and his relations, Live upon our daily rations, And always know our proper stations. --Charles Dickens (18121870) English novelist. _The Chimes_ [1844] "The Second Quarter" The true way to overcome the evil of class distinctions is not to denounce them as revolutionists denounce them, but to ignore them as children ignore them. --Charles Dickens (18121870) English novelist. - Styles, like everything else, change. Style doesn't. --Linda Ellerbee (1944 ) American journalist. ...when we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgement. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom- freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse. Herein undoubtedly lies part of the attractiveness of a mass movement. --Eric Hoffer (19021983) American longshoreman, philosopher, and author who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1982. The urge to distribute wealth equally, and still more the belief that it can be brought about by political action, is the most dangerous of all popular emotions. It is the legitimation of envy, of all the deadly sins the one which a stable society based on consensus should fear the most. The monster state is a source of many evils; but it is, above all, an engine of envy. --Paul Johnson (b. 1928) British historian. _The Recovery of Freedom _ [1980] Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves. They would all have some people under them; why not then have some people above them? --Samuel Johnson (17091784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. In James Boswell _The Life of Samuel Johnson_ "21 July 1763" [1791]. Pay no attention to what Burke's Peerage says about Princess Diana's lineage. Any woman who goes on television and discusses her affairs, betrayals, suicide attempts, and vomiting habits, and then says "I'm a very strong person," is an American. --Florence King (1936 ) American journalist, essayist, and novelist. There are those who think that Britain is a class-ridden society, and those who think it doesn't matter either way as long as you know your place in the set-up. --Miles Kington (19412008) English humorist. _Welcome to Kington_ [1989] Freedom is a bourgeois prejudice. We repudiate all morality which proceeds from supernatural ideas or ideas which are outside the class conception. In our opinion, morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of the class war. Everything is moral which is necessary for the annihilation of the old exploiting order and for uniting the proletariat. Our morality consists solely in close discipline and conscious warfare against the exploiters. --V.I. Lenin (18701924) Russian revolutionary and first head of the Soviet state (19171924). - In a very short time ... several hundred million peasants will rise like a mighty storm, like a hurricane, a force so swift and violent that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. They will smash all the trammels that bind them and rush forward along the road to liberation. They will sweep all the imperialists, warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry into their graves. --Mao Zedong (18931976) Chinese Marxist theorist, soldier and statesman who led his nation's communist revolution. Perhaps the fiercest of the young progressives making headlines in February 1906 was a socialist. Upton Sinclair, a bony, driven twenty- seven-year-old, proclaimed himself as dedicated to the equalization of wealth. Yet in the past year, he had managed to sell the same novel to four different publishers, an achievement any capitalist might envy. --Edmund Morris (b. 1940) Kenyan-born American biographer and winner of the Pulitzer Prize. _Theodore Rex_ [2001] Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude toward one another, have varied from age to age; but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other. The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable. The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal. Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves, or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice. As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new Middle group splits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over again. Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims. It would be an exaggeration to say that throughout history there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer. From the point of view of the law, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of the masters. --George Orwell [Eric Blair] (19031950) English novelist. _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ [1949], pt. 2, ch. 9 When I put a queston to [Lenin] about socialism in agriculture, he explained with glee how he had incited the poorer peasants against the richer ones, "and they soon hanged them from the nearest tree ha!ha!ha!" His guffaw at the thought of those massacred made my blood run cold. --Bertrand Russell (18721970) British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate. Referring to a 1920 interview in Moscow, "Eminent Men I Have Known," _Unpopular Essays_ [1950]. I could've been a contender. I could've had class and been somebody. Real class. Instead of a bum, let's face it, which is what I am. --Budd Schulberg (19142009) Screenplay for "On the Waterfront" [1954], spoken by Marlon Brando. - Now we are able to carry on a determined offensive against the kulaks, eliminate them as a class ... It is ridiculous and foolish to discourse at length on dekulakization. When the head is off one does not mourn for the hair. --Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18791953), Soviet Communist leader and head of the USSR from the death of V. I. Lenin (1924) until his own death. In M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 737. Cohan & Major note: The kulaks, the richer peasants, were now seen as the enemy of the state and the most serious obstacle to socialization of the economy. & see The 'kulak' child was loathsome, the young 'kulak' girl was lower than a louse. They looked on the so called 'kulaks' as cattle, swine, loathsome, repulsive. They had no souls; they stank; they all had venereal diseases; they were enemies of the people and exploited the labor of others. --Vasily Grossman _Forever Flowing_ [1972] - To get rid of the report [that he had ordered the fire of Rome], Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace ... An immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of arson, as of hatred of the human race. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames. These served to illuminate the night when daylight failed. --Tacitus [or Publius Cornelius Tacitus or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus] (c.55c.117), Roman orator, lawyer, senator, and historian. _Annals_ (1942 edn.), bk. 15.44. Class is a communist concept. It groups people in bundles, and sets them against one another. --Margaret Thatcher (1925 ) British conservative stateswoman and Prime Minister [19791990]. In Brenda Maddox, _Maggie the First Lady_. -- In a series named 'The Frost Report', John Cleese was recruited to write and perform. His height and manner were used to great effect in a sketch by John Law and Marty Feldman on class distinction. The point was rammed home by the fact that John Cleese, at six foot five inches, towered over Ronnie Barker's five foot nine inches, and Ronnie Corbett's five foot one inch. Cleese: I look down on him (indicating Barker) because I am upper class. Barker: I look up to him (indicating Cleese) because he is upper class, but I look down on him (indicating Corbett) because he is lower class. I am middle class. Corbett: I know my place. I look up to them both. But I don't look up to him (Barker) as much as I look up to him (Cleese), because he has got innate breeding. Cleese: I have got innate breeding, but I have not got any money. So sometimes I look up (bending knees and doing so) to him (Barker). Barker: I still look up to him (Cleese) because although I have money, I am vulgar. But I am not as vulgar as him (Corbett), so I still look down on him (Corbett). Corbett: I know my place. I look up to them both; but while I am poor, I am honest, industrious and trustworthy. Had I the inclination, I could look down on them. But I don't. Barker: We all know our place, but what do we get out of it? Cleese: I get a feeling of superiority over them. Barker: I get a feeling of inferiority from him (Cleese) but a feeling of superiority over him (Corbett). Corbett: I get a pain in the back of my neck. ----- clerisy [KLER-uh-see], noun: The well educated class; the intelligentsia. Ex.: Our academic clerisy, I'm sure, could point out factual inadequacies, along with examples of cultural bias. Robert D. Kaplan, "And Now for the News" _The Atlantic_ [March 1997] hobnob (verb) ['hahb-nahb] To take turns drinking to or buying drinks for each other; to drink together; to associate with someone of a higher social class. Someone who hobnobs is a hobnobber and his behavior may be characterized as hobnobbery. lumpen [LUHM-puhn; LUM-puhn], adjective; 1. Of or relating to dispossessed and displaced individuals, especially those who have lost social status. 2. Common; vulgar. 3. A member the underclass, especially the lowest social stratum. parvenu [PAR-vuh-noo; -nyoo], noun: One that has recently or suddenly risen to a higher social or economic class but has not gained social acceptance of others in that class; an upstart. adjective: Being a parvenu; also, like or having the characteristics of a parvenu. Ex.: "But the favourite's power and influence provoke intense ill-feeling among other courtiers, who regard him as a sinister usurping parvenu with ideas above his station, or perhaps even a sorcerer." --Francis Wheen, "The whole truth about Peter's friends," _The Guardian_ [31 January 2001] plebeian [plih-BEE-uhn], adjective: 1. Of or pertaining to the Roman plebs, or common people. 2. Of or pertaining to the common people. 3. Vulgar; common; crude or coarse in nature or manner. noun: 1. One of the plebs, or common people of ancient Rome; opposed to patrician. 2. One of the common people or lower classes. 3. A coarse, crude, or vulgar person. Ex.: "During the Soviet era, anyone of any ethnic background who did the dirty deeds demanded of them to get ahead was rewarded with a crummy but better-than-average apartment, a steady supply of cheap sausage and low-grade vodka, and a host of other plebeian amenities too dull to talk about here." --Jeffrey Tayler, "Russia's Other World," interview by Toby Lester, _The Atlantic_ [10 March 1999] Synonyms: coarse, common, low, lowborn, unwashed, vulgar. . . see: "BACH" see: "BEETHOVEN" see: "COMPOSERS" & "CONDUCTORS" see: "MOZART" see "MUSIC" for other related links - I prefer Offenbach to Bach often. --attributed to Sir Thomas Beecham (18791961) English conductor. ^ George II (16831760), king of Great Britain and Ireland (17271760). George II was invited to the first preformance of Handel's "Messiah" in London in 1743. The audience was extremely moved by the music, as was the king. When the words "And he shall reign for ever and ever" were sung in the "Hallelujah Chorus," he leaped to his feet, believing, because of his poor command of English, that this was a personal tribute to him from his prot้g้. The audience, seeing the king on his feet but perhaps not understanding his motive, also rose to their feet. It is still the custom for the audience to stand during this part of the performance, although not everyone knows why. --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andr้ Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ Hats off, gentlemen a genius! --Robert Schumann (18101856) German composer. On first hearing Fr้d้ric Chopin's music, in "Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung" [December 1831].  CLEAN LIVING . . see "CHARACTER" for related links It is a great deal better to live a holy life than to talk about it. . . . Light-houses don't ring bells and fire cannon to call attention to their shining they just shine. --Dwight Lyman Moody (18371899) American evangelist and publisher. Quoted in S. P. Linn _Golden Gleams of Thought_, p. 140 [1906, 9th ed.]. Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip. --attributed to Will Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (18791935) American humorist and actor. [Quoting her father's advice:] You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen. But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your own soul's doing. --Marie Carmichael Stopes (18801958) Scottish author and palaeobotanist. "Reader's Digest" [January 1944] Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. Note to the Young People's Society, Greenpoint Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, N.Y. [16 February 1901]. . . see "RELIGION" for related links I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. --Jonathan Swift (16671745) Anglo-Irish poet and satirist. I asked why he was a priest, and he said that if you have to work for anybody an absentee boss is best. --Jeanette Winterson (1959 ) English novelist and critic. _The Passion_ [1987] . . see: "ABILITY" see: "DECEPTION" see: "INTELLIGENCE" see: "TALENT" see: "UNDERSTANDING" - [Of Disraeli's amendment on Disestablishment:] Too clever by half. --Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd marquess of Salisbury (18301903) British prime minister (18851886, 18861892, 18951902). & note: "But that's okay, right? 'Cuz ye have a Plan!" "I hope I've got it right, though, said Roland. "My aunts say I'm too clever by half." "Glad tae hear it," said Rob Anybody, "'cuz that's much better than bein' too stupid by three quarters!" --Terry Pratchett (1948 ) English science fiction writer. _Wintersmith_ [2006] - ^ My favorite story is about Lyndon B. Johnson going to visit Harry Truman in the waning days of Johnson's presidency. He met with Truman in Independence, Missouri, and said to him, 'Harry, you and Bess are living in this old house here in Independence. You're getting on in years. You may become ill. You ought to have an army medical corpsman living here at the house with you.' Truman was supposed to have replied, 'Really, Lyndon! Can I have that?' Johnson supposedly said, 'Of course, Harry. My God, man, you're an ex-president of the United States. I'll arrange it. About six months after Johnson got out of the White House, a reporter caught up with him one day at the ranch and said, 'Mr President, is it true that you've got an army medical corpsman living here on the ranch with you?' Johnson said, 'Of course it's true, Harry Truman has one.' --Robert Dallek (1934 ) American historian. In Brian Lamb _Booknotes: Stories From American History_ [2001]. ^ ^^ A historian named Herodotus, tells of a thief who was to be executed. As he was taken away he made a bargain with the king: in one year he would teach the king's favorite horse to sing hymns. The other prisoners watched the thief singing to the horse and laughed. "You will not succeed," they told him. "No one can." To which the thief replied, "I have a year, and who knows what might happen in that time. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die. And perhaps the horse will learn to sing." ^^ The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool! --Rudyard Kipling (18651936) English writer and poet. _Plain Tales from the Hills_ "Three and - An Extra" [1888] - We can be more clever than one, but not more clever than all. --Fran็ois de La Rochefoucauld (16131680) French classical author. The true way to be deceived is to think oneself more clever than others. --Fran็ois de La Rochefoucauld (16131680) French classical author. _Reflections; or, Sentences and Moral Maxims_ [1678], Maxim 127 - ^ Abraham Lincoln (18091865) American statesman; 16th President of the United States [18611865] In his legal practice Lincoln was never greedy for fees and discouraged unnecessary litigation. A man came to him in a passion, asking him to bring a suit for $2.50 against an impoverished debtor. Lincoln tried to dissuade him, but the man was determined upon revenge. When he saw that the creditor was not to be put off, Lincoln asked for and got $10 as his legal fee. He gave half of this to the defendant, who thereupon willingly confessed to the debt and paid up the $2.50, thus settling the matter to the entire satisfaction of the irate plaintiff. --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andr้ Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. --Naguib Mahfouz (19112006) Egyptian novelist who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. Quoted in Andrew Finlayson _Questions That Work_, p. 44 [2001]. Here's a good rule of thumb: Too clever is dumb. --Ogden Nash (19021971) American writer of humorous poetry. _Reflection on Ingenuity_ [1945] "But that's okay, right? 'Cuz ye have a Plan!" "I hope I've got it right, though, said Roland. "My aunts say I'm too clever by half." "Glad tae hear it," said Rob Anybody, "'cuz that's much better than bein' too stupid by three quarters!" --Terry Pratchett (1948 ) English science fiction writer. _Wintersmith_ [2006] Bait the hook well! This fish will bite. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _Much Ado About Nothing_ [15981599], II, iii I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left. --Oscar Wilde (18541900) Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet. _The Importance of Being Earnest_ [1895], Act I ----- adroit (adj.) [๊-'droyt] Dexterous, clever, deft. noun: adroitness maladroit : clumsy, awkward. artifice [AR-tuh-fis], noun: 1. Cleverness or skill; ingenuity; inventiveness. 2. An ingenious or artful device or expedient. 3. An artful trick or stratagem. 4. Trickery; craftiness; insincere or deceptive behavior. legerdemain (noun) [le-jr-d๊-'meyn] Sleight of hand, deceitful cleverness. end page | CALAMITIES - CALM | CALUMNY - CANADA | CANCER - CAPITAL PUNISHMENT | CAPITALISM | CAREFREE - CARPE DIEM | CARTER (JIMMY) - CATS & DOGS | CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES - CENSORSHIP | CERTAINTY - CHANGE | CHANGING (ONE'S MIND) & CHANGING TIMES | CHARACTER | CHARACTER ASSASINATION - CHEERFULNESS | CHEER UP! - CHILDHOOD | CHILDREN | CHILDREN'S RHYME | CHILE & CHINA | CHOCOLATE - CHRISTIANITY | CHRISTMAS | CHURCH - CIGARS | CIRCUMSTANCES & CITIES | CIVILITY - CIVIL RIGHTS | CLARITY - CLICHES | CLOTHES - COFFEE | COLD - COLORS | COMEDY | COMFORT - COMMON SENSE | COMMUNICATION | COMMUNISM | COMPANIONSHIP - COMPASSION | COMPETITION - COMPLIMENTS | COMPOSERS - CONDUCTORS | CONFESSION - CONQUEST | CONSCIENCE - CONTENTED | CONTEXT - CONVERSATION | CONVICTION & COOKING | COOLIDGE - CORPORATIONS | CORRECTING - COURAGE | COURT - COWS | CREATIVITY - CRIME | CRIME & PUNISHMENT - CROOKS | CRITICISM & CRITICS | CROWD (THE) - CUBA | CULTURE - CYNICS | | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
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