#convent

When distinction of any kind, even intellectual distinction, is somehow resented as a betrayal of the American spirit of equal opportunity for all, the result must be just this terror of individualistic impulses setting us apart, either above or below our neighbours; just this determination to obey without questioning and to subscribe with passion to the conventions and traditions. The dilemma becomes a very real one: How can this sense of democratic equality be made compatible with respect for exceptional personalities or great minds? How can democracy, as we understand it today, with its iron repression of the free spirit, its monotonous standardisation of everything, learn to cherish an intellectual aristocracy without which any nation runs the risk of becoming a civilisation of the commonplace and the second-rate? ↗

— Harold Edmund Stearns

#civilization #conventions #distinction #equality #individualism

The metaphor of the king as the shepherd of his people goes back to ancient Egypt. Perhaps the use of this particular convention is due to the fact that, being stupid, affectionate, gregarious, and easily stampeded, the societies formed by sheep are most like human ones. ↗

— Northrop Frye

#ancient #back #being #convention #due

A convention was drawn up on June 17, 1925, in which the principle of supervision, as opposed to that of simple propaganda, was recognized, thanks to the efforts of the labour members, of whom I was one. ↗

— Leon Jouhaux

#drawn #efforts #i #june #labour

I did not think much what I was writing them for, except that I knew I wanted my next novel to be in some less conventional form than straight narrative. ↗

— Nicholas Mosley

#did #except #form #i #knew

Pollock was well known, certainly, but for all the wrong reasons. He was known as much for being wild and unconventional in his working methods as for being a great artist. ↗

— Kenneth Noland

#being #certainly #great #his #known

Here society is reduced to its original elements, the whole fabric of art and conventionality is struck rudely to pieces, and men find themselves suddenly brought back to the wants and resources of their original natures. ↗

— Francis Parkman

#back #brought #conventionality #elements #fabric

Community organizing is all about building grassroots support. It's about identifying the people around you with whom you can create a common, passionate cause. And it's about ignoring the conventional wisdom of company politics and instead playing the game by very different rules. ↗

— Tom Peters

#around #building #cause #common #community

Royal Young has accomplished a rare feat in his fresh and riveting debut: he manages to recount his fascinating youth and unconventional family with a mixture of humor, scathing honesty and tenderness. Much more than simply a book about a kid who dreams of stardom, Fame Shark is a thoughtful, hilarious and moving love letter to his family and the Lower East Side of New York City. ↗

— Kristen Johnston

#celebrity #family-relationships #memoir #nyc #stardom

He wore a tiny turquoise stud earring I always associated with Dungeons and Dragons types. Men who own ferrets and think magic tricks are cool. ↗

— Gillian Flynn

#dungeons-and-dragons #ferrets #geeks #nerds #men

In no time we roll into Sedona proper and find a Cirlce K. The place is full of men with silver ponytails and ratty sandals, old hippie women in loose flowing pants grinning vacantly as they molest the produce, and I am reminded of my old neighborhood in San Francisco. We buy enough fruit and bread and jerked meat for three days, as well as a couple spare handlers of SoCo and a big bottle of cheap Chianti for me. As I'm paying I wonder at how we cling so relentlessly to the little conventions like commerce, as though they can save us. ↗

— Ron Currie Jr.

#conventions #men