#expression

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant [excessive thought]. You may talk as other people do: you may say to a man, "Sir, I am your most humble servant." You are not his most humble servant. You may say, "These are bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved to such times." You don't mind the times ... You may talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in Society; but don't think foolishly. ↗

— Samuel Johnson

#cant #excess #expression #language #moderation

She sang, as requested. There was much about love in the ballad: faithful love that refused to abandon its object; love that disaster could not shake; love that, in calamity, waxed fonder, in poverty clung closer. The words were set to a fine old air -- in themselves they were simple and sweet: perhaps, when read, they wanted force; when well sung, they wanted nothing. Shirley sang them well: she breathed into the feeling, softness, she poured round the passion, force: her voice was fine that evening; its expression dramatic: she impressed all, and charmed one. On leaving the instrument, she went to the fire, and sat down on a seat -- semi-stool, semi-cushion: the ladies were round her -- none of them spoke. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her, as quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange fowl. What made her sing so? They never sang so. Was it proper to sing with such expression, with such originality -- so unlike a school girl? Decidedly not: it was strange, it was unusual. What was strange must be wrong; what was unusual must be improper. Shirley was judged. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#empathy #expectations #expression #faithfulness #feeling

I like contradictions. We have never attained the infinite variety and contradictions that exist in nature. Tomorrow I shall contradict myself. That is the one way I have of asserting my liberty, the real liberty one does not find as a member of society. ↗

— Man Ray

#expression #liberty #nature

For the stage displays the first vigorous expression, as the natural thing and without conspicuous restraint, of private individuality. ↗

— Lascelles Abercrombie

#displays #expression #first #individuality #natural

Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution. ↗

— Ansel Adams

#execution #expression #infinite #interpretation #medium

I keep telling myself to calm down, to take less of an interest in things and not to get so excited, but I still care a lot about liberty, freedom of speech and expression, and fairness in journalism. ↗

— Kate Adie

#calm #calm down #care #down #excited

Exaggerated sensitiveness is an expression of the feeling of inferiority. ↗

— Alfred Adler

#expression #feeling #inferiority #sensitiveness

Religious suffering is at once the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of the heartless world, as it is the soul of soulless condition. It is the opium of the people. ↗

— John Desmond Bernal

#condition #creature #expression #heartless #once

One obvious palliative of the evils of democracy in its present form would be to encourage much more publicity and initiative on the part of civil servants. They ought to have the right, and, on occasion, the duty, to frame Bills in their own names, and set forth publicly the arguments in their favor. ↗

— Bertrand Russell

#expression #freedom-of-expression #rationality #thought #freedom

The sun as the expression of old world energy is torn down from the heavens by modern man, who by virtue of his technological superiority creates his own energy source. ↗

— El Lissitzky

#down #energy #energy source #expression #heavens