#genera

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

It takes a lot of energy to work, in general, especially if you're the lead in something. ↗

— Faith Ford

#especially #general #lead #lot #something

However, in spite of the general perception that monetary policy should be conducted so as to avert deflation, a central bank cannot lower interest rates below the zero lower bound. ↗

— Toshihiko Fukui

#bank #below #bound #cannot #central

So when you do your family tree and Margaret Cho does hers, and... Wanda Sykes and John Legend... we're adding to the database that scholars can then draw from to generalize about the complexity of the American experience. And that's the contribution that family trees make to broader scholarship. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#adding #american #american experience #broader #complexity

Anthropology in general has always been fairly hospitable to female scholars, and even to feminist scholars. ↗

— Clifford Geertz

#anthropology #been #even #fairly #female

They sent me the script, asking me to play the part of a general. I have never played the part of an authority figure. I've never thought of myself that way. I was uncomfortable with it, but I worked at it and knew I had a guttural voice for a general. ↗

— Mark Goddard

#authority #figure #general #had #i

Storytelling in general is a communal act. Throughout human history, people would gather around, whether by the fire or at a tavern, and tell stories. One person would chime in, then another, maybe someone would repeat a story they heard already but with a different spin. It's a collective process. ↗

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

#already #another #around #collective #communal

To me, a sex scene in a movie generally means a gratuitous scene that doesn't serve the story but gives a kind of excuse - we've got these two actors, we want to see them naked, so let's bring in the music and the soft light. ↗

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

#excuse #generally #gives #got #gratuitous

But no, I don't generally have trouble with spelling mistakes. ↗

— Bill Joy

#i #mistakes #spelling #trouble

The modern minds in each generation are the critics who preserve us from a petrifying world, who will not leave us to walk undisturbed in the ways of our fathers. ↗

— Edith Hamilton

#each #fathers #generation #leave #minds