#phenomenon

When I've seen my operas in Europe, they have always struck me as more American than when I hear them here. I can't tell you what that phenomenon is. ↗

— Carlisle Floyd

#american #europe #hear #here #i

Americans' great and secret fear is that America may turn out to be a phenomenon rather than a civilization. ↗

— Shirley Hazzard

#civilization #fear #great #may #out

The lawlessness of frontier life in America has been pictured as a remarkable phenomenon. In reality, it was the natural consequence of indiscriminate mixing of volatile substances. ↗

— Paul Harris

#been #consequence #frontier #indiscriminate #lawlessness

First, relax. ... And my second helpful hint is that you should not try to memorize anything you read in this book. ... My two words of advice are exemplified in what I call the Russian Novel Phenomenon. Every reader must have experienced that depressing moment about fifty pages into a Russian novel when we realize that we have lost track of all the characters, the variety of names by which they are known, their family relationships and relative ranks in the civil service. At this point we can give in to our anxiety, and start again to read more carefully, trying to memorize all the details on the offchance that some may prove to be important. If such a course is followed, the second reading is almost certain to be more incomprehensible than the first. The probable result: one Russian novel lost forever. But there is another alternative: to read faster, to push ahead, to make sense of what we can and to enjoy whatever we make sense of. And suddenly the book becomes readable, the story makes sense, and we find that we can remember all the important characters and events simply because we know what is important. Any re-reading we then have to do is bound to make sense, because at least we comprehend what is going on and what we are looking for. ↗

— Frank Smith

#relax #russian-novel-phenomenon #family

We too, through lack of knowledge and of sufficiently mature reflection, mistook the visible outward appearance of the phenomenon for the phenomenon itself. ↗

— Leon Jouhaux

#itself #knowledge #lack #mature #mistook

Real biologists who actually do the research will tell you that they almost never find a phenomenon, no matter how odd or irrelevant it looks when they first see it, that doesn't prove to serve a function. The outcome itself may be due to small accidents of evolution. ↗

— E. O. Wilson

#actually #almost #biologists #due #evolution

I would like to be a one-man multinational fashion phenomenon. ↗

— Karl Lagerfeld

#i #like #multinational #one-man #phenomenon

As much as they deny it, I think people want to be scared. It's a phenomenon, why people want to be scared when there is so much violence and craziness in the world. People still really enjoy being scared. It's a conundrum to me. It's hard to explain. It's an unconscious thing, really, why people like that so much. ↗

— Dylan McDermott

#being scared #craziness #deny #enjoy #explain

Advertising is, actually, a simple phenomenon in terms of economics. It is merely a substitute for a personal sales force - an extension, if you will, of the merchant who cries aloud his wares. ↗

— Rosser Reeves

#advertising #aloud #cries #economics #extension

The simplest and most psychologically satisfying explanation of any observed phenomenon is that it happened that way because someone wanted it to happen that way. ↗

— Thomas Sowell

#because #explanation #happen #happened #most