Quote: Philadelphia.

Philadelphia 216 "Philadelphia…the city of bleak November afternoons." S. J. Perelman. Portable Curmudgeon.

Quotes: Persuasion

Persuasion 93 "If you wish to win a man’s heart, allow him to confute you." Disraeli. 1826. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms. If you want to win over people, allow them to contradict you.

Persuasion 209 "Whoever wants his judgment to be believed, should express it coolly and dispassionately…. "Schopenhauer. 1851. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms. Persuade by keeping the emotion our of your tone.

Persuasion 260 " We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others." Pascal. 1670. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms. We are more easily convinced by what we have discovered ourselves.

Persuasion 349 "Time makes more converts than reason." Tom Paine. 1776. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms. Introduce the idea and then let it settle in the other person's mind.

Persuasion 24 "He [Littlefield] could, on ten hours' notice, appear before the board of aldermen or the state legislature and proved, absolutely, with figures all in rows with precedents from Poland and New Zealand, that the street-car company loved the public and yearned over its employees; that all its stock was owned by widows and orphans; and that whatever it desired to do would benefit property owners by increasing rental values, and help the poor by lowering rent." Lewis, Babbitt. Persuading people by telling them what they want to hear.

Quotes: Personality (2)

Personality 82 "Mrs. Norris was all delight and volubility." Austen, Mansfield Park. All happiness and talk.

Personality 115 "Maria, with only Mr. Rushworth to attend to her, and doomed to the repeated details of his day’s sport, good or bad, his boast of his dogs, the jealousy of his neighbors, his doubts of their qualification, and his zeal after poachers—subjects which will not find their way to female feelings without some talent on one side, or some attachment on the other…." Austen, Mansfield Park. The daily dose of Mr. Rushworth.

Personality 236 "…and though Mrs. Norris could fidget about the room, and disturb everybody in quest of two needlefuls of thread or a second hand shirt button in the midst of her nephew’s account of a shipwreck or an [military] engagement, everybody else was attentive." Austen, Mansfield Park. Irrelevant interruptions.

Personality 59 Utopia. "For they do not allow their own citizens to grow accustomed to the slaughter of animals, as they think that constant practice in this gradually destroys the kindness and gentle feeling of our souls." Sir Thomas More, Utopia. Cruelty to animals leads to cruelty to humans.

Personality 318 "Each time we make a style choice…each time we link up with some particular sub-cultural group or groups, we make some change in our self-image." Toffler, Future Shock. Our self-image is defined by the groups with whom we associate.

Quotes: Personality (1)

Personality 914 "There was nothing so antipodal to his nature as this man’s cold, unimaginative sagacity." Hawthorne: “The Artist of the Beautiful.” He greeted his beautiful creations with a cold, uncomprehending stare.

Personality 41 " Outwardly…he showed only a buoyant recklessness, as if wrapped in a cloak of gay, wanton levity; but down beneath all this lay a stern determination of purpose, a driving force, so strong that she shrank back from the least contact with it." Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth. On the surface, he was like anyone else, but deep below that personality was a driving, determined purpose that put her off.

Personality 43 "There was something in that sad resignation of hers which he was powerless against". Rölvaag, Giants in the Earth. Her sadness was a wall against his attempts to approach her.

Personality 325 "She came out of her several conflicting poses…." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street. Which pose was her real personality?

Personality 52 "In comparison with his brother, Edmund would have nothing to say: the soup would be sent round in a most spiritless manner, wine drank without any smiles, or agreeable trifling, and the venison cut up without supplying one pleasant anecdote of any former haunch, or a single entertaining story about ‘my friend such a one.’ "Austen, Mansfield Park. In short, a deadbeat personality.

Quote: Pedantry

1. Pedantry 36 "Pedantry is properly...overrating any kind of knowledge we pretend to." Jonathan Swift. “A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding.” 1714. Gross, ed. Essays. The pedant, of course, is a bore.

Quote: Peasants

Peasants 122 " One sees that draught-horse neck among the peasant women in all old countries." Cather, My Ántonia. This is the frontier, pal, not Hollywood.

Quotes: Patriotism

Patriotism 213 "Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons." Bertrand Russell. Portable Curmudgeon. Or for no reason.

Patriotism 94 "...the patriotic gentleman observed, with a contemptuous sneer, that he was greatly surprised how some people could have the conscience to live in a country which they did not love, and to enjoy the protection of a government, to which in their hearts they were inveterate enemies." Oliver Goldsmith. “On National Prejudices.” 1763. Gross, ed. Essays.It seems to me that I have heard that comment before.

Patriotism 266 Cy [Bogart] shouted that he “hated every dirty Hun; by gosh, if he could just poke a bayonet into one big fat Heinie and learn him some decency and democracy, he’d die happy.” Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Patriotism 266 "Cy got much reputation by whipping a farm boy named Adolph Pochbauer for being a 'damn hyphenated German' …the younger Pochbauer who was killed in the Argonne, while he was trying to bring the body of his Yankee captain back to the lines [while] at this time Cy Bogart was still dwelling in Gopher Prairie and planning to go to war." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street. The stories of war almost always feature irony.