Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx (1890 – 1977) was an American comedian, actor, writer, stage, film, radio, television star and vaudeville performer. He is generally considered to have been a master of quick wit and one of America's greatest comedians.

20 Entertaining Groucho Marx Quotations

“Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.”-Groucho Marx

Number 1

“If a black cat crosses your path, it signifies that the animal is going somewhere.”-Groucho Marx

Number 2

“I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally.”-Groucho Marx

Number 3

“If you've heard this story before, don't stop me, because I'd like to hear it again.”-Groucho Marx

Number 4

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”-Groucho Marx

Number 5

“I intend to live forever, or die trying.”-Groucho Marx

Number 6

“I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.”-Groucho Marx

Number 7

“I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member”-Groucho Marx

Number 8

“I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.”-Groucho Marx

Number 9

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.”-Groucho Marx

Number 10

“Marriage is the chief cause of divorce.”-Groucho Marx

Number 11

“Next time I see you, remind me not to talk to you.”-Groucho Marx

Number 12

“There's one way to find out if a man is honest - ask him. If he says "yes" you know he is a crook.”-Groucho Marx

Number 13

“Those are my principles, and if you don't like them...well I have others.”-Groucho Marx

Number 14

“Whatever it is, I'm against it.”-Groucho Marx

Number 15

“When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'.”-Groucho Marx

Number 16

“While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.”-Groucho Marx

Number 17

“Be open minded, but not so open minded that your brains fall out.”-Groucho Marx

Number 18

“Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men -- the other 999 follow women.”-Groucho Marx

Number 19

Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted.”-Groucho Marx

Number 20

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

entertainment

Entertainment

Entertaining thoughts

How to survive miseries and pandemics, wars, worldly addictions, social media, media and taboos? Start by compiling a comforting catalog of positive things and then face today’s risks. The role that politics, religion, culture can play. What can be the levees to shelter you from future threats. Choose books, a Library. Choose the sea of life.Give yourself a hygiene of life and look at yourself from the outside, without feeling at the center of the universe. Beyond happiness, it points to bliss, it is possible and it disappoints less. Good Library to all!

How to Survive

Libraries are as the shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed. — BACON, _Advancement of Learning_.We visit at the shrine, drink in some measure of the inspiration, and cannot easily breathe in other air less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits. — HAZLITT’S _Plain Speaker_.

Bacon & Hazlitt

What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the souls of all the writers that have bequeathed their labours to the Bodleian were reposing here as in some dormitory or middle state. I seem to inhale learning, walking amid their foliage; and the odour of their old moth-scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of the sciential apples which grew around the happy orchard. — CHARLES LAMB, _Oxford in the Long Vacation_.

Charles Lamb

My neighbours think me often alone, and yet at such times I am in company with more than five hundred mutes, each of whom communicates his ideas to me by dumb signs quite as intelligibly as any person living can do by uttering of words; and with a motion of my hand I can bring them as near to me as I please; I handle them as I like; they never complain of ill-usage; and when dismissed from my presence, though ever so abruptly, take no offence. — STERNE, _Letters_.

Lawrence Sterne

In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends imprisoned by an enchanter in paper and leathern boxes, — EMERSON, _Books, Society, and Solitude_.Nothing is pleasanter than exploring in a library. — LANDOR,_Pericles and Aspasia_.

Emerson & Landor

I never come into a library (saith Heinsius) but I bolt the door to me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all such vices whose nurse is idleness, the mother of ignorance and melancholy herself; and in the very lap of eternity, among so many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit and sweet content that I pity all our great ones and rich men that know not their happiness. — BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_.

Robert Burton

I do not know that I am happiest when alone; but this I am sure of, that I am never long even in the society of her I love without a yearning for the company of my lamp and my utterly confused and tumbled-over library. — BYRON, _Moore’s Life_.Montesquieu used to say that he had never known a pain or a distress which he could not soothe by half an hour of a good book. — JOHN MORLEY, _On Popular Culture_.There is no truer word than that of Solomon: ‘There is no end of making books’; the sight of a great library verifies it; there is no end — indeed, it were pity there should be. — BISHOP HALL.

Byron, Morley & Bishop Hall

You that are genuine Athenians, devour with a golden Epicurism the arts and sciences, the spirits and extractions of authors. — CULVERWELL, _Light of Nature_.He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts. — SHAKESPEARE, _Love’s Labour’s Lost_.I have wondered at the patience of the antediluvians; their libraries were insufficiently furnished; how then could seven years of life be supportable? — COWPER, _Life and Letters by Southey_.

Culverwel, Shakespeare & Cowper

Unconfused Babel of all tongues! which e’er The mighty linguist Fame or Time the mighty traveller,That could speak or this could hear!Majestic monument and pyramid!Where still the shapes of parted souls abideEmbalmed in verse; exalted souls which nowEnjoy those arts they wooed so well below,Which now all wonders plainly seeThat have been, are, or are to beIn the mysterious Library,The beatific Bodley of the Deity!COWLEY, _Ode on the Bodleian_. Higgons, Thomas, Sir,

Sir Thomas Higgon

This to a structure led well known to fame,And called, ‘The Monument of Vanished Minds,’Where when they thought they saw in well-sought booksThe assembled souls of all that men thought wise,It bred such awful reverence in their looks,As if they saw the buried writers rise.Such heaps of written thought; gold of the dead,Which Time does still disperse but not devour,Made them presume all was from deluge freedWhich long-lived authors writ ere Noah’s shower.DAVENANT, _Gondibert_.

William Davenant

Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them, to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. — MILTON, _Areopagitica_.

John Milton

Nor is there any paternal fondness which seems to savour less of absolute instinct, and which may be so well reconciled to worldly wisdom, as this of authors for their books. These children may most truly be called the riches of their father, and many of them have with true filial piety fed their parent in his old age; so that not only the affection but the interest of the author may be highly injured by those slanderers whose poisonous breath brings his book to an untimely end. — FIELDING, _Tom Jones_.

Henry Fielding

We whom the world is pleased to honour with the title of modern authors should never have been able to compass our great design of everlasting remembrance and never-dying fame if our endeavours had not been so highly serviceable to the general good of mankind. — SWIFT, _Tale of a Tub_.A good library always makes me melancholy, where the best author is as much squeezed and as obscure as a porter at a coronation. — SWIFT.

Jonathan Swift

In my youth I never entered a great library but my predominant feeling was one of disturbance of mind — not much unlike that which drew tears from Xerxes on viewing his army, and reflecting that not one soul would remain alive. To me, with respect to books, the same effect would be brought about by my own death. Here, said I, are one hundred thousand books, the worst of them capable of giving me some instruction and pleasure; and before I can have had time to extract the honey from one-twentieth of this hive in all likelihood I shall be summoned away. — DE QUINCEY, _Letter to a young man_.

Thomas De Quincey

A man may be judged by his library. — BENTHAM. I ever look upon a library with the reverence of a temple. — EVELYN, _to Wotton_.‘Father, I should like to learn to make gold.’ ‘And what would’st thou do if thou could’st make it?’ ‘Why, I would build a great house and fill it with books.’ — SOUTHEY,_Doctor_.What would you have more? A wife? That is none of the indispensable requisites of life. Books? That is one of them, and I have more than I can use. — DAVID HUME, _Burton’s ‘Life_.’

Evelyn, Southey and Hume

Talk of the happiness of getting a great prize in the lottery! What is that to opening a box of books? The joy upon lifting up the cover must be something like that which we shall feel when Peter the porter opens the door upstairs, and says, ‘Please to walk in, Sir.’ — SOUTHEY, _Life_.I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading. — MACAULAY.Our books … do not our hearts hug them, and quiet themselves in them even more than in God? — BAXTER’S _Saint’s Rest_.

Southey, Macauly and Baxter

It is our duty to live among books. — NEWMAN, _Tracts for the Times, №2_.What lovely things books are! — BUCKLE, _Life by Huth_.(Query) Whether the collected wisdom of all ages and nations be not found in books? — BERKELEY, _Querist_.Read we must, be writers ever so indifferent. — SHAFTESBURY, _Characteristics_.It’s mighty hard to write nowadays without getting something or other worth listening to into your essay or your volume. The foolishest book is a kind of leaky boat on a sea of wisdom; some of the wisdom will get in anyhow. — O. W. HOLMES, _Poet at the Breakfast Table_.

Newman, Buckle, Berkeley, Shaftesbury and Holmes

I adopted the tolerating measure of the elder Pliny — ‘nullum esse librum tam malum ut non in aliqua parte prodesset.’ — GIBBON, _Autobiography_.A book’s a book, although there’s nothing in’t. — BYRON, _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. While you converse with lords and dukes,I have their betters here, my books;Fixed in an elbow chair at easeI choose companions as I please.I’d rather have one single shelfThan all my friends, except yourself.For, after all that can be said,Our best companions are the dead.SHERIDAN _to Swift_.

Gibbon, Byron and Sheridan

We often hear of people who will descend to any servility, submit to any insult for the sake of getting themselves or their children into what is euphemistically called good society. Did it ever occur to them that there is a select society of all the centuries to which they and theirs can beadmitted for the asking? — LOWELL, _Speech at Chelsea_.

Gretchen Lowell

On all sides are we not driven to the conclusion that of all things which men can do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things we call books? For, indeed, is it not verily the highest act of man’s faculty that produces a book? It is the thought of man. The true thaumaturgic virtue by which man marks all things whatever. All that he does and brings to pass is the vesture of a book. — CARLYLE, _Hero Worship_.

Thomas Carlyle

Yet it is justThat here in memory of all books which layTheir sure foundations in the heart of man, …That I should here assert their rights, assertTheir honours, and should, once for all, pronounceTheir benediction, speak of them as powersFor ever to be hallowed; only lessFor what we are and what we may becomeThan Nature’s self, which is the breath of God,Or His pure word by miracle revealed.WORDSWORTH, _Prelude_.

William Wordsworth

Take me to some lofty room,Lighted from the western sky,Where no glare dispels the gloom,Till the golden eve is nigh;Where the works of searching thought,Chosen books, may still impartWhat the wise of old have taught,What has tried the meek of heart;Books in long dead tongues that stirredLoving hearts in other climes;Telling to my eyes, unheard,Glorious deeds of olden times:Books that purify the thought,Spirits of the learned dead,Teachers of the little taught,Comforters when friends are fled.BARNES, _Poems of Rural Life_.

William Barnes

A library is like a butcher’s shop; it contains plenty of meat, but it is all raw; no person living can find a meal in it till some good cook comes along and says, ‘Sir, I see by your looks that you are hungry; I know your taste; be patient for a moment and you shall be satisfied that you have an excellent appetite!’ — G. ELLIS, Lockhart’s ‘_Scott_.’A library is itself a cheap university. — H. SIDGWICK,_Political Economy_.O such a life as he resolved to live Once he had mastered all that books can give!BROWNING.

G. Ellis, H. Sidwick and Robert Browning

I will bury myself in my books and the devil may pipe to his own. — TENNYSON.Words! words! words! — SHAKESPEARE. HOURS IN A LIBRARYHours In A Library by Leslie StephenA splendid Folio Edition of writings by the eminent critic, father of Virginia Woolf. Includes critical essays on: Defoe’s Novels, Sir Walter Scott, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Kingsley, Godwin and Shelley, Gray and His School, Sterne, George Elliot, Carlyle, Coleridge among others.

Tennyson & Shakespeare

Come sopravvivere …. Come sopravvivere alle miserie e alle dipendenze mondane, ai social, ai media e ai tabù? Parti compilando un catalogo consolatorio delle….

philosophy

Philosophy

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

problemsolving

Problem Solving

How to survive in a Library ...

<ul><li>Non professional or club players rarely have enough time to study chess</li><li>They should focus on the areas that are most important</li><li>The biggest cause of victory or defeat in chess is that one player sees something that other has missed at a crucial point in the game. </li></ul>

Introduction

Most games are decided not by theoretical nuances or complex strategy, but rather by one player missing a move or idea that his opponent has see

The Vision Thing

<ul><li>Very often we only realise our mistake when we announce our move to the world by actually playing it on the board. </li><li>Humans make tactical oversight all the time even if they sometimes try and pretend otherwise. </li><li>Residual image of pieces in the mind's eye can create problems in visualization</li><li>GM Kotov describes in the book "Think like a Grandmaster" how to decide on your candidate moves based on the assessment of the position. </li><li>Positional intuition and calculations are inseparable. </li><li>Many games lost because of looking for combinations that don't exist. </li><li>Choose only few sensible moves and calculate. </li></ul>

For players having little time to study chess<ol><li>Solve puzzles during the time spend on bus or train or any free time. </li><li>From games in books or magazines where a strong player has made some notes, play the game without looking at the game and notes, analyse this position against the clock for 30 minutes and compare the analysis with the notes. </li><li>Analyse with someone stronger than you in playing strength. Discuss the variations verbally which helps visual imagination</li><li>Do Post-mortem of your games with your opponent. Do not get arrogant against your opponent and be objective. </li></ol>

The Vision Thong

5. Avoid blitz (5+3, 5, 3+2, 3 minutes) and bullet (2+1, 2, 1 minute) games. Here only quick moves and impulses work. Preferrer Rapid chess (10, 15 minutes or more) or Fiscer style time limit with seconds added. 6. Blind fold chess may help in developing better visualization skills but unhealthy and mentally disturbing.

<ul><li>Direct attack on the king is not often possible, so it is better to build up a good position.</li><li>Understanding the position and their requirements can help in building a plan</li><li>Lengthy memorisation of opening lines to miss out the early planning stage of a game and go directly into the middle game in which there is a clear and simple idea is a very popular approach but often fails when opponent do not follow the opening lines.</li><li>Learning opening theory is not just about learning the variations but understanding the philosophy behind them.</li></ul>

A Game Plan

<ul><li>Without good understanding of chess, a player may not earn the advantage at the end of the variation.</li><li>Opening theory is popular among all levels because of three reasons</li></ul><ol><li>It is an easy way to win</li><li>Those who don't know the opening lines are more likely to loss</li><li>Leading players talk more about preparation and theory.</li></ol><ul><li>It is far better to study all games played by the opponent before playing against them. </li><li>3-4 opening systems for white and black is sufficient for tournament play with thorough preparation.</li></ul>

<ul><li>The most effective way to defeat a less experienced player is to deprive him of a clear line of action and to make the planning part of the game as difficult as possible.</li><li>The best way to learn an opening is to understand the structures to which it leads to and study some classic games in which those structures appear. </li><li>Occasional changing of opening repertoire is refreshing but should not be done too often.</li><li>Names of some popular structures are</li></ul><ol><li>Caro-slav formation</li><li>Hedgehog formation</li><li>Isolated d-pawn</li><li>Hanging d- and c-pawn</li><li>Hanging centre</li><li>Stonewall </li><li>Botvinnik formation</li><li>Benoni formation</li></ol>

Key factors in choosing an opening repertoire<ol><li>Initiative</li><li>space advantage</li><li>changeability</li><li>memorable</li><li>specific preference for structures</li><li>preference for attack or defense or both</li></ol><ul><li>For attacking players, 1. e4 is most suitable</li><li>Follow a lesser known grandmaster having attacking style with 1.e4, this may save huge amount of time.</li></ul>

Building an opening repertoire

<ul><li>If you have the chance to advance a pawn one square or two in the endgame, then first of all advance only one square and only then play it forward one more square. </li><li>Repeating moves in the endgame can be very useful</li><li>It gains time and psychological benefit of the side with the advantage. The defender can not stand the strain for long. </li><li>Endgame requires patience, methodical and precise movement. </li><li>Better to calm the nerves by deep breathing </li><li>Side with the advantage want to keep the pawns. To play against them, exchange pawns, not pieces so they have nothing to promote. </li></ul>

Winning In The Endgame

<ul><li>Possession of advanced passed pawns tend to be far more important than an extra pawn or two. </li><li>Rook endgames, opposite colored Bishop endgame, knight endgames are often drawish. </li><li>King activities matter in the endgame, the value of the king is approximately equivalent to a rook. </li></ul>

<ul><li>Computer processors are becoming faster everyday and so their calculation ability in every chess positions. The engines do not follow human intuition and can win based on faster calculations. </li><li>Computer may fail to recognize positional pawn sacrifice and closed positions, however this is not always true. </li></ul>

Man Vs Machine

<ul><li>Have a good night's sleep before the game. </li><li>Do nothing on the day of the play</li><li>In team event, avoid being the captain to restrain from organizational duties. </li><li>Bring at least one working pen and be at the board a few minutes before the game. </li><li>Do not do last minute opening preparations. </li><li>Look over one or two games of the opponent on the evening before the game. </li><li>Don't try to get adrenaline thrill with motivational speeches, it is better to take a short walk in some fresh air. </li><li>When playing against higher rated player, play to learn and show your best skill instead of having already losing mindset. </li></ul>

Practical Play

<ul><li>It is okay to walk during the game but never talk to anyone. </li><li>Food habits should be checked, no alcohol, no sweets. </li><li>Try not to shake during the games, that shows nervousness and blow winning positions. Take a few deep, slow breath, using your diaphragm and count slowly from eight to one. </li><li>Try to avoid tournaments with a demanding schedule or take a bye if these are on offer. </li><li>To avoid time trouble, avoid over-calculations or calculating the incalculable, some moves have to be made on intuition or prior knowledge. </li><li>If opponent having time trouble, don't hurry or make superficial moves, play usual</li></ul>

<ul><li>Analyse your own games</li><li>Be objective and honest with yourself during the analysis</li><li>Find the turning points where the advantage occur or lost. </li><li>Measure the advantage of each side. </li><li>Make a balance between not analysing variations too far and not far enough. </li><li>Check up the opening from opening book</li><li>Best way to improve is to play against stronger players, although being beaten badly in every game does not do much for one's confidence but it surely tightens up your game whereas playing against weaker players lead to slopiness</li><li>Limit yourself to between 50 to 90 competitive games a year. </li></ul>

Here I note few important points from the book. The book is mostly for club level and below expert level chess players.

Working on the theory that within every player there is a better player waiting to be unleashed, this renowned chess teacher uses examples from his teaching practice to reveal the key elements in the makeup of strong players. He then shows players how to acquire these skills by examining how games are won and lost and how results can be improved with common sense and practical measures. Beginner

strategy

Strategy

books

Books

Working on the theory that within every player there is a better player waiting to be unleashed, this renowned chess teacher uses examples from his teaching practice to reveal the key elements in the makeup of strong players. He then shows players how to acquire these skills by examining how games are won and lost and how results can be improved with common sense and practical measures. Beginner

Nigel Davies

The Chess Player's Battle Manual

Jokes in shows like The Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm were at first lost on many people, or the awkwardness was too much. Cringe comedy is a highly successful genre in film and TV, yet some people either don't get it or actively dislike it. What is less clear is how cringe comedy works and why some people enjoy the secondhand embarrassment or find it excruciating or boring.

Cringe comedy

Cringe is present in certain elements of slapstick humour, in that we laugh at someone’s humiliation or misfortune. But there's something noticeably different between laughing at Mr Bean and the cringe comedy of today. Cringe comedy gives a feeling of embarrassment when watching someone behave in an embarrassing way. The difference between slapstick and cringe is that slapstick feels more detached, where we laugh at someone. Cringe comedy feels personal, as if we live through their embarrassment.

Why we cringe

Humans are wired to function in societies. We are highly sensitive to emotions like shame, embarrassment, and cringe. Cringe comedy seems to exploit that awareness. We may enjoy it because it simulate unusual social situations and we witness the consequences without having to experience them. In this way, cringe comedy may strengthen a kind of defence mechanism against the cringe of our own lives. Those who experience greater degrees of cringe are more empathetic.

The science of cringe comedy

There’s a difference between experiencing cringe and finding it funny.We laugh at moral or social violations which offer no real hurt and are not happening to us. Cringe humor has to relate to our everyday lives in some way. When we laugh at cringe comedy, we reestablish ourselves on the right side of social norms or taboos. We know the rule and know when someone has broken them, and then we laugh to relieve our own sense of social anxiety.

Venting social anxiety

Cringe tell us that there might be more than one thing going on. Sometimes, we empathise with the events, such as watching a mild social faux pas - someone wearing the wrong clothes to a party. However, cringe comedy should be separated from contemptuous cringe, which involves an emotional distancing from the person you're cringing at. You perceive the person as embarrassing themselves, but instead of feeling embarrassment on their behalf, you feel annoyance and disgust at them.

The contemptuous and the empathetic

Empathetic cringe, where we relate to the situation, could be viewed as us mocking ourselves.A contemptuous cringe has a darker side. The producer or comedian may manufacture or invent contempt. For example, when we are invited to laugh at the weakness is "Screeching Feminists" are we saying that feminism is shameful?

When we laugh at something, we ridicule it 

Why do will some people find cringe comedy hilarious, while others will see it as boring rubbish? The answer is your life experiences.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

movies

Movies & Shows

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

Why do some people love cringe comedy while others can't stand it?

Rock-paper-scissors is governed by three simple rules: rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper, and paper beats rock. On the face of it, the chances of winning are just one in three, but that presumes people pick rock, paper, or scissors at random.Studies have shown that our choice often depends on what happened in the previous game. Losers tend to switch to the choice that would have won the game they just lost, while winners tend to stick. And these habits can be exploited as follows: if you won, then play what your opponent just used, but if you lost, then play what neither of you played.

Winning rock-paper-scissors

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

What’s the best way to win at rock-paper-scissors?

I have wanted only one thing to keep me happy, but wanting that has wanted everything.

So sorrow is shared by being poured from one vessel into another.

It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.

Unbroken happiness is a bore: it should have ups and downs

The misery of a child is interesting to a mother, the misery of a young man is interesting to a young woman, the misery of an old man is interesting to nobody.

We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than trying to be happy ourselves. The happiness or unhappiness of men depends no less upon their dispositions than on their fortunes.

Little children, little sorrows; big children, big sorrows.

Believe me, every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and oftentimes we call a man cold when he is only sad.

No man is happy but by comparison.

The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel

The concept of happiness and sorrow are two strong emotions that drive a man down two strong paths one of pure beauty and one of utter mayhem and destruction.

Complete with a keyword index and expanded information on authors and particular quotations, this definitive guide to quotations in English means that you will always know who said what, where, and when.

Ever since the first edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations published over 70 years ago, this bestselling book has remained unrivalled in its coverage of quotations both past and present. The eighth edition is a vast treasury of wit and wisdom spanning the centuries and providing the ultimate answer to the question, 'Who said that?' Find that only half-remembered line in a collection of over 20,000 quotations, comprehensively indexed for ready reference. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations provides a quote for every occasion that spans the greatest minds of history to the people who gave us one-liners. Drawing on Oxford's unrivalled dictionary research program and unique language monitoring, over 700 new quotations have been added to this eighth edition from authors ranging from St Joan of Arc and Coco Chanel to Albrecht Durer and Thomas Jefferson. New sayings that span the ages include "It would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish" (the classical writer Heraclitus), "My father used to say: "Don't raise your voice, improve your argument'"' (Desmond Tutu), and "The future is already here--it's just not evenly distributed" (the writer William Gibson). Two hundred authors make their debut in this edition, with a brand-new companion website that links to dozens of spoken quotations by the authors themselves.

Elizabeth Knowles

Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

There are two literary dystopian visions:<ul><li>George Orwell, who in “1984” warned about a tyrannical state that would ban information to keep the public powerless</li><li>Aldous Huxley, who in “Brave New World” depicted a population too amused by distractions – entertainment, leisure, and laughter – to realize that they had been made powerless</li></ul>

The Two Classics

<ul><li>Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism.</li><li>Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.</li><li>Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.</li><li> In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.</li></ul>

How George Orwell Of 1984 Differs From Aldous Huxley's Vision

Politics, religion, news, athletics, education, and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business. America favors all those who possess both a talent and a format to amuse. As a result, we as people are on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.

The Medium Is the Metaphor

Although culture is a creation of speech, it is recreated anew by every medium of communication. Each medium creates a unique mode of communication by providing a new orientation for thought, for expression, for sensibility. Communication on television is largely done in images, not words. The medium is the message. We do not see nature or intelligence or human motivation or ideology as “it” is but only as our languages are. Languages are our media, the metaphors that create the content of our culture.

The Medium Is The Message

The concept of truth is intimately linked to the biases of forms of expression. The truth must be presented in a certain clothing or it’s not acknowledged. Each culture conceives of it as being most authentically expressed in certain symbolic forms that another culture may regard as trivial or irrelevant. Truth is a product of a conversation man has with himself about and through the techniques of communication he has invented.

Junk TV Is Okay, It's The Serious TV That Is The Problem

Since intelligence is primarily defined as one’s capacity to grasp the truth of things, it follows that what a culture means by intelligence is derived from the character of its important forms of communication. A major new medium changes the structure of communication by creating new forms of truth-telling. While some old media do, in fact, disappear, other forms of conversation – speech and writing, for example – will always remain. Thus the epistemology of new forms such as television does not have an entirely unchallenged influence.

The Medium Keeps Changing

The influence of the printed word in every area of public communication was insistent and powerful not merely because of the quantity of printed matter but because of its monopoly. If you wanted to exchange ideas, you did so in a pamphlet, a debate forum, or a lecture. These were all places where the form of printed language lent itself to a more sophisticated and elegant content. Lectures and debates didn’t sound like idle conversation—they sounded like writing.

The Power Of The Written Word

In a culture dominated by print, communication follows a coherent, orderly arrangement of facts and ideas. The definition of intelligence gives priority to the objective, rational use of the mind. At the same time, it encourages forms of public discourse with serious, logically ordered content. The printed word had a monopoly on both attention and intellect, as there were no other means to have access to public knowledge.

The Printed Word

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, print began to show the early signs of its replacement. Its replacement was to be the Age of Show Business.In the middle of the 19th century, two ideas laid the foundation for the Age of Show Business:<ul><li>Transportation and communication are disengaged from each other</li><li>Space was not an inevitable constraint on the movement of information</li></ul>The solution to these problems was electricity. The telegraph wrapped the continent in an information grid and created the possibility of a unified American discourse.

It's Showtime!

The value of information need not be tied to any function it might serve in social and political decision-making and action but may attach merely to its novelty, interest, and curiosity. The telegraph made information into a commodity, a “thing” that could be bought and sold irrespective of its uses or meaning.Daily news give us something to talk about but do not lead to any meaningful action. With the abundance of irrelevant information, the information-action ratio/signal to noise ratio is dramatically altered.

Characteristics Of The New Type Of Communication: Irrelevance

Before telegraphy, the information-action ratio was sufficiently close so that most people had a sense of being able to control some of the contingencies in their lives. What people knew about had action-value. However, this sense of potency was lost with telegraphy, precisely because the whole world became the context for news. Everything became everyone’s business. We were sent information which answered questions we didn’t ask and that did not allow the right of reply.

Characteristics Of The New Type Of Communication: Impotence

Telegraphy brought into being a world of broken time attention. Its main strength was the capacity to move information, not collect it, explain it or analyze it.The telegraph introduced the language of headlines—sensational, fragmented, impersonal. Its language was discontinuous: one message had no connection another, each “headline” stood alone as its own context. “Knowing” the facts took on a new meaning: intelligence meant knowing of lots of things, not knowing about them.Telegraphic communication permitted no time for historical perspectives and gave no priority to the qualitative.

Characteristics Of The New Type Of Communication: Incoherence

Examines the effects of television culture on how we conduct our public affairs and how "entertainment values" corrupt the way we think.

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