#convent

I expect the Republicans will enjoy a large bounce out of their convention. They're here wrapping themselves in the 9/11 flag, which I think is inappropriate in many ways, but it's their choice. ↗

— Harold Ford

#choice #convention #enjoy #expect #flag

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

The metaphor of the king as the shepherd of his people goes back to ancient Egypt. Perhaps the use of this particular convention is due to the fact that, being stupid, affectionate, gregarious, and easily stampeded, the societies formed by sheep are most like human ones. ↗

— Northrop Frye

#ancient #back #being #convention #due

There was a war crimes trial because an American prisoner had been shot trying to escape. He had obviously been recaptured and shot, and that violated the Geneva Convention. ↗

— Charles Guggenheim

#because #been #convention #crimes #escape

Osama bin Laden, the person, more likely serves the function of a stand-in. Compare the new terrorists with partisans or conventional terrorists in Israel. These people often fight in a decentralized manner in small, autonomous units, too. ↗

— Jurgen Habermas

#bin #compare #conventional #fight #function

Listen to advice. You don't know how many writer's conferences I've taught at where at least half the audience fights all the conventions of the field. ↗

— Jane Haddam

#audience #conferences #conventions #field #fights

At first the English were very surprised by our disregarding the Hague Convention. But from 1916 onward they used at least as much poison as we did. ↗

— Otto Hahn

#did #disregarding #english #first #hague

States are like people. They do not question the awful status quo until some dramatic event overturns the conventional and lax way of thinking. ↗

— Victor Davis Hanson

#conventional #dramatic #event #lax #like

Let's give the conventions back to the politicians. If we think there's any news, we can tack it on afterward as commentary. But the conventions should be their show, not ours. ↗

— Don Hewitt

#back #commentary #conventions #give #news

Mainstream media tend to just mouth the conventional wisdom, to see everything through the filter of right and left. ↗

— Arianna Huffington

#conventional wisdom #everything #filter #just #left