An Essay on ConversationMacmillan, 1927 - 75 sider |
Almindelige termer og sætninger
accepted adds agreeable American amusing anecdote art of conversation attention become better bore breeding Century character charm cities colloquial common companion contribute conversationalist culture delight depends described dinner discourse display effect effort enjoyment epigrams ESSAY exchange experience expression feeling followed forced formal friends gift give greatest guests half hear hostess human humor ideal ideas important increase instinct intellectual intelligence interesting invited Johnson kind knowledge less listen manners material ment mind nature never observations occasion pedant perfect perhaps person polite practice produce rarely reason reflection relate result says seating seek serious short silent social society sometimes speak speech spirit standard stimulated story successful suffer sure sympathies tact talk taste telling things thought tion versation walking witty women write
Populære passager
Side 26 - Better to hunt in fields for health unbought Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. The wise for cure on exercise depend : God never made His work for man to mend.
Side 40 - ... certain it is that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up in the communicating and discoursing with another:, he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into words; finally, he waxeth wiser than himself, and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation.
Side 26 - I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country. I am not for criticising hedgerows and black cattle.
Side 46 - He has his eyes on all his company ; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is speaking; he guards against unseasonable allusions or topics which may irritate ; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome.
Side 57 - ... finds a hint that puts him in mind of another story, which he promises to tell you when this is done ; comes back regularly to his subject, cannot readily call to mind some person's name, holding his head, complains of his memory; the whole company all this while in suspense; at length says, it is no matter, and so goes on. And, to crown the business, it perhaps proves at last a story the company has heard fifty times before; or, at best, some insipid adventure of the relater.
Side 45 - There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance, and supply its place. For this reason, mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word good-breeding.
Side 45 - For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word good-breeding. For if we examine thoroughly the idea of what we call so, we shall find it to be nothing else but an imitation and mimickry of good-nature, or in other terms, affability, complaisance and easiness of temper reduced into an art.
Side 15 - Immediately prescribe some character and some form to yourself, which you shall observe both when you are alone and when you meet °" with men. And let silence be the general rule, or let only what is necessary be said, and in few words. And rarely, and when the occasion calls, we shall say something ; but about none of the common subjects, not about gladiators, nor horseraces, nor about athletes, nor about eating or drinking, which are the usual subjects; and especially not about men, as blaming...
Side 58 - Of all the bores whom man in his folly hesitates to hang, and heaven in its mysterious wisdom suffers to propagate their species, the most insufferable is the teller of "good stories...
Side 54 - What is a greater pedant than a mere man of the town ? Bar him the play-houses, a catalogue of the reigning beauties, and an account of a few fashionable distempers that have befallen him, and you strike him dumb.