Word: fatuousness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...there is any truth in the Hobbesian maxim that no discourse can end in absolute knowledge of fact, then it is fatuous to paraphrase a philosopher, and reviews of philosophic works are especially futile. Mr. Santayana, furthermore, is the kind of philosopher who seems always to use the right amount of exact words, and thus lends himself to quotation rather than to summary. He needs to be quoted for the vigor of his thought and for the lucidity of his style...
That they have awakened somewhat tardily to their responsibility is attested by a frantic creation of positions, some genuinely useful and reasonable, some incredibly fatuous and wasteful. But this has been insufficient--and now the necessity for a more fundamental attack upon the problem has become apparent. To insure themselves financial security and to prevent unnecessary discouragement and strain to the impecunious, the colleges must squarely set themselves to investigate the ability of applicants to meet the necessary expenses of their support. Those who will obviously require more assistance than the college can provide should not be permitted to swell...
...Gracie danced jigs, played brogue parts up & down the Pacific Coast in an Irish troupe. Ten years ago George Burns and Gracie Allen teamed up in vaudeville in Boonton, N. J. at $10 a performance. At first it was Gracie who played the exasperated "straight" to George's fatuous lines. Audiences awarded George's gags a crash of silence, roared at Grade's twittery voice, her air of blissful inanity. They promptly changed places. Three years later in Cleveland George Burns and Gracie Allen were married by a peace justice who was in a hurry...
These objections have an aura of seriousness that cannot be denied or dismissed with a gesture. But in each case it will be observed that they obtain only when inter-House eating is allowed restriction. So far, Lehman Hall is demonstrably correct, as was patent in the fatuous and unauthorized" experiment during the week of October 3. With a view to all considerations, however, there seem to be two possible solutions, either of which might be used alone, or which might easily be put in force together...
When a speaker made an unbearably fatuous remark, Publisher William Allen White of the Emporia (Kan.) Gazette muttered "spinach." Little Publisher Roy Howard and his bearded partner Robert Scripps muttered nothing but laughed a great deal. Publisher Robert Rutherford McCormick rarely got to the Convention, busied himself writing scary front-page editorials for his Chicago Tribune. One, titled "Half Bolshevik; Half Free," concluded with: "Unless we have, in Lincoln's phrase, a new birth of freedom, the death of our civilization is near at hand...