Word: inertia
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...smoke-filled committee rooms at Washington the Ramspeck bill is, of course, singularly unpopular; in the nation at large, however, a different verdict is rendered. The most notorious of Jacksonian institutions must be destroyed. However great the senatorial inertia, however difficult the abandonment of old practices, however pleasant the rewarding of loyal friends with the juicy plums of public office, the day of judgement is at hand. Civil service reform has been postponed long enough; the time for action has arrived...
...such a long period, the usual length being two week and one week time limits. When a book is charged out for a month at a time, the student is tempted to dawdle in using the book and to keep it out up to the limit through sheer inertia, while others who may need the book in short order are told that it is out, due back in a month...
...meal with a member of the faculty. The sight of professor and young man separating at the dining-hall entrance, each hieing himself off to his own little group, is not an unusual one. Though the undergraduates and sometimes the faculty may deplore the condition, nothing is done. Inertia seems to have gripped everyone. Most of us are too lazy to rise to object...
...conclusion is irresistible that the attraction of Gilbert-Sullivan opera is not sufficient to overcome my inertia. The reason is not jar to seek. Mr. Gilbert's paradoxical wit, astonishing to the ordinary Englishman, is nothing to me. Nature has cursed me with a facility for the same trick; and I could paradox Mr. Gilbert's head off were I not convinced that such trifling is morally unjustifiable. As to Sir Arthur's scores, they form an easy introduction to dramatic music and picturesque or topical orchestration for perfect novices; but as I had learned...
...debating at Harvard the significance of such reforms lies in the fact that the Debating Council has recognized two elemental characteristics of human nature; that every man is a debater at heart, but that he is likewise apt to be bound by inertia. It has announced a plan whereby the inexhaustible wealth of government and philosophy section orators may be brought within the scope of organized debating. It has seen in the breasts of many men in the impersonal public speaking courses a burning desire to take part in organized debating. It has realized that it can offer a laboratory...