Word: oracular
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...oracular way, De Gaulle himself gave two other reasons for his desire to postpone a summit. The first is a fundamental disagreement with Britain and the U.S. over what a summit should be. Macmillan, in particular, talks of a series of summits, none of which would be make-or-break. De Gaulle, who believes that familiarity breeds contempt and that a certain modicum of mystery is essential to governing, sees the summit as a single 'grand encounter" that must be "carefully prepared"; as he expressed it in a communiqué last week, there should be an effective reduction...
...author's delight in being oracular does not detract much from a clever investigation into mysticism and the mystique of power. The ironic Artist Tutmose-whose hauntingly beautiful head of Nefertiti is on view in West Berlin's Dahlem Museum-solves only part of the puzzle when, near the book's end, he concludes that "beyond our own motives, existence has no reason." Perhaps, Stacton seems to be saying, the puzzle of existence constitutes its own reason...
...along, too, De Gaulle made highly effective use of surprise, silence, and silence's sister, the oracular utterance. "I have understood you," he told a wildly cheering crowd during his first trip to Algiers after becoming Premier. Only four months later, when he abruptly ordered all French army officers to resign from the insurrectionary Committees of Public Safety, did the right-wing Europeans of Algiers realize that what he had meant was that he understood them and disapproved. Last week, with almost equal lack of forewarning, De Gaulle suddenly began churning out a series of decrees that he had been...
Togged up like a leftover from Hans Brinker, oracular Democratic Senator Hubert Humphrey relaxed in triumph after his headline-grabbing junket...
...basking in the desert sun and in a delightful dilemma: whether to hew sternly to a campaign pledge to serve his full four-year term as Governor or to sound like an oracle when people talk about him for the Democratic national ticket in 1960. He chose the oracular: "I believe in a certain philosophy of government-of a government which serves all the people-and I think that as Governor of California I'll have a chance to work for that kind of government not only in this state but in the entire nation...