So we are stuck with a theory, and we do not know whether it is right or wrong, but we do know that it is a little wrong, or at least incomplete. In
Sir Thomas More came up with absurdity, acceptance, exact, explain, and exaggerate.
She had, I realized, Retail Tourette’s Syndrome, a compulsion to blurt advice. There was nothing she could do about it.
Science is about making stuff, just as much as it is about understanding stuff.
Ruskin never escaped his prudish ways or gave any indication of desiring to. After the death of J. M. W. Turner, in 1851, Ruskin was given the job of going through the works left to the nation by the...
Robert G. Elliott was not a murderous person by nature, but he proved, no doubt to his own surprise, to be rather good at killing people.
Queen Elizabeth, in a much-cited quote, faithfully bathed once a month whether she needs it or no.
Pluto is about 40 AUs from us, the heart of the Oort cloud about fifty thousand. In a word, it is remote. But
Plants began the process of land colonization about 450 million years ago, accompanied of necessity by tiny mites and other organisms which they needed to break down and recycle dead organic matter on...
Più che per qualsiasi altro scrittore, in Shakespeare le parole sono separate dalla vita. Era un uomo così bravo a nascondere ciò che provava che non possiamo nemmeno essere sicuri che provasse qualco...
One thing you won’t find much in Australian second-hand bookshops are 1950s or earlier editions of lots of books – The Catcher in the Rye, A Farewell to Arms, Animal Farm, Peyton Place, Another Countr...
One planet, one experiment. If
One of the hardest ideas for humans to accept,’ he says, ‘is that we are not the culmination of anything. There is nothing inevitable about our being here. It is part of our vanity as humans that we t...
One less happy practice Vanbrugh introduced with Carlisle at Castle Howard was that of razing estate villages and moving the occupants elsewhere if they were deemed to be insufficiently picturesque or...
Once, aeons ago, the Appalachians were of a scale and majesty to rival the Himalayas—piercing, snow-peaked, pushing breathtakingly through the clouds to heights of four miles or more. New Hampshire’s...
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
Of course, you’ll have to fly to the refugee camp at Dadaab, Will observed thoughtfully at one point. He glanced at me. To avoid the bandits, he explained.Dan and Nick nodded gravely.I beg your pardon...
Of course, if we all spoke a common language things might work more smoothly, but there would be far less scope for amusement. In an article in Gentleman’s Quarterly in 1987, Kenneth Turan described s...
Nothing gives the English more pleasure, in a quiet but determined sort of way, than to do things oddly.
Nothing - really, absolutely nothing - says more about Victorian Britain and its capacity for brilliance than that the century's most daring and iconic building was entrusted to a gardener.