Bergen Evans
Bergen Evans
Bergen Baldwin Evanswas a Northwestern University professor of English, and a television host. He received a George Foster Peabody Award in 1957 for excellence in broadcasting for his CBS TV series The Last Word...
writing thinking punctuation-marks
It (the dash ) is a comfortable punctuation mark since even the most rigorous critic can seldom claim that any particular example of it is a misuse. Its overuse is its greatest danger, and the writer who can't resist dashes may be suspected of uncoordinated thinking.
memorial-day thinking doubt
Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.
experience given meaning selection until wisdom
Wisdom is meaningless until your own experience has given it meaning and there is wisdom in the selection of wisdom.
experience given until wisdom
Wisdom is meaningless until our own experience has given it meaning.
wisdom given selection
Wisdom is meaningless until your own experience has given it meaning, and there is wisdom in the selection of wisdom.
men humanity religion
The civilized man has a moral obligation to be skeptical. . . . Any man who for one moment abandons or suspends the questioning spirit has for that moment betrayed humanity.
writing skills confusion
Speech is highly elliptical. It would scarcely be endurable otherwise. Ellipsis is indispensable to the writer or speaker who wants to be brief and pithy, but it can easily cause confusion and obscurity and must be used with skill.
leadership college average
Legislators who are of even average intelligence stand out among their colleagues. . . . A cultured college president has become as much a rarity as a literate newspaper publisher. A financier interested in economics is as exceptional as a labor leader interested in the labor movement. For the most part our leaders are merely following out in front; they [only] marshal us in the way that we are going.
coffee spoons civilized
Most civilized lives are measured out with coffee spoons.
past may
We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.
essence witch procedures
That is the essence of a witch-hunt, that any questioning of the evidence or the procedures in itself constitutes proof of complicity.
vices virtue mere
The mere abhorrence of vice is not a virtue at all.
men honorable-man bullied
An honorable man will not be bullied by a hypothesis.
wisdom madness cynicism
Stoicism is the wisdom of madness and cynicism the madness of wisdom.