Famous quotes containing the words american and/or literary:
“I ... observed the great beauty of American government to be, that the simple machines of representation, carried through all its parts, gives facility for a being moulded at will to fit with the knowledge of the age; that thus, although it should be imperfect in any or all of its parts, it bears within it a perfect principle the principle of improvement.
”
—Frances Wright (1795–1852)
“Simile and Metaphor differ only in degree of stylistic refinement. The Simile, in which a comparison is made directly between two objects, belongs to an earlier stage of literary expression; it is the deliberate elaboration of a correspondence, often pursued for its own sake. But a Metaphor is the swift illumination of an equivalence. Two images, or an idea and an image, stand equal and opposite; clash together and respond significantly, surprising the reader with a sudden light.”
—Sir Herbert Read (1893–1968)