Life has been compared to a race, but the allusion improves by observing, that the most swift are usually the least manageable and the most likely to stray from the course. Great abilities have always been less serviceable to the possessors than moderate ones.

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An accent mark, perhaps, instead of a whole western accent -- a point of punctuation rather than a uniform twang. That is how it should be worn: as a quiet point of character reference, an apt phrase of sartorial allusion -- macho, sotto voce.

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Apparently the Torah was in principle opposed to the eating of meat. When Noah and his descendants were permitted to eat meat this was a concession conditional on the prohibition of the blood. This prohibition implied respect for the principle of life (‘for the blood is the life’) and an allusion to the fact that in reality all meat should have been prohibited. This partial prohibition was designed to call to mind the previously total one.

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Allusion has been made to [Proust's] contempt for the literature that 'describes,' for the realists and naturalists worshipping the offal of e...

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I think we must quote whenever we feel that the allusion is interesting or helpful or amusing.

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