The number of syllables in the English names of finite integers tends to increase as the integers grow larger, and must gradually increase indefinitely, since only a finite number of names can be made with a given finite number of syllables. Hence the names of some integers must consist of at least nineteen syllables, and among these there must be a least. Hence "the least integer not nameable in fewer than nineteen syllables" must denote a definite integer; in fact, it denotes 111, 777. But "the least integer not nameable in fewer than nineteen syllables" is itself a name consisting of eighteen syllables; hence the least integer not nameable in fewer than nineteen syllables can be named in eighteen syllables, which is a contradiction. This contradiction was suggested to us by Mr. G. G. Berry of the Bodleian Library.
Bertrand Russell
Can the ear hear a thirteen-syllable line as consisting of thirteen syllables? I don't think so, but I think that a series of thirteen-syllable lines (supposing that was the length chosen) would, after a while, begin to have a characteristic resemblance. For the most part, though, counting the syllables seems to be something that works, if it works, for the poet. It is a private method of organization.
James Fenton
We have a small faction, and they are a minority, who believe they are there to govern. Then there is the majority of us who believe that indeed we are there to govern but more importantly we are there to be an opposition to the Democratic philosophy and the only way to do that is through confrontation.
Tom DeLay
The rare individual who has learned to govern himself is too fed up with the labor of it to want to govern anybody else.
Henry S. Haskins
Walk with me world, upon my right hand walk,
speak to me Babel, that I may strive to assemble
of all these syllables a single word
before the purpose of speech is gone.Conrad Aiken
Selden, John
Seldes, George
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