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The steel worker on the girder
Learned not to look down, and does his work
And there are words we have learned
Not to look at,
Not to look for substance
Below them. But we are on the verge
Of vertigo.
--
"The Building of the Skyscraper" st. 1, 1965; Collected Poems of George Oppen", New Directions, 1976, ISBN 0-811-20615-7

 

George Oppen

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My Lord, it is difficult to reply in a restrained fashion. My learned friend must not use words such as 'Communist' lightly, when he refers to Kantor. Kantor is not a Communist. My learned friend has used the tactics of McCarthyism in an endeavour to smear him. I think, with respect, my learned friend is allowing himself to run away with facts that are not there. His complaint in count one is not that they found files with evidence. Oh not, he says that we found files with nothing in them. Not in Kantor's office, but in the office of Wolpe. Then my learned friend that the practice had been ruined and liquidated Knator's practice, my lord, it is not Kantor. It is not Kantor! Why I say it is so difficult to be restrained, is that my learned friend has thrown in everything hat concerns every accused in this case, and says 'that is why I don't want Kantor to get bail'.

 

Harry Schwarz

 

What they learned [...] was to speak on the phones in such a way that your hearer couldn't help but understand what you meant, and in such a way that you, speaking, had no choice but to express what you meant, they learned to make speech — transparent, like glass, so that through the words the face is seen truly.

 

John Crowley

 

I learned about machinery, I learned how men behaved under pressure, and I learned about Americans.

 

Herman Wouk

 

While imprisoned in the shed Pierre had learned not with his intellect but with his whole being, by life itself, that man is created for happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from superfluity. And now during these last three weeks of the march he had learned still another new, consolatory truth- that nothing in this world is terrible. He had learned that as there is no condition in which man can be happy and entirely free, so there is no condition in which he need be unhappy and lack freedom. He learned that suffering and freedom have their limits and that those limits are very near together....

 

Leo Tolstoy

 

I know of nothing more terrible than the poor creatures who have learned too much. Instead of the sound powerful judgement which would probably have grown up if they had learned nothing, their thoughts creep timidly and hypnotically after words, principles and formulae, constantly by the same paths. What they have acquired is a spider's web of thoughts too weak to furnish sure supports, but complicated enough to provide confusion.

 

Ernst Mach