Faulkner's Nobel Prize Speech — Vocabulary
William Faulkner
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compassion
If I see one hungry child, I feel compassion, but when I hear of a million hungry children, I'm overwhelmed and turn my mind to other things.more
Show sample from bookHe writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, and victories without hope and worst of all, without pity or compassion.†
Show general definitionsympathy for another's suffering and wanting to help |
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Show sample from bookHe is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.† Show general definitionliving or existing foreveror: someone famous throughout history or: someone who will never die -- such as a mythological god |
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Show sample from bookI feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work—a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before.†
Show general definitionintense feelings of suffering -- can be from mental or physical pain |
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Show sample from bookBut I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand where I am standing.† Show general definitionextreme pain, suffering, or distress (of body or mind) |
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acclaim
It's a critically acclaimed movie.more
Show sample from bookBut I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand where I am standing.† Show general definitionto praise enthusiastically and publicly -- sometimes choosing without opposition or a formal vote |
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Show sample from bookBut I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand where I am standing. Show general definitionthe highest point -- either literally, like the top of a mountain, or figuratively, like the peak of success or achievement |
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Show sample from bookHe must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed—love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.†
Show general definitionexisting only for a short time |
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commensurate
Apartment rents increased without a commensurate increase in incomes.†more
Show sample from bookIt will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin.†
Show general definitionappropriate in proportion to |
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Show sample from bookBecause of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.† Show general definitiona struggle or disagreement
in various senses, including:
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