Life is a toil and love is a trouble, Beauty will vanish and riches will flee, Pleasures will dwindle and prices they double, And nothing is as I would wish it to be.
Sara A. Price (written somewhere between 1850-1900) turned into a folk song called The Housewife’s Lament
"This is the terrible fix we are in. If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless. But if it is, then we are making ourselves enemies to that goodness every day, and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow, and so our case is hopeless again....God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from."
HIPPOGRIFF, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, a one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should travel far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age.” ― H.P. Lovecraft
Seagoon: Look! We're saved! Look! A house! Eccles: It is! A house! A house! Bloodnok: It's not, it's a mirage. Seagoon: Nonsense, it's a house surrounded by trees. Let's go in. Eccles: Yeah. [sound of door opening] Bloodnok: I still say it's a mirage. Seagoon: Nonsense! Bluebottle, Eccles, search the house for food. Bluebottle: All right, then. Seagoon: So, Bloodnok. You think this house is a mirage, eh? We'll soon see! Wait! It's vanished! Gone! You were right. A mirage. Bloodnok: I told you it was. Eccles: OWWWWWW- [thud] OW! Bloodnok: Eccles! What happened? Eccles: I was upstairs!
(For the record, I have so little religious impulse that I could be an archbishop. But I did find this interestimg.)
The first nine Commandments concern theological principles and social law. But then, right at the end, is 'Don't envy your buddy's cow.' How did that make the top ten? What's it doing there? Why would God, with just ten things to tell Moses, choose as one of those things jealousy about the starter mansion with in-ground pool next door? Yet think how important the Tenth Commandment is to a community, to a nation, indeed to a presidential election. If you want a mule, if you want a pot roast, if you want a cleaning lady, don't be a jerk and whine about what the people across the street have — go get your own.
I shouldn't be saying this - high treason, really - but I sometimes wonder if Americans aren't fooled by our accent into detecting brilliance that may not really be there.
Hermann Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gustave Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Hermann Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
- Interview with Gilbert in Göring's jail cell during the Nuremberg Tribunals
Comments
The worst deluded are the self-deluded.
-- Christian Nevell Bovee
You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.
-- Evan Esar
Life is a toil and love is a trouble,
Sara A. Price (written somewhere between 1850-1900) turned into a folk song called The Housewife’s LamentBeauty will vanish and riches will flee,
Pleasures will dwindle and prices they double,
And nothing is as I would wish it to be.
C.S. Lewis
HIPPOGRIFF, n. An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, a one-quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
― H.P. Lovecraft
Any damn fool can predict the past.
- Larry NivenSeagoon: Look! We're saved! Look! A house!
— Spike Milligan, The Goon ShowEccles: It is! A house! A house!
Bloodnok: It's not, it's a mirage.
Seagoon: Nonsense, it's a house surrounded by trees. Let's go in.
Eccles: Yeah.
[sound of door opening]
Bloodnok: I still say it's a mirage.
Seagoon: Nonsense! Bluebottle, Eccles, search the house for food.
Bluebottle: All right, then.
Seagoon: So, Bloodnok. You think this house is a mirage, eh? We'll soon see! Wait! It's vanished! Gone! You were right. A mirage.
Bloodnok: I told you it was.
Eccles: OWWWWWW- [thud] OW!
Bloodnok: Eccles! What happened?
Eccles: I was upstairs!
Reliable information is a must for successful planning.
-- C. Columbus
- Abraham Lincoln
"Meta-knowledge is the Level 10 Divination Spell."
--- Rik KirtaniyaEvery great idea has a disadvantage equal to or exceeding the greatness of an idea.
-- Hunt's Law
If at first you don't succeed, you are running about average.
-- M.H. Alderson
The first nine Commandments concern theological principles and social law. But then, right at the end, is 'Don't envy your buddy's cow.' How did that make the top ten? What's it doing there? Why would God, with just ten things to tell Moses, choose as one of those things jealousy about the starter mansion with in-ground pool next door?
— PJ O’RourkeYet think how important the Tenth Commandment is to a community, to a nation, indeed to a presidential election. If you want a mule, if you want a pot roast, if you want a cleaning lady, don't be a jerk and whine about what the people across the street have — go get your own.
If a person never contradicts himself, it must be that he says nothing.
-- Miguel de Unamuno
Complex problems have simple, easy-to-understand wrong answers.
-- Grossman's Misquote of H.L.Mencken
I shouldn't be saying this - high treason, really - but I sometimes wonder if Americans aren't fooled by our accent into detecting brilliance that may not really be there.
-- Stephen Fry
Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.
-- Lee Simonson
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell."
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
-- Aldous Huxley
"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."
-- Ray Bradbury
The simpler and more straightforward a concept, the longer and more complex the documentation.
-- Malek's Law
Gustave Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Hermann Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
- Interview with Gilbert in Göring's jail cell during the Nuremberg Tribunals
An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.
-- Arthur Miller
Any subject can be made interesting, and therefore any subject can be made boring.
-- Hilaire Belloc
"We have met the enemy and he is us".
-Pogo
-ThacoBell
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-- The Internet