"Naked like a worm, dressed like a president, I laugh in tears and wait without hope."
--Franc,ois Villon
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"Naked like a worm, dressed like a president, I laugh in tears and wait without hope."
--Franc,ois Villon
"A short life cyle (12–14 days required for development from egg to adult in summer temperatures) is at least partially responsible for the success of [the] species and is necessary for developing in such ephemeral, human-made habitats such as dung heaps, garbage cans, and mammalian road kill."
from Resh and Cardé, eds., *Encyclopedia of Insects*
"You must always remember that the President is about six." - Cecil Spring-Rice, British Ambassador to the U.S., about Theodore Roosevelt
"[WJ Bryan] preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses.... He was a peasant come home to the dung-pile. Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything that he was not." --HL Mencken
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
"Ozymandias," by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
Keats, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"
This ain't comin' from no prophet
Just an ordinary man
When I close my eyes I see
The way this world shall be
When we all walk hand in hand
When the last child cries for a crust of bread
When the last man dies for just words that he said
When there's shelter over the poorest head
We shall be free
When the last thing we notice is the color of skin
And the first thing we look for is the beauty within
When the skies and the oceans are clean again
Then we shall be free
We shall be free
We shall be free
Stand straight, walk proud
'Cause we shall be free
When we're free to love anyone we choose
When this world's big enough for all different views
When we all can worship from our own kind of pew
Then we shall be free
We shall be free
We shall be free
Have a little faith
Hold out
'Cause we shall be free
And when money talks for the very last time
And nobody walks a step behind
When there's only one race and that's mankind
Then we shall be free
We shall be free
We shall be free
Stand straight, walk proud, have a little faith, hold out
We shall be free
"We Shall Be Free," Garth Brooks
"In omnibus requiem quaesivi, sed non inveni, nisi in hoexkens ende boexkens"
-- Thomas a Kempis, *Imitation of Christ*
"Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare."
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Philippica XII, ii, 5
“Ils en conclurent que la syntaxe est une fantaisie et la grammaire une illusion.”
--Flaubert, *Bouvard et Pécuchet*, 1881 (five years published after *Daniel Deronda*)
"The President addressed a joint session of Congress yesterday. He said he wasn't gonna back down on the blockade. I don't know which was scarier, the speech or the Congress cheering it. He evoked Lincoln. Whenever a President is gonna get us into serious trouble, they always use Lincoln...."
Victor Milson, 2010: The Year We Make Contact
"[T]he valor that wins our battles is not the trained hardihood of veterans, but a native and spontaneous fire; and there is surely a chivalrous beauty in the devotion of the citizen soldier to his country's cause, which the man who makes arms his profession, and is but doing his regular business on the field of battle, cannot pretend to rival."
--Hawthorne, *The Life of Franklin Pierce*, 1852.
"O that humanity would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to all people! Let them make the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare His works with rejoicing. They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. For He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so He bringeth them unto their desired haven."
Psalm 107
"Groups often form when individuals converge on a food source, whereupon a feeding frenzy may occur. This seems to be triggered not by blood in the water or by bloodlust, but by the species' highly strung and goal-directed nature (conserving energy between infrequent feeding opportunities when it is not slowly plying the open ocean). The oceanic whitetip is a competitive, opportunistic predator that exploits the resource at hand, rather than avoiding trouble in favour of a possibly easier future meal."
--Wikipedia, "Oceanic Whitetip Shark," retrieved 20-apr-2016
"Groups often form when individuals converge on a food source, whereupon a feeding frenzy may occur. This seems to be triggered not by blood in the water or by bloodlust, but by the species' highly strung and goal-directed nature (conserving energy between infrequent feeding opportunities when it is not slowly plying the open ocean). The oceanic whitetip is a competitive, opportunistic predator that exploits the resource at hand, rather than avoiding trouble in favour of a possibly easier future meal."
--Wikipedia, "Oceanic Whitetip Shark," retrieved 20-apr-2016
“Lord, grant that I may be able in argument, accurate in analysis, strict in study, candid with clients, and honest with adversaries. Sit with me at my desk and listen with me to my client’s plaints. Read with me in the library, and stand beside me in court, so that today I shall not, in order to win a point, lose my soul.”
Prayer of St. Thomas More
"He is a wicked man, who comes to children when they won't go to bed, and throws a handful of sand into their eyes, so that they start out bleeding from their heads. He puts their eyes in a bag and carries them to the crescent moon to feed his own children, who sit in the nest up there. They have crooked beaks like owls so that they can pick up the eyes of naughty human children."
--ETA Hoffman, "The Sandman"
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” – Thomas Paine
"Some ontologies contain terms which do not refer to any entities at all because -- unknown to the developers -- some type of error has been made. But even in those cases the terms in question are included in the ontology with the intention that they should refer."
--Smith, Arp, Spear, *Building Ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology*
I gave up on cigarettes; til' today, I ain't touched one yet
But tonight, I think I'm gonna burn the whole pack.
I laid off 90 proof, ain't had a drop in years and that's the truth
But tonight, when I light the first one, I'm gonna open up the Jack
She ain't hooked on me no more
She ain't hooked on me no more
The one thing that always hurt her the most
Is the one thing she finally quit fighting for
She ain't hooked on me no more
She ain't hooked on me no more
I'm pickin up all my bad habits again
She's letting one go
For years she had it real bad
I was the only addiction she ever had
Her love made me so high, but I abused it.
And here I sit all alone tonight
Whiskey on the rocks and more cigarettes to light
Holdin on to everything I've got left, hopin' I don't lose it.
She ain't hooked on me no more
She ain't hooked on me no more
I'm pickin up all my bad habits again
She's letting one go
Yeah, I'm pickin up all my bad habits again
She's letting one go
"She ain't hooked on me no more," Toby Keith and Merle Haggard
"If God wanted women to talk, he wouldn't have made their mouths look so much like their privates."
--*The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt*
Lt. John Masterson: Alhague!
Lloyd Gallagher: Yes?
Masterson: Before I kill you, I'm curious: how did you find me?
Gallagher: You left an angry partner for dead on Altair.
Masterson: A mistake.
Gallagher: That's what it said.
The Hidden (1987)
You're hot to take all we've got
Not a dry seat in the house.
--Spinal Tap
“At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.” – Aristotle
"As Leavis continued his career he became increasingly dogmatic, belligerent, and paranoid."
--Wikipedia page on FR Leavis, the literary critic.
"Les mains dans les mains restons face à face/Tandis que sous/Le pont de nos bras passe/Des éternels regards l'onde si lasse."
Don't ask me to translate it -- I'm not some nerd who counts syllables and shit. As someone reminded me just now, Appolinaire, *Alcools*, c'est un très beau receuil. Not my thing, but Le pont Mirabeau quant à poème, c'est pas mal. Dirge, whatever. Eh, it amused me. C'était trop de la balle. Whatever.
"Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." - Alexis de Tocqueville, 1848
"--Read minds, or was that just a shot in the dark?
--I read minds.
--Oh yeah? What was I just thinking?
--That I'm full of shit.
--Impressive.
--Not really. Pretty simple to read."
--*The Hidden* 1987
"Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least particular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and laws let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor—let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling-books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars. While ever a state of feeling such as this shall universally or even very generally prevail throughout the nation, vain will be every effort, and fruitless every attempt, to subvert our national freedom." - Abraham Lincoln, 1838
"'While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls -- the World.' From our own land
Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall
In Saxon times, which we are wont to call
Ancient; and these three mortal things are still
On their foundations, and unaltered all;
Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill,
The World, the same wide den--of thieves, or what ye will."
--Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto IV #145
"Are you afraid of cars?"
"Not at all, Captain. It's your driving that alarms me."
Kirk and Spock, ST:TOS "A Piece of the Action"
Or, turning to the Vatican, go see
Laocoon's torture dignifying pain --
A father's love and mortal's agony
With an immortal's patience blending:--Vain
The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain
And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp,
The old man's clench; the long envenomed chain
Rivets the living links,--the enormous asp
Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp.
--*Childe Harold* CIV.160
"We have received your letters full of love;
Your favours, the ambassadors of love;
And, in our maiden council, rated them
At courtship, pleasant jest and courtesy,
As bombast and as lining to the time:
But more devout than this in our respects
Have we not been; and therefore met your loves
In their own fashion, like a merriment."
The Princess, in Shakespeare's Love's Labours Lost
The monster of the upper sky!
And thou! beneath its influence born--
Thou worm! whom I obey and scorn--
--Byron, *Manfred*, Act 1
"The dreamer, the unwoken fool;
in dreams, no pain will kiss the brow.
The love of ages fills the head;
the days that linger there in prey of emptiness,
of burned out dreams.
The minutes, calling through the years.
The universal dreamer rises up above his earthly burden -
journeys to the dead of night -
high on a hill in Eldorado...."
"Eldorado Overture," Eldorado, Electric Light Orchestra (1974)
Mulieres in ecclesiis taceant
--Paul, Corinthians I
"Too often the great decisions are originated and given form in bodies made up wholly of men, or so completely dominated by them that whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression." - Eleanor Roosevelt
"Each platter is rigid (it doesn’t bend), thin, circular, insanely flat and smooth, and spins like the wind...Capacity is so often the name of the game."
--Nigel Poulton, *Data Storage Networking*
"Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late." - Ben Franklin
Only the wounded physician can hope to heal.
--somebody said it somewhere.
"Then you would not have seen noble Agamemmnon sluggish, or cowering, or not minded to fight, but very eager for battle where men win glory. His horses and his chariot inlaid with bronze he left behind, and his attendant, Eurymedon, son of Peiraeus' son Ptolemaeus, kept back the snorting steeds; and Agammemnon gave him strict charge to have them at hand whenever weariness should come on to his limbs as he gave commands throughout the army."
--*Iliad*, 4.223vv, Loeb translator.
"The only difficulty that occurs to me is as to who shall undertake the rather delicate job of stopping the motor (tearing along at perhaps 35 or 40 miles an hour) after the motorist has been killed or disabled. But, without doubt, Sir R. Payne-Gallwey has considered this point, and will supply a practical suggestion as to how it is to be dealt with."
--WS Gilbert
"Our government is founded upon the intelligence of the people. I for one do not despair of the republic. I have great confidence in the virtue of the great majority of the people, and I cannot fear the result." - Andrew Jackson
"For I know this well in my mind and heart: the day will come when sacred Ilios will be laid low, and Priam, and the people of Priam of the good ashen spear; and Zeus, son of Chronos, throned on high, who dwells in the sky, will himself shake over them all his dark aegis in anger for this deceit."
--Iliad, 4.163vv
“O Jupiter, most high, most great, and all the deathless Pow’rs!
Who first shall dare to violate the late sworn oaths of ours,
So let the bloods and brains of them, and all they shall produce,
Flow on the stain’d face of the earth, as now this sacred juice;
And let their wives with bastardice brand all their future race.”
--Iliad 3.299-301, Chapman's meaty translation
"Zeus, most glorious, most great, and you other immortal gods, whichever army of the two will be first to work harm in defiance of the oaths, may their brains be poured out on the ground just as this wine is, theirs and their children's; and may their wives be made to serve other men." --some guy named Wyatt, a revision of AT Murray's original Loeb translation -- very literal, even I can tell without much Greek
"Chieftain’s sons, champions in battle,
All of them distraught, chanting in dirges,
Mourning his loss as a man and a king.
They extolled his heroic exploits
And gave thanks for his greatness; which was the proper thing,
For a man should praise a prince whom he holds dear
And cherish his memory when that moment comes
When he has to be convoyed from his bodily home.
So the Geat people, his hearth companions,
Sorrowed for the lord who had been laid low.
They said that of all the kings upon the earth
He was the man most gracious and fair-minded,
Kindest to his people and keenest to win fame."
Beowulf, transl. by Seamus Heaney (final lines)
"For every trade one needs taste, effort, and practice. These are the conditions under which one may know what is. When you yourself haven't even learned this, and you haven't seen anyone else do this, if you ignore everything, you will be worthy of neither shame nor blame, but if you don't learn this, shame and blame you shall have."
--Chrétien, The Holy Grail or the Story of Perceval, ll.1414-1422, publ. 1181
"Il covient a toz les mestiers,
Et cuer et peine et us avoir,
Par ces .III. puet en tot savoir.
Et quant vos onques n'apreïstes
Ne autrui faire nel veïstes,
Se vos faire no savez,
Honte ne blasme n'i avez,
Mais se vos ne l'apreneiez
Honte et blasme i avreiez"
So sayeth the manuscript 354 of Berne from Charles Méla's paperback edition. Old French doesn't have a good beer named after it. That is all.
"That's a big word, innocence. Stupid's more like it. Well, everybody is somebody's fool. The only way to stay out of trouble is to grow old, so I guess I'll concentrate on that. Maybe I'll live so long that I'll forget her; maybe I'll die trying."
--*The Lady from Shanghai*
"I won't be in the history books anyway, only you. Franklin did this and Franklin did that and Franklin did some other damn thing. Franklin smote the ground and out sprang George Washington, fully grown and on his horse. Franklin then electrified him with his miraculous lightning rod and the three of them - Franklin, Washington, and the horse - conducted the entire revolution by themselves." - John Adams, 1776
"Lighten up, Francis!"
--Sgt. Hulka
that Adams quote was first LOL of the day....am still chuckling