"When you say that you agree to a thing in principle you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice." - Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898)
Hi MsOlga! Mr.P says he doesn't always agree with them, he just thinks they show an interesting bent to the human mind and particularly tries to choose those that are humorous.
Today's is a good example:
"After I die, I shall return to earth as a gatekeeper of a bordello and I won't let any of you enter." - Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957), to the NBC Orchestra
Hmmm, got busy yesterday and forgot to post this one:
"When life invades a new habitat, she never moves with a single species." - Freeman Dyson, Disturbing the Universe, 1979
There was no "before" the beginning of our universe, because once upon a time there was no time.
* John D. Barrow
Mr.P has been sending these to me everyday... I'll try to catch you up. Today's is about one of my kinds of music.
"Jazz came to America three hundred years ago in chains."
- Paul Whiteman (1890-1967)
That's a rough image. So is this one... yesterday's commentary by Black Elk of his life and his vision.
"I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dreamÂ…the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead."
- Black Elk (1863-1950),
referring to the massacre at Wounded Knee Creek camp, December 29, 1890
Tuesday's will, I hope, give you a well-needed chuckle...
"It is not enough to have every intelligent person in the country voting for me. I need a majority."
- Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)
"The very first step toward success in any occupation is to become interested in it." - Sir William Osler (1849-1919)
"I have learned from my mistakes and I can repeat them exactly." - Dudley Moore (1935-2002)
"Our theories of the eternal are as valuable as are those a chick still in its shell might form of the outside world."
- Buddha
(Siddhartha Gautama, c563-c483 BCE)
"No clear definition of Semite can be given."
- Will Durant (1885-1981),
The Age of Faith, Chapter 8 footnote.
"Having a family is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain."
- Martin Mull (1943- )
(hmmmm.... LOL)
"I do not need the idea of God to explain the world I live in."
- Salman Rushdie (1947- )
"All women's dresses, in every age and country, are merely variations on the eternal struggle between the admitted desire to dress and the unadmitted desire to undress."
- Lin Yutang (1895-1976)
for Friday:
"I have just had eighteen whiskeys in a row. I do believe that is a record." - Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
for Saturday:
"A model! A model; what the hell would I do with a model? When I need to verify something, I go and find my wife in the kitchen; I lift up her chemise; and I have the marble." - André Gide
for Sunday:
"Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4BC-AD65)
for today:
"Money doesn't make you happy. I now have $50 million, but I was just as happy when I had $48 million." - Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947- )
_________________
btw -- if you notice, Mr.P has a certain organization to his quotes, based on the day of the week.
Sunday, February 15th
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag
and to the Republic for which it stands,
one Nation, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all."
- the original American Pledge of Allegiance
(Ed. note:
In 1787 Benjamin Franklin proposed that each session of the Constitutional Convention be opened with a prayer; he was rebuffed. The U. S. Constitution was created with no mention of God, save one prohibition against establishing any religious test as a qualification to hold any public office.
In 1791, the First Amendment specifically prohibited any law regarding the establishment of religion.
In 1801, John Marshall was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and instituted the tradition of opening each session with the Crier calling out: "God save the United States and this Honorable Court."
In 1864, the words "In God We Trust" were added to the nation's coins, which up until that time were inscribed "E Pluribus Unum" ("From Many, One").
In 1892, the original "Pledge of Allegiance" (above) was written by Baptist minister Francis Bellamy.
In 1893, this Pledge was first recited publicly during a Columbus Day ceremony, accompanied by a Roman-style salute. (This salute later fell out of favor when it was adopted by Italian Fascists and then German Nazis.)
In 1924, the National Flag Conference replaced the words "my Flag" with "the Flag of the United States of America", because it feared the ambiguity would allow recent immigrants to pledge their allegiance to the flags of their former nations.
In 1942, the Congress officially endorsed the Pledge of Allegiance, after which it became common practice for all American schoolchildren to recite the Pledge each morning to begin their school day.
In 1943, the Jehovah's Witnesses brought successful suit to allow their children to abstain from reciting the Pledge.
In 1954, under pressure from the Knights of Columbus and other religious organizations, and in the thick of the McCarthy-ist anti-communist 'witch-hunt' then ongoing nationwide, Congress nearly unanimously passed, and President Eisenhower signed, a bill adding the words "under God", creating the version current to this day:
"I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation, under God, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all."
In 1956, the words "In God We Trust" were added to the nation's paper currency.
In 1970, and again in 1979, major legal challenges were unsuccessful in removing the words "under God" from the Pledge.
In 2002, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco decided in Newdow v. Congress that it is unconstitutional to require schoolchildren to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in class, and then immediately issued a Stay. The case is being appealed.)
"Let's find out what everyone is doing, and then stop everyone from doing it." - Sir Alan Patrick Herbert (1890-1971)
African Queen
"You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me."
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)
(Ed. note: for C.S. Lewis fans only: If you ever wondered why he just seemed to vanish from the scene, it might be because Clive Staples Lewis died on Friday, November 22, the same day on which President Kennedy was assassinated and Alduous Huxley died.)
"We've got to pause and ask ourselves: how much clean air do we need?"
Lee Iacocca (1924- )
Careless Love
"Who have been lonely once
Are comforted by their guns.
Affectionately they speak
To the dark beauty, whose cheek
Beside their own cheek glows.
They are calmed by such repose,
Such power held in hand;
Their young bones understand
The shudder in that frame.
Without nation, without name,
They give the load of love,
And it's returned, to prove
How much the husband heart
Can hold of it: for what
This nymphomaniac enjoys
Inexhaustibly is boys."
- Stanley Kunitz (1905- ),
Passport to the War, 1944
"If a woman has to choose between saving an infant's life and catching a fly ball, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base."
Dave Barry (1947- )
"Ocean: a body of water occupying two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills."
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), The Devil's Dictionary
"Skeptic: one who holds that there are no adequate grounds for certainty as to the truth of any proposition whatever."
Oxford English Dictionary
"The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, 'You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.'"
George Carlin (1937- )
Hi Pif et al,
One of my favorite quotations is what Oscar Wilde
is said to have uttered from his deathbed:
[Last words, as he lay dying in a drab Paris bedroom]
"Either that wallpaper goes, or I do."
['Time' 16 January 1984]
