Category: Big Book of Quotations
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plus ca change
I keep a copy of “A New Dictionary of Quotations” by H.L. Mencken next to my desk and flip it open to a random page to pass the time while my older-than-dirt laptop boots up. Here are a few quotations from the page I randomly opened to today: “You have no idea how destitute of Read.
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Washington’s warning
George Washington, in his farewell address: Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence … the jealously of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. Read.
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pure dada
Paul Asterer, responding to the question, “What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?” in The New York Times Book Review: English as She Is Spoke: The New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English,” by Pedro Carolino, first published in America in 1883, with an introduction by Mark Twain. As Read.
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Twilight
This synopsis of the coming inauguration of the US president was printed in The Sunday Herald, Scotland, UK: After a long absence, The Twilight Zone returns with one of the most ambitious, expensive, and controversial productions in broadcast history. Sci-fi writers have dabbled often with alternative history stories — among the most common is the Read.
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stupidity
Seems appropriate somehow: Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against Read.
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crush
…if one wanted to crush, to annihilate a man utterly, to inflict on him the most terrible of punishments so that the most ferocious murderer would shudder at it and dread it beforehand, one need only give him work of an absolutely, completely useless and irrational character. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The House of the Dead Read.
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indifference
Indifference to what words actually say; willingness to accept a vapid truism as a useful, even revelatory concept; carelessness about where a supposed quotation comes from – that’s all part of what I like least about the Internet. A “blah blah blah, who cares, information is what I want it to be” attitude – a Read.
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footprint
“We have been given eyes to see what the lightyear worlds cannot see of themselves,” Ray Bradbury wrote. “We have been given hands to touch the miraculous. We’ve been given hearts to know the incredible. Can we shrink back to bed in our funeral clothes?” Read.
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academia
Everyone in academia , especially Brandon Smith, Kentucky state senator, agrees: Fifty-eight degrees below zero is the average daytime temperature in Kentucky: I don’t want to get into the debate about climate change, but I will simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as Read.
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Fergy
CRAIG FERGUSON: I used to have a terrible fear of flying. To combat that, I took flying lessons. I became a pilot, bought a small airplane and flew it around for a bit. I wasn’t flying it enough, so I sold it. That’s a fear I confronted by running straight at it. PLAYBOY: And you Read.
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