BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise

Subject: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: GUEST, Eb
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 07:36 PM

In sorting some of my papers today I came across some long-unseen thoughts that interested me. Maybe some other 'Catters would add some of their own?

* Hairdressers never fade, they just dye away - from Eb
* Why does popcorn pop? Conversely, why doesn't all corn pop?
* "I'd say that you hit the nose right on the head." Overheard
* And there he stayed, doing nothing, just standing on his ass." Overheard
* "After you have seen Alaska, every place else looks like Texas." Read somewhere.
* The same kid who talked of his "old man" is married now and speaks of his "old lady". In both instances, he is referring to authority. from Eb
* After listening to a tape of my mando playing. I quipped: "Not bad. I've heard better, but then, who hasn't?"

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Joe_F
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 09:51 PM

The first five in my list:

||: Everything you do costs money, dissipates heat, and makes :||
||: crumbs.                                                    :||

||: "How singular!" said the Gaussian, cautiously approaching a :||
||: delta function.                                              :||

||: Only a unique solution need have all the symmetries of the :||
||: problem.                                                    :||

||: Most of the evil in the world comes from nature, and most :||
||: of the ugliness comes from art.                            :||

||: When tempted to make a generalization about Christians, try :||
||: it out on Communists, and vice versa.                        :||

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 12:28 AM

C ..Don't Bb but B#, but B natural.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 01:09 AM

Mustn't overlook Dorothy Parker's famous observation that ~ Everything nice is either illegal, immoral or fattening.

Ms Parker (+ others of her Alogonquin circle) were the masters & mistresses of this sort of observation: as well as Dr Johnson, Wilde, Shaw, &c.

I take as something of a watchword the exceptionally simple principle whereby Kingsley Amis's Jim Dixon ('Lucky Jim)' ordered his being — i.e., that nice things are nicer than nasty ones.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: GUEST, Eb
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 03:29 AM

"Most of the evil in the world comes from nature, and most of the ugliness comes from art." Joe F   

I don't follow that reasoning, Joe F- I don't see nature as evil but as artless and pragmatic.   

One thing that has often occurred to me - especially when rhapodizing over some singularly beautiful thing - is that we are programmed to see some things as beautiful. Had we been programmed differently we would find mud, for instance, more fascinating than blue sky.

MichaeltheGM, I agree with Amis that nice things are nicer than nasty ones.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 10:15 AM

"... nice things are nicer than nasty ones."

I'd bet he got that from the original in the Li'l Abner comic strip where Mammy Yokum used to say, "Good is better'n Evil, 'cause it's nicer!"

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 10:16 AM

"Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race."   - Albert Einstein

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: autolycus
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 11:40 AM

One of many favourites

Defintion of maturity. That's what you do after you've tried everything else.

Love to know the source.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Midchuck
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 11:48 AM

I like Albert Schweitzer: "There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."

I also like Sartre's "L'enfer, c'est les autres," (usually translated as "Hell is other people.") But that may say more about what was wrong with Sartre, and is wrong with me, than any universal truth.

My favorite collection of aphorisms is Heinlein's "Notebooks of Lazarus Long," which appeared as "Intermissions" in his "Time Enough for Love." Here's a link.

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: autolycus
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 12:26 PM

If it is true that "Hell is other people", then I don't know if it occurred to Sartre that he was therefore hell to at least some others in his own turn.

If he did, it would be interesting to know if that realisation affected his thinking, behaviour or feelings in any way, and if so how.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Midchuck
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 12:57 PM

He might have derived some consolation from the idea.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 01:03 PM

A camel is a horse designed by a committee.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 01:30 PM

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change." ~ Charles Darwin

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 01:36 PM

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change." ~ Charles Darwin

And reiterated by successful politicians.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: GUEST, Eb
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 01:39 PM

The above was I. For some reason, this Macintosh will not let me stay logged in.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Joe_F
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 04:52 PM

Eb: To say that most evil comes from nature is not the same as to say that nature is evil.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Bert
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 07:24 PM

...Had we been programmed differently we would find mud, for instance, more fascinating than blue sky....

We find familiar things beautiful, otherwise a tree would be a seen as an alien monster.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Bert
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 07:25 PM

And we can't talk about quotes without mentioning Lazarus Long.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: s&r
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 08:29 PM

As you get older - never pass a toilet (john), never waste an erection and never trust a fart


Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 10:29 PM

||: When tempted to make a generalization about Christians, try :||
||: it out on Communists, and vice versa.                        :||

Or on this forum at least the evangelical atheists.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 13 Dec 11 - 01:49 PM

regarding political prominence--
"the higher a monkey climbs, the more of its butt is visible."

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Joe_F
Date: 13 Dec 11 - 07:56 PM

Here are five more:

||: Hogamus, higamus, Men are polygamous. :||
||: Higamus, hogamus, Women, monogamous.   :||

||: You shall love your crooked neighbor :||
||: With your crooked heart.             :||

||: Suicide: bridging the gap between abortion and euthanasia. :||

||: Failure of imagination is a weak form of courage and a :||
||: strong form of cowardice.                               :||

||: The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but :||
||: queerer than we can suppose.                           :||

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Bert
Date: 13 Dec 11 - 09:42 PM

Everything I needed to know, I learned on Mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Allen in Oz
Date: 13 Dec 11 - 10:01 PM

" Hell is one's self"

"Hell is other people ...so is Heaven "

"Everything I needed to know , I learnt in Kendergarten" ( saying please and thank you, looking both ways before crossing the road etc)

AD

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: EBarnacle
Date: 13 Dec 11 - 10:23 PM

"The river runs all the way to the sea." Stated by Eric Russell in a meeting where some people were complaining about an organization getting outside its specified area and widely quoted in print in the organization's letters and publications

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Bert
Date: 13 Dec 11 - 10:38 PM

...
"The river runs all the way to the sea."...

Not the Medway!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Dec 11 - 11:53 PM

The Medway is a tributary of the Thames, reaching it just at its estuary. Bert's objection could apply to any tributary; but eventually one of the parent rivers into which it, or in turn its parent &c, flows, will reach the sea. So, in that sense...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: autolycus
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 03:48 AM

We do not see the world as it is but as we are. [Jewish proverb]

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 04:24 AM

Fool me once; shame on you. Fool me twice; shame on me.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Acorn4
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 09:01 AM

A wet duck never flies at night.

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philately.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: frogprince
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 11:18 AM

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside a dog, it's too dark to read." (Groucho)

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 11:44 AM

"The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of great moral crises maintain their neutrality." -Dante

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Bert
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 03:19 PM

I know MtheGM, I know, I was just having fun.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: GUEST, Eb
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 03:46 PM

The ultimate sexism: She's not pretty enough to be that dumb.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Raedwulf
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 04:29 PM

"Spontaneity works best when practiced beforehand" - Me!

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 05:55 PM

The trouble with punctuality is that there is never anyone else there to appreciate it. {Previously published as letter in The Times, but my own SFAIK}.

My grandfather always said that it was better to look a fool with an umbrella on a dry day than to look a fool without an umbrella on a wet day.

My father brought me up to the principle, which I try always to follow, that half-an-hour early is better than half-a-minute late: obviously true with regard to trains &c; but a good maxim re appointments also IMO.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Joe_F
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 04:49 PM

Five more:

||: We only of Creation (Oh, luckier bridge and rail!)    :||
||: Abide the twin-damnation -- To fail and know we fail. :||

||: Many are born impatient; the lucky ones become cabdrivers. :||

||: Successful systems accumulate parasites. :||

||: The world goes its way past all who will not partake of its :||
||: folly.                                                       :||

||: Feather warcast: sighs in the heaventies, reariods of pain. :||
||: Fairies of Ogga.                                             :||

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: frogprince
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 06:26 PM

"What this country needs is more men with real two-fisted guts on their shoulders"

Actually that sprung from my own fevered brain some years ago. More recently I ran it by one of the most macho-obsessed dudes I've ever met; he just nodded and agreed with me heartily, apparently fully convinced that I'd actually said something.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Dec 11 - 12:22 AM

As I mentioned on the Things·People·Say thread, my late wife Valerie once exclaimed most vehemently in her sleep

"The people must be kept awake ~~ and amused".

She had no recollection of what dream had led to the exclamation, or what contextual significance it might have had. But I think it would do as a good principle as an MO for governments &c to adopt ~~ cf the Romans' determination to provide the plebs ["the people"] with panem et circenses.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Dec 11 - 03:13 AM

"What this country needs is more men with real two-fisted guts on their shoulders"frogprince

lol Kind of like standing around on one's ass but messier.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 16 Dec 11 - 04:03 AM

"Everything Takes Longer!"
I think this one is mine, but could be mistaken.
It isn't the same as "Everything takes longer than you think it will", because that assumes that it is taking longer relative to some arbitrary estimate. Past experience tells me that in reality it will take even longer than that...

Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Dec 11 - 04:56 AM

One of GM's Laws is ~~ It won't get better after the interval.

And this thread is perhaps an appropriate case to post yet again, just in case there is a Catter in the Universe who hasn't seen it before, my Boring Old Fart's Credo ~~ to which, at nearly 80, feel self entitled:   viz that my Literature shall be Comprehensible;   my Art Representational;   my Music Tonal: naught else shall penetrate my perception-zone. —


~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: autolycus
Date: 16 Dec 11 - 01:33 PM

20% of the population is against everything.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Dec 11 - 11:51 AM

This last reminds me that Theodore Sturgeon's indispensable Law Of Science Fiction, so readily extrapolable to any form of discourse, should surely figure on this thread:

viz, that ~~

90% of Science Fiction is rubbish, because 90% of everything is rubbish.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: kendall
Date: 17 Dec 11 - 11:56 AM

50% of the population is below average.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Jeri
Date: 17 Dec 11 - 12:54 PM

That's obviously wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Midchuck
Date: 17 Dec 11 - 01:29 PM

I have seen many paraphrases of Sturgeon's Law, but that's the first one I've seen that used a term as mild as "rubbish."

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Jeri
Date: 17 Dec 11 - 09:50 PM

Kendall either is ignoring me or hasn't been back to this thread, but it isn't possible for 50% of the population to be below average.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: autolycus
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 05:22 AM

A quick glance at the wiki entry for Average suggests that it will depend which 'average' you are using.

Subject: RE: BS: Aphorisms & Quotes- Original & Otherwise
From: Raggytash
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 08:28 AM

Mean, Mode and Median will all give different results.