Perspectives on Ideas 2

Topic: Fools.

2010-08-26T05:22:00.001-07:00

Quote A Day

Fools go in crowds. French Dictionary of Foreign Terms, p. 15.

Comment: Or, individuals become fools in crowds. RayS.

Topic: Fathers

2010-08-25T07:34:00.001-07:00

Quote A Day

The shoemaker’s son has no shoes. French. Dictionary of Foreign Terms, p. 12.

Topic: Satire

2010-08-24T08:11:00.001-07:00

Quote A Day

Satire…essentially an art of over-simplification since it concentrates on a few if not only a single characteristic, is inevitably in danger of overlooking the complexity of human nature. Mark Schorer, Afterword. Sinclair Lewis, Main Street, p. 437.

Comment: There's satire and there's satire. One is mean-spirited as for example the kind of vicious satire that spread meanness toward Abraham Lincoln, in many of the newspapers of his day and that led to his being viewed as either a monster or a baboon that eventually led to his assassination. Then there's the more gentle satire as in Barak Obama's elongated face and large ears used in caricatures in contemporary political cartoons when making points about issues of the day. And then there's the satire like Swift's "A Modest Proposal" that makes its point directly. Of course, there's always a concern that some readers will interpret the satire literally. RayS.

Topic: Sanity

2010-08-23T05:50:00.001-07:00

Quote A Day

…sanity, the human organism’s ability to distinguish illusion from reality. Toffler, Future Shock, p. 221. .

Quotes: Society 9).

2010-08-19T07:19:00.001-07:00

Purpose of this blog: A collection of quotes (ideas) on a variety of topics from a variety of different sources.

Society 77 "In twenty minutes the party was again elevated to the decorum of a prayer-meeting." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Society 81 "She wondered whether they could for five minutes be coaxed to talk about something besides the winter top of Knute Stamquist’s Ford, and what Al Tingley had said about his mother-in-law." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Society 84 "Winter garments surpassed even personal gossip as the topic at parties... 'Put on your heavies yet?' ” Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Society 84 "The automobile and bridge-whist had not only made more evident the social divisions in Gopher Prairie but they had also enfeebled the love of activity...so rich looking to sit and drive--and so easy; skiing and sliding were 'stupid' and 'old fashioned.' ” Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Society 84 "In fact the village longed for the elegance of city recreations almost as much as the cities longed for village sports; and Gopher Prairie took as much pride in neglecting coasting as St. Paul--or New York--in going coasting." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quotes: Society (8).

2010-08-18T07:27:00.001-07:00

Purpose of this blog: A collection of quotes (ideas) on a variety of topics from a variety of different sources.

Society 47 “We’ll have to teach you; bridge is half the fun of life.” Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Society 55 "Then a rattle, a daring hope in every eye, the swinging of a door, the smell of strong coffee, Dave Dyer’s mewing voice in a triumphant, 'The eats!' ...began to chatter ...had something to do ...could escape from themselves ...fell upon the food--chicken sandwiches, maple cake, drugstore ice cream ...when the food was gone they remained cheerful ...could go home, any time now, and go to bed." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Society 61 "Noon dinner and six o’clock supper at Mrs. Gurrey’s boarding house: ...unsmiling, methodically chewing guests like horses at a manger." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Society 66 "Evenings she went with her husband to the motion pictures and was boisterously greeted by every other couple; or, till it became too cold, they sat on the porch, bawling to passers-by in motors, or to neighbors who were raking the leaves...dust became golden in the low sun; the street was filled with the fragrance of burning leaves." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Society 66 "But she...wanted someone to whom she could say what she thought." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quotes: Society (7)

2010-08-17T07:41:00.001-07:00

Purpose of this blog: A collection of quotes (ideas) on a variety of topics from a variety of different sources.

Society 568 "To escape the consequences of his bestial and timid nature, man must erect a civil authority of terrifying completeness: a state based on naked, and wielding absolute power, with no other function than to wield power; whose effectiveness alone is its legitimacy; whose opinions are truth; whose orders are justice; resistance to which is a logical absurdity." H.R. Trevor-Roper. “Thomas Hobbes.” 1945. Gross, ed. Essays.

Society 355 "Mrs. Dashwood could think of no other questions, and Thomas [the servant] and the table-cloth, now alike needless, were soon afterwards dismissed." Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

Society 376 "They [Lucy and Robert] passed some months in great happiness at Dawlish; for she had many relations and old acquaintance to cut…." Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

Society 219 "...no other lights burning downtown after nine o’clock; on star-light nights I used to pace up and down those long, cold streets, scowling at the little, sleeping houses on either side, with their storm-windows and covered back porches." Cather, My Ántonia

Society 45 "She was led about the circle: Her voice mechanically produced safe remarks: 'Oh, I’m sure I’m going to like it here ever so much,' and 'Yes, we did have the best time in Colorado--mountains,' and 'Yes I lived in St. Paul several years. Euclid P. Tinker? No, I don’t remember meeting him, but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of him.' " Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quotes: Society (6)

2010-08-16T05:35:00.003-07:00

Purpose of this blog: A collection of quotes (ideas) on a variety of topics from a variety of different sources.

Society 477 "Our civilization is geared to mass-demand, statistically determinable, for commodities which everyone should either make, market, or consume." Robert Graves. “The Case for Xanthippe [Plato’s shrewish wife].” 1960. Gross, ed. Essays.

Society 477 "Good citizens eat what others eat, wear what others wear, behave as others behave, read what others read, think as others think…system has its obvious economic advantages." Robert Graves. “The Case for Xanthippe [Plato’s shrewish wife].” 1960. Gross, ed. Essays.

Society 478 "Maladjustment is due largely to conflicts between rationalization and human instinct." Robert Graves. “The Case for Xanthippe [Plato’s shrewish wife].” 1960. Gross, ed. Essays.

Society 567 Thomas Hobbes: "Man does not move towards positive ends, but away from fear." H.R. Trevor-Roper. “Thomas Hobbes.” 1945. Gross, ed. Essays.

Society 567 Thomas Hobbes: "The cause that moveth a man to become subject to another is fear of not otherwise preserving himself." H.R. Trevor-Roper. “Thomas Hobbes.” 1945. Gross, ed. Essays.

Quotes: Society (5)

2010-08-12T07:11:00.001-07:00

Society 401 "I know someone who says that she never can think of anything to say to persons introduced to her at a party except ‘Do you like parties?’ " Rose Macaulay. “Evening Parties.” 1926. Gross, ed. Essays.

Society 401 "A conversation will then ensue, and must be carried on until one or other of you either flags or breaks away, or until someone intervenes between you." Rose Macaulay. “Evening Parties.” 1926. Gross, ed. Essays.

Society 401 "You had better then take up a position in a solitary corner...and merely listen to the noise as to a concert, not endeavoring to form out of it sentences...the noise of a party will be found a very interesting noise, containing a great variety of different sounds." Rose Macaulay. “Evening Parties.” 1926. Gross, ed. Essays.

Society 402 "It is, in short, the gregarious instinct, based on fear of solitude...hide within the crowd." Rose Macaulay. “Evening Parties.” 1926. Gross, ed. Essays.

Society 402 "We are a haunted race, fleeing from silence...feeling safe only when surrounded by warm, comprehensible, chattering humanity like ourselves." Rose Macaulay. “Evening Parties.” 1926. Gross, ed. Essays.

Quotes: Society (4)

2010-08-11T05:36:00.001-07:00

Society 249 "It is needful only to look around us, to see that the greatest restrainer of the anti-social tendencies of men is fear, not of the law, but of the opinion of their fellows." T.H. Huxley. From Evolution and Ethics. 1894. Gross, ed. Essays.

Society 353 "...public events impinge upon private lives more forcibly than in former days." Bertrand Russell. “On Being Modern-Minded.” 1950. Gross, ed. Essays. Gross, ed. Essays.

Society 392 "Here [in the coal regions of Pennsylvania] was wealth beyond computation, almost beyond imagination--and here were human habitations so abominable that they would have disgraced a race of alley cats." H. L. Mencken. “The Libido for the Ugly.” 1928. Gross, ed. Essays.

Society 400 "Seeing one another; meeting the others of our race; exchanging remarks; or merely observing in what particular garments they have elected to clothe themselves today; this is so nearly universal a custom that it has become dignified into an entertainment, and we issue to one another invitations to attend such gatherings." Rose Macaulay. “Evening Parties.” 1926. Gross, ed. Essays.

Society 401 "As a matter of fact, if you succeed in getting into a corner with a friend and talking, be sure you will be very soon torn asunder by an energetic hostess, whose motto is ‘Keep them moving.’ " Rose Macaulay. “Evening Parties.” 1926. Gross, ed. Essays.

Quotes: Society (3)

2010-08-10T08:09:00.001-07:00

Society 92 "It seems that in our social life, a minor echo of what occurs in love, the best way to get oneself sought after is to withhold oneself." Proust. 1923. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Society 24 " He values himself only upon his title, which being only verbal gives him a wrong account of his natural capacity.... "Samuel Butler. “A Degenerate Noble: Or One That Is Proud of His Birth.” 1668. Gross, ed. Essays.

Society 63 "...for the poor having been deceived into an opinion...that the rich are their betters, have been taught to honor, and of consequence to imitate the examples of those whom they ought to have despised; while the rich on the contrary are misled into a false contempt of what they ought to respect, and by this means lose all the advantage which they might draw from contemplating the exemplary lives of these their real betters." Henry Fielding. “The Poor and Their Betters.” 1752. Gross, ed. Essays.

Society 136 "It is the age of machinery...the age, with its whole undivided might...teaches and practices the great art of adapting means to ends." Thomas Carlyle. From Signs of the Times. 1829. Gross, ed. Essays.

Society 139 "Men are grown mechanical in head and in heart, as well as in hand...have lost faith in individual endeavor...". Thomas Carlyle. From Signs of the Times. 1829. Gross, ed. Essays.

.Quotes: Society (2)

2010-08-09T05:45:00.000-07:00

Society 81 "The moment you enter society, you draw the key from your heart and put it in your pocket; those who fail to do so are fools." Goethe. 1774. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Society 81 "As soon as we attract enough attention in the world to play a part in it, we are set rolling like a ball which will never again be at rest." Prince De Ligne. 1796. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Society 81 "Almost from the cradle to the grave one has an audience to whom one is playing up; the story of these audiences succeeding one another, their character and quality should be treated as an important part of a biography or autobiography." Bernard Berenson. 1939. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Society 82 "It is the fools and the knaves that make the wheels of the world turn." Marquess of Halifax. Late 17^th century. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Society 85 "Be prosperous and gay, require our services—never, and we will be your friends….not what Society says, but it is the principle on which it acts." Lady Blessington. 1834. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Quotes: Society (1)

2010-08-05T07:26:00.001-07:00

Society 855 "The majority of the guests, as is the custom with people thoroughly and profoundly sick at heart, were anxious to make their own woes the theme of discussion, and prove themselves most excellent in anguish." Hawthorne: "The Christmas Banquet"

Society 1106 "That puppet yonder, thought Mother Rigby, still with her eyes fixed on the scarecrow, is too good a piece of work to stand all summer in a corn-patch, frightening away the crows and blackbirds…capable of better things…what if I should let him take his chance among the other men of straw and empty fellows, who go bustling about the world?" Hawthorne: “Feathertop: A Moralized Legend”

Society 58 One of the unpardonable sins, in the eyes of most people, is for a man to go about unlabeled." T. H. Huxley. 1893. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Society 61 "...no man’s dignity can be asserted without being impaired." Sir Henry Taylor. 1836. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Society 80 "No man can have society upon his own terms." Emerson. 1833. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Quote: Socialism.

2010-08-04T11:33:00.003-07:00

Socialism xv J. H. Hexter: "…the restriction of wants is 'an integral element in the pattern of [Sir Thomas] More’s social thought,' differentiating Utopia from the modern socialist economy, the aim of which is the optimum satisfaction of wants." Introd. John Anthony Scott. Sir Thomas More, Utopia. [My wife defined socialism, Obama style, as robbing the middle class to give to the poor. Thanks to Barbara Stopper for that quote. RayS.]

Quote: Social Science

2010-08-03T05:16:00.003-07:00

Social science viii At the dawn of the modern world, social science made its appearance in England not as the designated discipline of pedants seeking knowledge for its own sake but … for the elevation and emancipation of mankind, for the eradication of cruelty, exploitation, and illiteracy. Introd. John Anthony Scott. Sir Thomas More, Utopia.

Quotes: Social Interaction (5)

2010-08-02T08:04:00.001-07:00

Social interaction 95 Miss Crawford: "…for there is nothing in the course of one’s duties so fatiguing as what we have been doing this morning—seeing a great house, dawdling from one room to another—straining one’s eyes and one’s attention—hearing what one does not understand—admiring what one doe not care for…is generally allowed to be the greatest bore in the world…." Austen, Mansfield Park.

Social interaction 120 Tom: "That is what I dislike…raises my spleen more than anything, to have the pretense of being asked, of being given a choice, and at the same time addressed in such a way as to oblige one to do the very thing—whatever it be…had not luckily thought of standing up [dancing] with you [Fanny], I could not have got out of it." Austen, Mansfield Park. [Dancing as an excuse for not doing what you are expected to do.]

Social interaction 180 "…and in the most interesting moment of his [Sir Thomas’s] passage to England, when the alarm of a French privateer was at the height, she [Mrs. Norris] burst through his recital with the proposal of soup." Austen, Mansfield Park. [An unwanted interruption. Gauche.]

Social interaction 278 Edmund: “I am worn out with civility.” Austen, Mansfield Park.

2010-08-02T07:58:00.001-07:00

Quotes: Social Interaction (4)

2010-07-30T05:02:00.001-07:00

Social interaction 35 "Sir John was loud in his admiration at the end of every song, and as loud in his conversation with the others while every song lasted." Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

Social interaction 162 "…talked of headaches, low spirits, and over fatigues; and of everything to which she could decently attribute her sister’s behavior [for avoiding Col. Brandon]." Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

Social interaction 176 “ 'Pray, pray, be composed,' cried Elinor, 'and do not betray what you feel to everybody present.' " Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

Social interaction 420 "Stanley had discovered that people liked him when he made confessions like that." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Social interaction 84 "After the business of arriving was over…." Austen, Mansfield Park.

2010-07-30T04:56:00.001-07:00

Quotes: Social Interaction (3)

2010-07-29T05:45:00.001-07:00

Social interaction 142 "A rebuff or cold look from those who are above us in rank may make us hate them, but a greeting or a smile soon reconciles us." La Bruyere. 1688. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Social interaction 209 "If we would please in society, we must be prepared to be taught many things we know already…." Chamfort. 1805. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Social interaction 211 "Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of other persons." Twain. Later 19^th century. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

14. Social interaction 213 "Every man becomes to a certain degree, what the people he generally converses with are." Lord Chesterfield. 1750. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Social interaction 213 "Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference." Cesare Pavese. 1935-50. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Quotes: Social Interaction (2)

2010-07-28T05:09:00.001-07:00

Social interaction 139 "To be able to live among men and women we must allow everyone to exist with his given individuality." Schopenhauer. 1851. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Social interaction 139 "If there were only two men in the world, how would they get on? They would help one another, harm one another, flatter one another…fight one another, make it up; they could neither live together nor do without one another." Voltaire. 1764. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Social interaction 140 "In the presence of some people we inevitably depart from ourselves: we are inaccurate, say things we do not feel, and talk nonsense; when we get home we are conscious that we have made fools of ourselves; never go near these people." Mark Rutheford. 1910. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Social interaction 141 "Personalize your sympathies; depersonalize your antipathies." W. R. Inge. 1931. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Social interaction 142 "Ignorance alone makes monsters or bugbears; our actual acquaintances are all very common-place people." Hazlitt. 1822. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Quotes: Social Interaction (1)

2010-07-27T05:22:00.001-07:00

Social interaction 76 "When men are easy in themselves, they let others remain so."" Lord Shaftesbury. 1711. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Social interaction 78 "Everyone alters and is altered by everyone else." Gerald Brenan. 1978. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Social interaction 78 "To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation." Lichtenberg. 1764-99. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Social interaction 79 "The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortunes…." Somerset Maugham. 1919. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Social interaction 79 "There is a certain distance at which each person we know is naturally placed from us…varies with each, and we must not attempt to alter it." Mark Rutherford. 1910. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Quote: Social Hierarchy

2010-07-26T05:47:00.001-07:00

Social hierarchy 287 "…there was annually celebrated in Babylon a festival called the Sacaea…began on the sixteenth day of the month Lous, and lasted for five days; during these five days masters and servants changed places, the servants giving the orders and the masters obeying them." Frazer, The New Golden Bough.

Quotes: Social Gathering.

2010-07-22T05:16:00.001-07:00

Social gathering 63 " Every one of Mr. Macey’s audience had heard this story many times, but it was listened to as if it had been a favorite tune, and at certain points the puffing of the pipes was momentarily suspended, that the listeners might give their whole minds to the expected words." George Eliot, Silas Marner.

Social gathering 111 "Whereupon cards followed, with Aunt Kimble’s annual failure to follow suit…." George Eliot, Silas Marner.

Quote: Social Custom

2010-07-21T05:48:00.001-07:00

Social custom 287 "A prisoner condemned to death was dressed in the king’s robes, seated on the king’s throne, allowed to issue whatever commands he pleased, to eat, drink, and enjoy himself, and to lie with the king’s concubines…at the end of the five days he was stripped of his royal robes, scourged, and hanged or impaled." Frazer, The New Golden Bough.

Quotes: Social Class (2)

2010-07-20T05:28:00.001-07:00

Social class 10 " Sir Thomas in anticipation of Fanny’s arrival: there will be some difficulty in our way…as to the distinction proper to be made between the girls as they grow up; how to preserve in the minds of my daughters the consciousness of what they are, without making them think too lowly of their cousin; and how, without depressing her spirits too far, to make her remember that she is not a Miss Bertram…they cannot be equals…rank, fortune, rights, and expectations, will always be different…a point of great delicacy." Austen, Mansfield Park.

Social class 147 “ 'I am not going to urge her,' –replied Mrs. Norris sharply, 'but I shall think her a very obstinate, ungrateful girl, if she does not do what her aunt and cousins wish her—very ungrateful indeed, considering who and what she is.' ” Austen, Mansfield Park.

Social class 221 Mrs. Norris to Fanny: "The nonsense and folly of people’s stepping out of their rank and trying to appear above themselves, makes me think it right to give you a hint, Fanny, now that you are going into company without any of us; and I do beseech and entreat you not to be putting yourself forward, and talking and giving your opinion as if you were one of your cousins…". Austen, Mansfield Park.

Quotes: Social Class (1)

2010-07-19T07:06:00.001-07:00

Social class 26 "Raveloe lay low among the bushy trees and the rutted lanes, aloof from the currents of industrial energy and Puritan earnestness: the rich ate and drank freely, accepting gout and apoplexy as things that ran mysteriously in respectable families, and the poor thought the rich were entirely in the right of it to lead a jolly life." George Eliot, Silas Marner.

Social class 36 "The lives of those rural forefathers, whom we are apt to think very prosaic figures--men whose only work was to ride round their land, getting heavier and heavier in their saddles, and who passed the rest of their days in the half-listless gratification of senses dulled by monotony...and then what was left to them, especially when they had become too heavy for the hunt, or for carrying a gun over the furrows, but to drink and get merry, or to drink and get angry, so that they might be independent of variety, and say over again with eager emphasis the things they had said already any time that twelvemonth." George Eliot, Silas Marner.

Social class 86 " ...something in the presence of the old Squire distinguishable from that of the ordinary farmers in the parish, who were perhaps every whit as refined a he, but, having slouched their way through life with a consciousness of being in the vicinity of their 'betters,' wanted that self-possession and authoritativeness which belonged to a man who thought of his superiors as remote existences with whom he had personally little more to do than with America or the stars...had been used to parish homage all his life, used to the presupposition that his family, his tankards, and everything that was his, were the oldest and best...." George Eliot, Silas Marner.

Social class 199 "…but we must remember that many of the impressions which Godfrey was likely to gather concerning the laboring people around him would favor the idea that deep affection can hardly go along with callus palms and scant means…." George Eliot, Silas Marner.

Social class 218 Eppie: "I shouldn’t know what to think on or to wish for with fine things about me, as I haven’t been used to…it ‘ud be poor work for me to put on things and ride in a gig, and sit in a place at church, as ‘ud make them as I’m fond of think me unfitting company for ‘em." George Eliot, Silas Marner.

quotes: Snow (2).

2010-07-15T12:03:00.001-07:00

Snow 21 "Snow, winter’s own cold, white blossoms…." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Snow 43 "We can split atoms, send rockets to the moon, fly faster than sound, but we still can’t subdue a blizzard." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Snow 341 December. "We can’t create a snowflake...the wonder of the evanescent flakes, so frail they vanish in one warm breath, so substantial they form ice sheets and glaciers." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Snow 345 December. "If [snow] comes wet and clinging, it accents the clean, simple structure of every tree." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Snow 350 "Even such a simple thing as a snow flake or an ice crystal is, in a way, a fragment of universal truth...the infinite variety within a six-fold pattern...is beyond human achievement...the power in an ice crystal manifested in winter dwarfs the energy in a man-fractured atom." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Quotes: Snow (1).

2010-07-14T05:30:00.000-07:00

Snow 15 "Perhaps we need the snow to really see the colors." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Snow 15 "The snow may not sharpen the eyes but it does sharpen the contrast and somehow cleanses the colors themselves." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Snow 15 "…and it [snow] simplifies the world around us, hides the confusing clutter, the distractions." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Snow 15 "With less to see [because of the snow], we see more and see it clearly…whoever admired the glistening black of a crow in July?" Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Snow 21 "We stand at the window and see the snow, the flakes of crystal perfection, feathering from the sky, and we remember all the winters of our lives." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Quotes: Smoking.

2010-07-13T07:40:00.001-07:00

Smoking 1057 "…puffing what seemed to be the same cigar that he had lighted twenty years before." Hawthorne: “Ethan Brand: A Chapter from an Abortive Romance”

Smoking 331 "The believing we do something when we do nothing is the first illusion of tobacco." Emerson. 1859. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Smoking 35 "He [Babbitt] stopped smoking at least once a month…went through with it like the solid citizen he was: admitted the evils of tobacco, courageously made resolves; laid out plans to check the vice, tapered off his allowance of cigars, and expounded the pleasures of virtuousness to every one he met…did everything, in fact, except stop smoking; two months before, by [making] out a schedule, noting down the hour and minute of each smoke, and ecstatically increasing the intervals between smokes, he had brought himself down to three cigars a day; then he had lost the schedule." Lewis, Babbitt.

Quotes: Small Town (8)

2010-07-12T05:42:00.001-07:00

Small town 409 "Carol recognized in Washington as she had in California a transplanted and guarded Main Street; two-thirds…had come from Gopher Prairies." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 410 "Always she was to perceive in Washington (as doubtless she would have perceived in New York or London) a thick streak of Main Street." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 426 "In Gopher Prairie the only ardent new topics were Prohibition, the place in Minneapolis where you could get whiskey at thirteen dollars a quart, recipes for home-made beer, the 'high cost of living,' the presidential election, Clark’s new car and not very novel foibles of Cy Bogart …problems were exactly what they had been twenty years ago, and what they would be for twenty years to come." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 438 Mark Schorer, in the Afterword, quoting from the novel: "Under the stilly boughs and the black gauze of dusk the street was meshed in silence…was but the hum of motor tires crunching the road, the creak of a rocker on the Howlands’ porch, the slap of a hand attacking a mosquito, a heat-weary conversation starting and dying, the precise rhythm of crickets, the thud of moths against the screen—sounds that were a distilled silence…a street beyond the end of the world, beyond the boundaries of hope…no one who was interesting would come by…tediousness made tangible, a street builded of lassitude and futility." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town vs. cities 413 "Her glimpse of tasks [in Washington] involving millions of people and a score of nations reduced Main Street from bloated importance to its actual pettiness…could never again be quite so awed by the power with which she herself had endowed the Vidas and Blausers and Bogarts." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quotes: Small Town (7)

2010-07-09T05:33:00.000-07:00

Small town 279 "As she went dragging through the prickly-hot street she reflected that a citizen of Gopher Prairie does not have jests—he has a jest…for five winters Lyman Cass had remarked, 'Fair to middlin’ chilly—get worse before it gets better'…fifty times had Sam Clark called to her, 'Where’d you steal that hat?' ” Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 310 "Miles looked steadily at the three women: 'You’re too late…can’t do nothing now; Bea’s always kind of hoped that you folks would come see her…wanted to have a chance and be friends…used to sit waiting for somebody to knock…seen her sitting here, waiting…oh, you ain’t worth god-damning.' He shut the door." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

33. Small town 327 " …the back-slapping jocosity that passes for humor here." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 327 "Gopher Prairie with its celebrated eleven miles of cement walk…I wonder how much of the cement is made out of the tombstones of John Keatses?" Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 333 "Tennis was well spoken of in Gopher Prairie and almost never played." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quotes: Small Town (6)

2010-07-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

Small town 257 [Small American town]: "It is an unimaginatively standardized background, a sluggishness of speech and manners, a rigid ruling of the spirit by the desire to be respectable …contentment…the contentment of the quiet dead, who are scornful of the living for their restless walking…a negation canonized as the one positive virtue…the prohibition of happiness…dullness made God." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 258 [American small town]: "A savorless people, gulping tasteless food, and sitting afterward, coatless and thoughtless, in rocking chairs…listening to mechanical music, saying mechanical things about the excellence of Ford automobiles…." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 259 "The cloud of serene ignorance submerges them in unhappiness and futility." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 261 "…Carol saw the fact that the prairie towns no more exist to serve the farmers who are their reason of existence than do the great capitals; they exist to fatten on the farmers, to provide for the townsmen large motors and social preferment…." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 275 "The incredible dullness of it all…they don’t know what they miss…anybody can endure anything; look at men in mines and in prisons." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quotes: Small Town (5)

2010-07-07T06:28:00.001-07:00

Small town 204 "Miss Stowbody expressed the fundamental principle of the American drama: the only way to be artistic is to present Shakespeare." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 223 "How bravely and generously it [Gopher Prairie] did its work, forwarding the bread of the world, feeding and healing the farmers." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 217 "…two traditions of the American small town…first tradition…is that the American village remains the one sure abode of friendship, honesty, and clean sweet marriageable girls." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 257 "The other tradition [of the American small town] is that [among] the significant features of all villages are…shrewd comic old men who are known as 'hicks' and who ejaculate 'Wall I swan.' " Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 257 " …unread sets of Mark Twain…." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quotes: Small Town (4)

2010-07-06T05:50:00.001-07:00

Small town 153 "The 'village virus': …more dangerous than the cancer that will certainly get me at fifty unless I stop this smoking…the germ which…infects ambitious people who stay too long in the provinces… epidemic among lawyers and doctors and ministers and college-bred merchants—all these people who have had a glimpse of the world that thinks and laughs, but have returned to their swamp." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 155 "I decided to leave here, stern resolution, grasp the world…found that the Village Virus had me…didn’t want to face new streets and younger men—real competition." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 166 "You’re so damned superior, and think the city is such a hell of a lot finer place, and you want us to do what you want, all the time…." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 184 "Mrs. Erdstrom begged her to sit in the parlor, where there was a phonograph and an oak and leather davenport, the prairie farmer’s proofs of social progress." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 202 "…the jocose insults which are the wit of Main Street." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quotes: Small Town (3)

2010-07-01T07:57:00.001-07:00

Small town 143 "How had she fallen into the folly of trying to plant anything whatever in a wall so smooth and sun-glazed, and so satisfying to the happy sleepers within?" Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 151 "Small-town philosophy: People who make more than ten thousand a year or less than eight hundred are wicked.: Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 151 "Small-town philosophy: Virgins are not so virginal as they used to be." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 151 "Small-town philosophy: There would be no more trouble or discontent in the world if everybody worked as hard as Pa did when he cleared our first farm." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 153 "I wonder if the small town is not, with some lovely exceptions, a social appendix…some day these dull market-towns may be as obsolete as monasteries." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quotes: Small Town (2)

2010-06-30T07:49:00.001-07:00

Small town 105 "In her innocence she had not known that the whole town could discuss even her garments, her body; she felt that she was being dragged naked down Main Street." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 110 "She reverted to her resolution to change the town—awaken it, prod it, 'reform' it; what if they were wolves instead of lambs? They’d eat her all the sooner if she was meek…fight or be eaten…easier to change the town completely than to conciliate it." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 115 "Miles Bjornstam, half Yank and half Swede: Usually known as ‘that damn lazy big-mouthed calamity-howler that ain’t satisfied with the way we run things.’ " Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 121 "She read Kipling, with a great deal of emphasis: There’s a REGIMENT a-COMING down the GRAND Trunk ROAD…tapped his foot to the rhythm, he looked normal and reassured; but when he complimented her, ‘that was fine; I don’t know but what you can elocute just as good as Ella Stowbody,’ she banged the book and suggested that they were not too late for the nine o’clock show at the movies." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 135 "And as for a lecture hall—haven’t we got the churches?" Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quotes: Small Town (1)

2010-06-29T05:17:00.001-07:00

Small town 219 "This guarded mode of existence was like living under a tyranny; people’s speech, their voices, their very glances, became furtive and repressed; every individual taste, every natural appetite, was bridled by caution." Cather, My Ántonia

Small town 219 "The people asleep in those houses, I thought, tried to live like the mice in their own kitchens; to make no noise, to leave no trace, to slip over the surface of things in the dark." Cather, My Ántonia

Small town 95 Vida Sherwin to Carol:" I wonder if you understand that in a secluded community like this every newcomer is on test?" Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 100 "She had tripped into the meadow to teach the lambs a pretty educational dance and found that the lambs were wolves." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Small town 100 " Reform the town? All she wanted was to be tolerated...could not look directly at people...flushed and winced before citizens who a week ago had been amusing objects of study, and in their good-morning she heard a cruel sniggering." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Quote: Sleep.

2010-06-28T06:20:00.001-07:00

Sleep 10 "...immoderate sleep is rust to the soul." Thomas Overbury, “A Fair and Happy Milkmaid.” 1615. Gross, ed. Essays.

Quotes: Slang.

2010-06-24T08:02:00.001-07:00

Slang 282 "The one stream of poetry which is continually flowing is slang." Chesterton. 1901. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Quotes: Slander

2010-06-23T07:53:00.001-07:00

Slander 202 " Do you want to injure someone’s reputation? Don’t speak ill of him, speak too well." Andre Siegfried. 1943. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Quote: Skydiving

2010-06-22T06:22:00.001-07:00

Skydiving 289 …the [skydiving] feat of Rod Pack, who not long ago jumped from an airplane without a parachute, was handed one by a companion in mid-air, put it on, opened it, and landed safely. Toffler, Future Shock.

Quotes: Sincerity

2010-06-21T06:20:00.001-07:00

Sincerity 219 "How hollow and insincere it sounds when someone says, ‘I am determined to be perfectly straightforward with you’; the thing needs no prologue; it will declare itself." Marcus Aurelius. 2^nd century. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Sincerity 223 "Sincerity has to do with the connection between our words and thoughts, and not between belief and actions." Hazlitt. 1828. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Sincerity 318 " A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal." Oscar Wilde, “ ‘The True Critic’.” 1891. Gross, ed. Essays.

Quotes: Sin (3)

2010-06-17T07:03:00.001-07:00

Sin 253 "Where there is no knowledge there is no sin." German. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Sin 335 "And he [Walt Whitman] was a gay old pagan who never called a sin a sin when it was a pleasure." Gross, ed. Essays.

Quotes: Sin (2)

2010-06-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

Sin 1057 "What is the Unpardonable sin? asked the lime-burner…the sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence for God and sacrificed everything to its own mighty claims…unshrinkingly, I accept the retribution." Hawthorne: “Ethan Brand: A Chapter from an Abortive Romance”

Sin 1064 "…he was now a cold observer, looking on mankind as the subject of his experiment, and, at length, converting man and woman to be his puppets, and pulling the wires that moved them to such degrees of crime as were demanded for his study." Hawthorne: “Ethan Brand: A Chapter from an Abortive Romance”

Sin 1065 " Oh, Mother Earth…who art no more my mother, and into whose bosom this frame shall never be resolved; oh, mankind, whose brotherhood I have cast off, and trampled thy great heart beneath my feet!" Hawthorne: “Ethan Brand: A Chapter from an Abortive Romance”

Sin 176 "How can we tell when a sin we have committed has been pardoned? By the fact that we no longer commit that sin." Rabbi Bunam of Pzysha. c. 1800. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Sin 183 "The search of an investigator for the unpardonable sin—he at last finds it in his own heart and practice." Hawthorne. 1841-52. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Quotes: Sin (1)

2010-06-15T08:20:00.000-07:00

Sin 544 "…the policy of our ancestors to search out even the most secret sins, and expose them to shame, without fear or favor, in the broadest light of the noonday sun." Hawthorne: “Endicott and the Red Cross”

Sin 1055 " …a man who, on his own confession, had committed the only crime for which Heaven could afford no mercy." Hawthorne: “Ethan Brand: A Chapter from an Abortive Romance”

Sin 1056 "…the man and the fiend each laboring to frame the image of some mode of guilt, which could neither be atoned for,--nor forgiven." Hawthorne: “Ethan Brand: A Chapter from an Abortive Romance”

Sin 1056 "…dreadful task of extending man’s possible guilt beyond the scope of Heaven’s infinite mercy."Hawthorne: “Ethan Brand: A Chapter from an Abortive Romance”

Sin 1056 " 'Man!' sternly replied Ethan Brand, What need have I of the devil?…I have left him behind me on my track; it is with such half-way sinners as you that he busies himself." Hawthorne: “Ethan Brand: A Chapter from an Abortive Romance”

Qu0te: Silence.

2010-06-14T07:40:00.001-07:00

Silence 210 "Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn." George Bernard Shaw. 1921. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Quote: Shame.

2010-06-10T08:49:00.001-07:00

Shame 76 "If you want people to envy you your sorrow or your shame, look as if you were proud of it; if you have enough of the actor in you, rest assured, you will become the hero of the day." Leo Shestov. 1905. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Quotes: Shakespeare

2010-06-09T08:17:00.001-07:00

Shakespeare 338 Crawford on Shakespeare: But [with] Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how…part of an Englishman’s constitution…thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them everywhere…no man of any brain can open at a good part of one of his plays without falling into the flow of his meaning immediately. Austen, Mansfield Park.

Shakespeare 338 Edmund on Shakespeare: His celebrated passages are quoted by everybody; they are in half the books we open, and we all talk Shakespeare, use his similes and describe with his descriptions…to know him in bits and scraps, is common enough; to know him pretty thoroughly, is, perhaps, not uncommon; but to read him well aloud, is no everyday talent. Austen, Mansfield Park.

Quotes: Shakers.

2010-05-19T05:11:00.001-07:00

Shakers 555 " …had joined in the sacred dance, every step of which is believed to alienate the enthusiast from earth, and bear him onward to heavenly purity and bliss." Hawthorne: “The Shaker Bridal”

Shakers 556 "Martha…thin and pale, as a Shaker sister almost invariably is, and not entirely free from that corpse-like appearance, which the garb of the sisterhood is so well calculated to impart. "Hawthorne: “The Shaker Bridal”

Shakers 560 "…when the mission of Mother Ann shall have wrought its full effect,--when children shall no more be born and die, and the last survivor of mortal race, some old and weary man like me, shall see the sun go down, never more to rise on a world of sin and sorrow." Hawthorne: “The Shaker Bridal”

Quotes: Sex.

2010-05-18T05:52:00.000-07:00

Sex 250 " Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable." Lord Chesterfield.

Sex 250 "Sex: the thing that takes up the least amount of time and causes the most amount of trouble." John Barrymore.

Sex 252 " Sex is the biggest nothing of all time. "Andy Warhol.

Time out!

2010-05-13T11:31:00.001-07:00

Resume Monday, 5/17/2010.

Quotes: September (4)

2010-05-12T05:29:00.001-07:00

September 254 September. "Goldenrod fades, Queen Anne’s lace is worn and tattered…". Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

September 257 September. "The sun now rises almost due east, sets almost due west…the week of the autumn equinox when, briefly, daylight and darkness are almost equal." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

September 261 September. "The chill of dawn seems even colder when one remembers the hot days of only a month ago." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

September 265 September. "Days when the sky is clear and clean, when the air is crisp…". Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

September 265 September. "Late cicadas buzz in early afternoon; field crickets fiddle in the tall grass at the country roadside; at dusk the katydids set up their clamor; crows caw with less than usual raucousness; bees still hum over fading heads of goldenrod." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Quotes: September (3)

2010-05-11T06:03:00.001-07:00

September 247 September. "This is gossamer season, when a dozen different strands glint and glimmer in the sunlight…gossamer strands, strong as steel, light as feathers…at sunrise, a lacing of silver threads over grass and bushes, glinting with dewdrops.…" Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

September 251 "September. …the golden mildness of early autumn comforts the land." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

September 251 September. "Crickets, briefly silenced by the first frost, trill the warm afternoons toward the dusk when the last, loud katydids join the chorus." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

September 253 September. "Life now begins to relax into the annual pause that is a kind of biological Indian summer, a time of relative ease and quiet." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

September 254 September. "…a countryman…plucks and cans his tomatoes, brings in his winter squash…has picked his beans, pickled his beets, chopped his cabbage and peppers into relish." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Quotes: September (2)

2010-05-10T05:58:00.001-07:00

September 242 "Deliberate September, in its own time and tempo, begins to sum up another summer." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

September 243 September. "Dusk melts into moonlight." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

September 244 "September. …wild asters spangle our landscape." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

September 246 September. "The bumblebee waits for midday warmth to seek his breakfast and crickets chirp all afternoon in the roadside grass." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

September 246 September. "You walk with the measured rhythm of the year, unhurried, and you become a part of it." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Quotes: September.

2010-05-05T11:27:00.001-07:00

September 240 September. "Summer thins away." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

September 242 "After summer’s heat and haste, [September] even brings a sense of quiet and leisure…. " Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

September 242 September. "Asters frost the roadsides, reminder of frosty mornings ahead…." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

September 242 September. "Fireflies are gone, but the stars begin to glitter in the deepening dusk." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

September 242 September. "The cicada is stilled, but cricket and katydid are loud in the lengthening night." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Quote: Selling

2010-05-04T06:13:00.001-07:00

Selling 119 "To them, the Romantic Hero was no longer the knight, the wandering poet, the cowpuncher, the aviator, nor the brave young district attorney, but the great sales-manager, who had an Analysis of Merchandising Problems on his glass-topped desk, whose title of nobility was, 'Go-getter,' and who devoted himself and all his young samurai to the cosmic purpose of Selling—not of selling anything in particular, or to anybody in particular, but pure Selling." Lewis, Babbitt.

Quotes: Self-Reliance.

2010-05-03T08:06:00.001-07:00

Self-reliance 77 "He that relieth upon himself will be oppressed by others with offers of their service." Marquess of Halifax. Late 17^th century. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Self-reliance 131 "Fortune soon tires of carrying anyone long on her shoulders." Gracián. 1647. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Quotes: Self-Knowledge.

2010-04-29T06:07:00.001-07:00

Self-knowledge 249 "Few people even scratch the surface, much less exhaust the contemplation of their own experience." Randolph Bourne. 1913. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Self-knowledge 251 "Only the shallow know themselves." Oscar Wilde. 1894. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Quotes: Self-esteem

2010-04-28T12:29:00.001-07:00

Self-esteem 248 "He who despises himself esteems himself as a self-despiser." Nietzsche.

Self-esteem 272 "Fanny saw that she was approved; and the consciousness of looking well, made her look still better." Austen, Mansfield Park.

Quote: Security.

2010-04-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

Security 49 "The sense of security more frequently springs from habit than from conviction...". George Eliot, Silas Marner.

Quotes: Secrecy

2010-04-26T06:10:00.001-07:00

Secrecy 165 "Secrecy will hardly be perfectly preserved unless by one who makes it a rule to avoid the whole of a subject of which he has to retain a part." Sir Henry Taylor. “On Secrecy.” 1836. Gross, ed. Essays.

Secrecy 165 "Shy and unready men are great betrayers of secrets; for there are few wants more urgent for the moment than the want of something to say." Sir Henry Taylor. “On Secrecy.” 1836. Gross, ed. Essays.

Secrets 216 "If you want to keep something concealed from your enemy, do not disclose it to your friend." Solomon Ibn Gabirol. 1050. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Quotes: The Seasons (7)

2010-04-22T13:17:00.001-07:00

Seasons 286 "Spring sunshine is the awakener…summer sunlight is the ripener…winter sunlight is a token of rest, of the long sleep, the short day…but autumn sunlight is simply perfection of the day…." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 326 November. "And that is one of the rewards of living with four clear-cut seasons...have this annual season of simplicity, of rocks and rootbeds plainly visible...can, if you really look, see things whole again." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 327 " It is pleasant to walk with May and hear the song of mating birds and see the glint of fresh violets in the new grass...satisfying to sit in summer’s shade and know the fragrance of roses and the hum of bees through the long afternoon...exhilarating to watch the color come to the woodlands...but when the blossom has become the seed, when daylight has been abbreviated by the southward swing of the sun, when the trees stand naked in the frosty woodland.... " Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 343 "And man, privileged to know the year whole and complete...". Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Season 119 "Every morning I wakened with a fresh consciousness that winter was over." Cather, My Ántonia

Quotres: The Seasons. (6)

2010-04-21T07:32:00.001-07:00

Seasons 232 "It always seems to catch us by surprise, that day when we know the summer is not endless, that autumn is just over the hill or up the valley." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 232 "But it is the light, not the temperature, that marks the change [from summer to fall]…the clear blue sky, the sharp shadows, the way they fall." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 240 " September comes, and with it a sense of autumn." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 240 "Autumn never comes overnight…creeps in on a misty dawn and vanishes in the hot afternoon…tiptoes through the treetops, rouging a few leaves…". Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 259 "Spring was all eagerness and beginnings, summer was growth and flowering…autumn is the achievement summarized, the harvested grain, the ripened apple, the grape in the wine press…the bright leaf in the woodland…the froth of asters at the roadside." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Quotes: The Seasons (5)

2010-04-20T07:35:00.000-07:00

Seasons 206 "As summer advances, the colors change, slowly, subtly, but unmistakably." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 217 "The lights of the fireflies begin to dim, the buzz of the annual cicadas passes its shrill crescendo, the crickets stridulate, and after the crickets we hear the first katydids… can time the season by the insect sequence." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 217 "Tradition says first frost will come six weeks after the first katydid is heard." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 226 "What we really hear [in the late-August nights’ insects sounds] is the summer passing." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 227 "Now, in the insect-loud night, we know that October will come, and November, when only the scuffle of sere leaves will scratch the night." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Quotes: The Seasons (4).

2010-04-19T05:26:00.001-07:00

Seasons 81 March. "So we wait, impatient, and the seasons take their own time." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 90 "The precise date is unpredictable, but one warm afternoon the change is in the air, winter turning to spring, and it is more than sunlight, more than warmth." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 195 July. "Change, the eternal constant, subtly shapes days." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 195 July. "You sense the change in the way the shadows fall." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 200 Midsummer. "The inclination is toward autumn, though we are reluctant to admit it." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Quotes: The Seasons (3)

2010-04-15T10:01:00.001-07:00

Seasons 55 "The impatience is in us, watching them [the buds], hoping, wishing, while the clock they obey continues its slow, deliberate ticking down at the root of things." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 60 "Only man, keying his life to his clocks and calendars, is impatient." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

13. Seasons 77 "…from the rigors of winter to the benevolence of spring." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 77 "…all he [man] can do about the rhythmic seasons is chart them and, if he would live in comfort, cooperate with their conditions." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 77 "Neither the power of his [man’s] armies nor the efficiency of his machines can hurry or delay a solstice or an equinox."Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Quotes: The Seasons (2)

2010-04-14T08:25:00.001-07:00

Seasons 736 "It was still winter but there was something soft in the air today." DeLillo, Underworld.

Seasons 24 "You see a change in the way the shadows fall, especially at midday." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 24 "There are no short cuts [in the changing of the seasons]." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 46 "February…one could even say that spring began to assert itself when the angle of sunlight shifted ever so slowly after the winter solstice." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Seasons 46 "February. You can’t hear, and you can scarcely see, the alteration of a shadow, which was all that really happened." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year

Quotes: The Seasons

2010-04-13T06:01:00.001-07:00

Seasons 833 "Summer works in the present, and thinks not of the future; autumn is a rich conservative; winter has utterly lost its faith, and clings tremulously to the remembrance of what has been; but spring with its outgushing life…." Hawthorne: “Buds and Bird-Voices”

Seasons 005 "Time not the temperature, marks off the days." Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year.

Seasons 82 "Gopher Prairie was digging in for the winter; through late November and all December it snowed daily; the thermometer was at zero and might drop to twenty below, or thirty; winter is not a season in the North Middlewest; it is an industry; storm sheds...erected at every door." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Seasons 199 "To the sterile winter air the [newly chopped] wood gave a scent of March sap." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Seasons 497 " It was one of those days in Central Park when there’s a distilled sense of perception, a spareness, every line firm and unredundant, and the leaves were beginning to turn, the dogwoods and the sumac, and nothing was wasted or went unseen." DeLillo, Underworld.

Quotes: The Sea.

2010-04-12T05:53:00.001-07:00

Sea 568 "…find utterance in the sea’s unchanging voice, and warn the listener to withdraw his interest from mortal vicissitudes, and let the infinite idea of eternity pervade his soul." Hawthorne: "Footprints on the Sea-Shore"

Sea 569 "For as the sun sinks over the western wave, the sea grows melancholy, and the surf has a saddened tone." Hawthorne: "Footprints on the Sea-Shore"

Quotes: Sculpture

2010-04-08T05:59:00.001-07:00

Sculpture 935 " …it became evident to all observers, that a female figure was growing into mimic life…seemed as if the hamadryad of the oak had sheltered herself from the unimaginative world within the heart of her native tree, and that it was only necessary to remove the strange shapelessness that had incrusted her, and reveal the grace and loveliness of a divinity." Hawthorne: “Drowne’s Wooden Image”

Sculpture 936 "The figure lies within that block of oak, and it is my business to find it." Hawthorne: “Drowne’s Wooden Image”

Sculpture 1089 "It [the snow image] seemed, in fact, not so much to be made by the children, as to grow up under their hands, while they were playing and prattling about it." Hawthorne: "The Snow Image"

Quote: Scorn.

2010-04-07T05:54:00.001-07:00

Scorn 252 "Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn." George Bernard Shaw.

Quotes: Science (11)

2010-04-06T06:00:00.001-07:00

Science 342 Paul Ehrlich: "The step from the laboratory to the bedside is dangerous—but it must be taken." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 342 "At bottom Paul Ehrlich was a gambler, as who of the great line of the microbe hunters has not been." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science and medicine 208 "The human body will come to be seen as modular… preservation of the whole through systematic replacement of transient components." Toffler, Future Shock.

Science and medicine 209 "…advanced fusions of man and machine—called 'Cyborgs'—are closer than most people think." Toffler, Future Shock.

Science and technology 205 "…if something can be done, someone, somewhere will do it." Toffler, Future Shock.

Scientist 332 "Now, while Paul Ehrlich’s head was an encyclopedia of chemical knowledge, his hands were not the hands of an expert chemist… hated complicated apparatus as much as he loved complicated theories." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Quotes: Science (10)

2010-04-05T05:59:00.001-07:00

Science 298 "There are fertile fields now, and healthy babies, in Italy and Africa and India and America, where once the hum of the anopheles brought thin blood and chattering teeth, brought desolate land and death." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 298 "Facts of science are greater than the little men who find those facts." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 299 "…not one particle of doubt he had to risk human lives; animals simply will not catch yellow fever." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 303 "That is one of the humors of microbe hunting—the way men make their finds." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 310 " …Walter Reed’s moral nature told him: you must kill men to save them." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Quotes: Science (9)

2010-04-01T05:58:00.000-07:00

Science 233 Kilborne told him [Theobald Smith ] of the cattlemen’s ridiculous theory about the ticks... “No ticks--no Texas fever.” DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 238 "Theobald Smith...In the field where there were southern cattle and ticks, the northern cattle died of Texas fever; in the field where there were southern cattle without ticks the northern cows grew fat and remained happy; in the field where there were no southern cattle but only ticks--there, too, the northern cattle came down with Texas fever." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 250 "Like Theobald Smith, [David] Bruce was a man to respect and to test folk-hunches and superstitions." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 268 "To listen to these two, you would think each would rather this noble discovery had remained buried, than have the other get a mite of credit for it." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters. Gaining credit: the curse of scholars.

Science 286 "This was what Ronald Ross seemed to forget: That nature is everlastingly full of surprises and annoying exceptions…. " DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Quotes: Science (8)

2010-03-31T06:05:00.000-07:00

Science 202 "Unlike Koch or Leeuwenhoek, who were great because they knew how to ask questions... Metchnikoff read books...was inspired, shouted “Yes!” and then by vast, sloppy experiments proceeded to force his beliefs down nature’s throat...some times he was right." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 211 "...it is the drama of science that [the plain people] can understand...." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 214 "...the stumbling strides of microbe hunters are not made by any perfect logic...." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 217 "But the pitiful waste of this brainy Metchnikoff’s life was that he was always doing experiments to defend an idea, and not to find the hidden truths of nature." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 222 "Metchnikoff --contrary facts never worried him." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Quotes: Science (7)

2010-03-30T08:09:00.000-07:00

Science 181 ."..to wipe diphtheria from the earth...wasn’t a science--it was a crusade..." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 181 "...he [Roux] worked to save [lives] rather than to know." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 184 "For a moment he [Roux] had caught Pasteur’s madness, his strange trick of knowing what all men thought wrong to be right...." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 186 "...scientists have reason occasionally to curse all authorities no matter how benevolent...." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 200 "Microbe hunting is a story of amazing stupidities, fine intuitions, insane paradoxes." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters. So much for the nice, clear-cut scientific method.

Quotes: Science (6)

2010-03-29T05:38:00.001-07:00

Science 161 "...but unhappily he [Pasteur] said no word about those numerous occasions when his vaccine had killed sheep instead of protecting them." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 162 Koch: "...was Mr. Pasteur really burning so with a passion for truth...why hadn’t he told of the bad results as well as the good ones, that had followed the wholesale use of his vaccine...perhaps suitable for the advertising business house, but science should reject them vigorously...." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 167 " ...this brute died...so that thousands of mankind might live." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 173 Pasteur: "I am much inclined to begin on myself--inoculating myself with rabies, and then arresting the consequences; for I am beginning to feel very sure of my results...." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 177 "It was to save babies that they killed so many guinea-pigs." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Quotes: Science (5)

2010-03-26T06:11:00.001-07:00

Science 119 " ...no two men will ever draw the same picture of a germ--so there’ll always be wrangling and confusion...but...photographs can’t lie--and ten men can study them and come to an agreement on them." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 142 "Nothing is truer than that there is no one orthodox way of hunting microbes..." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 143 "Pasteur...was a passionate groper whose head was incessantly inventing right theories and wrong guesses...." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 143 "Pasteur was a strange genius who seemed to need...doing a dozen things at the same time...in order to discover that grain of truth which lies at the bottom of most of his work." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 143 Pasteur: "Koch has shown with beautiful clearness that germs cause disease...but this isn’t the most important thing to do...this is nothing...the thing to do is to find a way to prevent the germs from killing people, to protect mankind from death." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Quotes: Science (4)

2010-03-25T05:48:00.001-07:00

Science 59 “But what we want, what this enterprising city of Lille wants most of all, Professor,” you can hear the Committee of business men telling him, “is a close cooperation between your science and our industries…raise our sugar yield from our beets and give us bigger alcohol output, and we’ll see you and your laboratory are taken care of.” DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 63 "…it is this business of experiments not coming off at once that is always the curse of microbe hunting." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 68 "He spent the next weeks in doing the experiment over and over, to be sure…." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 70 "Many people objected to this scornful cockiness—but some good men of science had better reasons for disagreeing with him [Pasteur]—his experiments were brilliant, they were startling, but his experiments stopped short of being completely proved…had loopholes." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 108 "At this time Koch knew little or nothing about the yeast soups and flasks of Pasteur and the experiments he fussed with had the crude originality of the first cave man trying to make fire." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Quotes: Science (3)

2010-03-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

Science 5 " …he [Leeuwenhoek] never made a drawing until hundreds of peeps showed him that, under given conditions, he would always see exactly the same thing." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 5 "…at this time, in the middle of the seventeenth century, great things were astir in the world…rare men were thumbing their noses at almost everything that passed for knowledge… 'will no longer take Aristotle’s say-so, nor the Pope’s say-so…will trust only the perpetually repeated observations of' our own eyes and the careful weighings of our scales; we will listen to the answers experiments give us and no other answers.' ” DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 25 "He [Spallanzani] now skipped stones over the water in earnest, and wrote a scientific paper on the mechanics of skipping stones." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 28 Spallanzani: "But wait! If I set out to prove something I am no real scientist—I have to learn where the facts lead me—I have to learn to whip my prejudices." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 46 Spallanzani: "We Westerners through the new science of ours, are going to conquer the seemingly unavoidable, the apparently eternal torture and suffering of man…." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Quotes: Science (2)

2010-03-23T06:15:00.001-07:00

Science 353 "Hardly any man of science, nowadays, sits down to write a great work, because he knows that, while he is writing it, others will discover new things that will make it obsolete before it appears." Bertrand Russell. “On Being Modern-Minded.” 1950. Gross, ed. Essays.

Science 740 "…every obstacle placed in the way of scientific discovery is a wrong to humanity." Frazer, The New Golden Bough.

Science 251 "Now, let me tell you that the most unscientific thing in the world is science." Lewis, Babbitt.

Science 2 " It was a world where Servetus was burned to death for daring to cut up and examine the body of a dead man, where Galileo was shut up for life for daring to prove that the earth moved around the sun." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Science 3 "Educated men talked Latin in those days, but Leeuwenhoek could not so much as read it and his only literature was the Dutch Bible…his ignorance was a great help to him, for, cut off from all of the learned nonsense of his time, he had to trust to his own eyes, his own thoughts, his own judgment." DeKruif, Microbe Hunters.

Quotes: Science (1)

2010-03-22T05:48:00.001-07:00

Science 764 "In those days, when the comparatively recent discovery of electricity, and other kindred mysteries of nature, seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman in its depth and absorbing energy." Hawthorne: “The Birth Mark”

Science 774 "All these antique naturalists stood in advance of their centuries…and…were believed, and perhaps imagined themselves, to have acquired from the investigation of nature a power above nature, and from physics a sway over the spiritual world." Hawthorne: “The Birth Mark”

Science 20 "The wonder is, not that the field of stars is so vast, but that man has measured it". Anatole

France

. 1894. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Science 353 "He who drinks a tumbler of London water has literally in his stomach more animated beings than there are men, women and children on the face of the globe." Sydney Smith. 1834. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Science 135 "...the farther we press in our discoveries, the more shall we see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where the careless eye has seen nothing but accident." Thomas De Quincey. “The Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth.” 1823. Gross, ed. Essays.

Quotes: School

2010-03-18T05:49:00.001-07:00

School 247 "School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence…full of dull, unintelligible tasks…". H. L. Mencken.

School 34 "This is the day he has never shaken off, the final Sunday before the first Monday of school." DeLillo, Underworld.

Quotes: Scenes (6)

2010-03-17T06:07:00.001-07:00

Scene 1 "…red, eyelike gleam of hostile camp fires." Crane, The Red Badge of Courage.

27. Scene 156 "The procession of weary soldiers became a bedraggled train, despondent and muttering, marching with churning effort in a trough of liquid brown mud under a low, wretched sky." Crane, The Red Badge of Courage.

Scene 25 "The puff their bombs threw up looked small and harmless and the planes would be almost out of sight when the noise of the explosions came back over the water." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Scene 91 "The jungle was hushed, ominous, with a commanding silence that stilled his breath…and abruptly the utter vacuum was broken and he was conscious of all the sounds of the night woods—the crickets and frogs and lizards thrumming the brush, the soughing of the trees." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Scene 106 "Once or twice a flare filtered a wan and delicate bluish light over them…in the brief moment it lasted, they were caught at their guns in classic straining motions that had the form and beauty of a frieze." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Scene 122 ".In the light of the flare, the bodies looked as limp and unhuman as bags of grain." Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Quotes: Scenes (5).

2010-03-16T08:17:00.000-07:00

Scene 1133 "The usually mirrored surface of the river was blurred by an infinity of rain drops…." Hawthorne: Preface to “The Old Manse”

Scene 1134 "Looking reproachfully towards the impenetrable sky—if sky there be, above the dismal uniformity of cloud—we are apt to murmur against the whole system of the universe." Hawthorne: Preface to “The Old Manse”

Scene 316 "The night was cold and stormy…wind roared round the house, and the rain beat against the windows…."

Scene 139 "I used to lie in my bed by the open window, watching the heat lightning play softly along the horizon...the felty beat of the raindrops on the soft dust of the farmyard." Cather, My Ántonia

Scene 318 "I slept that night in the room I used to have when I was a little boy, with the summer wind blowing in at the windows, bringing the smell of the ripe fields...lay awake and watched the moonlight shining over the barn and the stacks and the pond, and the windmill making its old dark shadow against the blue sky." Cather, My Ántonia

Quotes: Scenes (4)

2010-03-15T06:49:00.000-07:00

Scene 1125 "We stand now on the river’s brink…may well be called the Concord—the river of peace and quietness—for it is certainly the most unexcitable and sluggish stream that ever loitered, imperceptibly, towards its eternity, the sea…I had lived three weeks beside it, before it grew quite clear to my perception which way the current flowed." Hawthorne: Preface to “The Old Manse”

Scene 1126 "…the fragrant white pond-lily abounds, generally selecting a position just so far from the river'’ brink, that it cannot be grasped, save at the hazard of plunging in." Hawthorne: Preface to “The Old Manse”

Scene 1126 "Each tree and rock, and every blade of grass, is distinctly imaged [in the golden sunset], and, however unsightly in reality, assumes ideal beauty in the reflection." Hawthorne: Preface to “The Old Manse”

Scene 1130 "And what is more melancholy than the old apple trees, that linger about the spot where once stood a homestead, but where there is now only a ruined chimney, rising out of a grassy and weed-grown cellar?" Hawthorne: Preface to “The Old Manse”

Scene 1131 "In the stillest [autumn] afternoon, if I listened, the thump of a great apple was audible, falling without a breath of wind, from the mere necessity of perfect ripeness." Hawthorne: Preface to “The Old Manse”

Quotes: Scenes. (3)

2010-03-10T05:58:00.001-08:00

Scene 791 "Although a portion of the ancestral heritage had been alienated, there was still a shadowy enclosure in the rear of the mansion, where a student, or a dreamer, or a man of stricken heart, might lie all day upon the grass, amid the solitude of murmuring boughs, and forget that a city had grown up around him." Hawthorne: "Egotism; Or, the Bosom-Serpent"

Scene 845 "Afar, the wayfarer discerns the flickering flame, as it dances upon the windows, and hails it as a beacon-light of humanity, reminding him, in his cold and lonely path, that the world is not all snow, and solitude, and desolation." Hawthorne: “Fire-Worship”

Scene 869 "There is hardly a gloomier spectacle in the world than one of those obscure streets of London; the houses, which were old and ruinous, stood so close together as almost to shut out the sky, and even the sunshine, where a glimpse of it could be seen, was made dusky and dim by the smoke of the city; a kennel of muddy water flowed through the street." Hawthorne: “A Good Man’s Miracle.”

Scene 873 "Undisturbed by the tramp of feet, the rattle of wheels, the hum of voices, the shout of the city-crier, the scream of the newsboys and other tokens of the multitudinous life that surged along in front of the office…" .Hawthorne: "The Intelligence Office"

Scene 1106 " …the bar of morning sunshine, which struggled through the one dusty pane of her cottage window." Hawthorne: “Feathertop: A Moralized Legend”

Quotes: Scenes (2).

2010-03-09T06:06:00.001-08:00

Scene 554 "A stately mansion, illuminated for a ball, with cut-glass chandeliers and alabaster lamps in every room, and sunny landscapes hanging around the walls." Hawthorne: Night Sketches: “Beneath an Umbrella.”

Scene 554 "And now another sound,--the rumbling of wheels,--as the mail-coach, outward bound, rolls heavily off the pavements, and splashes through the mud and water of the road." Hawthorne: Night Sketches: “Beneath an Umbrella.”

Scene 583 "The snow came down so fast that it covered the coffin in its passage from the hearse to the sepulcher." Hawthorne: “Thomas Green Fessenden”

Scene 640 "The night was chill and raw, and rendered boisterous by almost a gale of wind, which whistled along Washington Street, causing the gas lights to flare and flicker within the lamps." Hawthorne: Legends of the Province-House. II: “Edward Randolph’s Portrait.”

Scene 719 "I look at him in the very moment of intensest bustle, on the arrival of the cars…the shriek of the engine, as it rushes into the car-house, is the utterance of the steam-fiend…travelers swarm forth…full of the momentum which they have caught from their mode of conveyance…seems as if the whole world…were…set in rapid motion…. In the midst of this terrible activity, there sits the old man…so subdued, so hopeless, so without a stake in life…the forlorn old creature, one chill and somber day after another, gathering scanty coppers for his cakes, apples and candy…." Hawthorne

Quotes: Scenes.

2010-03-08T06:11:00.001-08:00

Scene 1356 "…the sea, all sparkling and dimpling in the sunshine, and murmuring gently against the beach. " “The Dragon’s Teeth” Hawthorne, Tanglewood Tales

Scene 1411 " …straining her eyes into the wonderful cavity, and soon saw a team of four sable horses, snorting smoke out of their nostrils, and tearing their way out of the earth, with a splendid golden chariot whirling at their heels." “The Pomegranate-Seeds” Hawthorne, Tanglewood Tales

Scene 1272 "Philemon and his wife turned towards the valley, where, at sunset, only the day before, they had seen the meadows, the houses, the gardens, the clumps of trees, the wide, green-margined street, with children playing in it, and all the tokens of business, enjoyment, and prosperity…no longer any appearance of a village…in its stead, they beheld the broad, blue surface of a lake, which filled the great basin of the valley, from brim to brim, and reflected the surrounding walls in its bosom; with as tranquil an image as if it had been there ever since the creation of the world." “The Miraculous Pitcher” Hawthorne’s The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls

Scene 535 "Never had Peter beheld a livelier scene…the bright sun; the flashing water-drops; the gleaming snow; the cheerful multitude; the variety of rapid vehicles; and the jingle-jangle of merry bells, which made the heart dance to their music." Hawthorne: "Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure"

Scene 553 "Through yonder casement I discern a family circle,--the grandmother, the parents, and the children, all flickering, shadow-like, in the glow of a wood fire." Hawthorne: Night Sketches: “Beneath an Umbrella.”

Quotes: Sayings (22).

2010-03-05T06:08:00.001-08:00

Saying 364 "Who rests rusts." German. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 366 "To a quick ear, half a word is enough." German. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 455 "There was a saying, 'It is better to be the hunted than the hunter.' ” Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

Saying, famous 177 "I frame no hypotheses; I deal entirely with facts." Sir Isaac Newton. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying, famous 318 "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." Voltaire. French. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Quotes: Sayings (21)

2010-03-04T11:49:00.001-08:00

Saying 344 "Thou shalt gain by giving away." From the Upanishad. Sanskrit. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 351 "A worthless vase never slips from the hand." Spanish. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 356 "He conquers who endures." Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 356 "He conquers who conquers himself." Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 362 "The voice of the people is the voice of God." Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Comment: Remarkable how many of these pithy sayings are half-truths.

Quotes: Sayings (20)

2010-03-03T05:49:00.000-08:00

Saying 337 "Everything falls on the sore finger". Spanish. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 338 "Everyone is against the fallen" Spanish. Dictionary of Foreign Terms. Example: Tiger Woods in 2009-2010.

Saying 340 "To understand all is to pardon all." Madame de Stael. French. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 341 "Everybody is wise after the event". French. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 344 "And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." Matt. xv. 14. Greek. Dictionary of Foreign Terms.I didn't know St. Matthew had a sense of humor.

Quotes: Sayings (19)

2010-03-02T05:49:00.001-08:00

Saying 325 "No one loves the bearer of bad tidings." Sophocles. Greek. Dictionary of Foreign Terms. I hate, loathe, despise and abominate weather forecasters.

Saying 331 "The wound unuttered lives deep within the breast." Vergil. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms. If you don't talk about it, it will fester.

Saying 333 "He who laughs on Friday will weep on Sunday." French. Dictionary of Foreign Terms. Life is a series of cycles.

Saying 336 "One here-it-is is worth two you-will-have-its." French. Dictionary of Foreign Terms. What you already have is worth more than broken promises.

Saying 336 "Satiety begets insolence." Terence. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms.

Quotes: Sayings (18)

2010-03-01T05:16:00.001-08:00

Saying 290 "He who asks timidly courts denial." Seneca. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 299 "Giving requires good sense." Ovid. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 310 "A sage out of season is a fool." Italian. Dictionary of Foreign Terms. If the times are not receptive, the sage will be ignored.

Saying 315 "Think with the few, speak with the many." Gracian y morales. Spanish. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 316 "I follow, but am not inferior." Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Quotes: Sayings (17)

2010-02-25T05:43:00.001-08:00

Saying 274 "Better starve the body than the mind." Italian. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 277 "They can because they think they can." Vergil. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 280 "Quickly and well do not agree." Italian. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 290 "Who shall guard the guards themselves?" Juvenal. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 290 "Let him that stands take heed lest he fall." Vulgate. I Corinthians. x. 12. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Quotes: Sayings (16)

2010-02-24T05:23:00.000-08:00

Saying 251 "Everybody's work is nobody's work." Spanish. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 254 "Every perfect thing is threefold." Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 265 "Little minds are caught with trifles." Ovid. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 265 "Step by step goes far." Spanish. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 269 "To forgive is to conquer." Portuguese. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Quotes: Sayings (15)

2010-02-23T12:16:00.000-08:00

Saying 237 "With a mere change of name, the story applies to yourself." Horace. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 238 "When your neighbor's house is on fire, you are in danger yourself; no time for sleeping with a fire next door." Horace. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 239 "I have not, I want not, I care not." Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 241 "Apollo does not always keep his bow bent; high tension should be followed by relaxation." Horace. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 245 "There are no buts that are worthwhile." Spanish. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Quotes: Sayings (14)

2010-02-22T05:12:00.000-08:00

Saying 213 "Strife begets strife." Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 226 "Judge not, that ye be not judged." Matt. vii. 1. Greek. Dictionary of Foreign Terms. If you do not judge others, they will not judge you. The heck they won't.

Saying 227 "The mind remains unconquered." Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms. You can imprison the body, but not a person's thoughts.

Saying 235 "Much on earth, little in heaven; rich here, poor hereafter." Spanish. Dictionary of Foreign Terms. Is there a hereafter?

Saying 236 "The world wishes to be deceived." Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms.All the world's a sucker.

Quotes: Sayings (13)

2010-02-18T05:29:00.000-08:00

Saying 188 "Sometimes the common people see aright." Horace. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 194 "The memory of mastered difficulties is sweet." Cicero. Latin. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 198 "No prudent fighter thinks lightly of his foe." Goethe. German. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 206 "Appetite comes with eating." French. Dictionary of Foreign Terms

Saying 206 "The tree does not fall at the first blow" French. Dictionary of Foreign Terms