Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[WT Sharpe]

Ian Flemming?

[Stitchawl]

"The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white.
Neither need you do anything but be yourself."

Lao Tzu



Stitchawl

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by maianhvk

Do you recognize this?

The Vesper Martini is a cocktail that was originally made of gin, vodka, and Kina Lillet. The drink was invented and named by secret agent James Bond in the 1953 novel Casino Royale.


Tom got it in one!


Stitchawl

[maianhvk]

of course it is one of the most famous quotes from 007.

(the problem is I don't know any other famous quote from 007 )

[gmw]

From "The Fry Chronicles" an autobiography by Stephen Fry.

Fry quotes from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray: "A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure, it is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied." And then he goes on to elaborate in his own elegant manner: "[...] a cigarette delivers the keen joy, the hug of gratification, and then - nothing more than the desire to experience it all over again. And so on. No moment of feeling engorged, full, unworthy and sick, nor hangover or mood crash. A cigarette is perfect because, like a highly evolved virus, it attaches itself to the brain of the user such that its only purpose is to induce them to have another. There is a reward for that in the form of pleasure, but the reward is too short-lived to be called satisfaction."

As an ex-smoker of 4 years 21 days and 10 hours (but who's counting), I found that passage spoke to me.

Fry is a difficult author to quote because he is quite verbose, but here is a key sentence from longer passage that I rather enjoyed: "The gilt bull beats the guilty bullshit any way you choose to look at it."

(I can provide the fuller context if anyone wants it, think of Moses and the golden calf. )

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

The Vesper Martini is a cocktail that was originally made of gin, vodka, and Kina Lillet. The drink was invented and named by secret agent James Bond in the 1953 novel Casino Royale.


Tom got it in one!


Stitchawl

Originally Posted by maianhvk

of course it is one of the most famous quotes from 007.

(the problem is I don't know any other famous quote from 007 )

Yes, but looking back at my post, I see I spelled his name wrong. It's Ian Fleming with only one "m", not Ian Flemming.

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by gmw

Fry quotes from Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray: "A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure, it is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied." And then he goes on to elaborate in his own elegant manner: "[...] a cigarette delivers the keen joy, the hug of gratification, and then - nothing more than the desire to experience it all over again. And so on. No moment of feeling engorged, full, unworthy and sick, nor hangover or mood crash. A cigarette is perfect because, like a highly evolved virus, it attaches itself to the brain of the user such that its only purpose is to induce them to have another. There is a reward for that in the form of pleasure, but the reward is too short-lived to be called satisfaction."

As an ex-smoker of 4 years 21 days and 10 hours (but who's counting), I found that passage spoke to me.

Wonderful quote!

Stitchawl
Twelve years, four months, four weeks, one day, 14 hours, 25 minutes and 44 seconds. 136038 cigarettes not smoked, saving $40,811.41. Time used for a better purpose: 1 year, 15 weeks, 3 days, 8 hours, 30 minutes.

[WT Sharpe]

.....Nous avons tous assez de force pour supporter les maux d'autrui.
.....We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.
..........— François de la Rochefoucauld [François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld, le Prince de Marcillac ] (1613-1680), French moralist and author of maxims and memoirs (not to be confused with the French cardinal of the Catholic Church of the same name who lived from 1558-1645). Réflexions, ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims] (1664), Maxim 19.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

.....Nous avons tous assez de force pour supporter les maux d'autrui.
.....We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.
..........— François de la Rochefoucauld [François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld, le Prince de Marcillac ] (1613-1680), French moralist and author of maxims and memoirs (not to be confused with the French cardinal of the Catholic Church of the same name who lived from 1558-1645). Réflexions, ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims] (1664), Maxim 19.

I like that one!

[Stitchawl]

“Be not disturbed at being misunderstood; be disturbed rather at not being understanding”
Anon


Stitchawl

[WT Sharpe]

.....Perhaps the greatest disappointment is that poetry has remained almost entirely science-free — determined, indeed, to translate new experiences back into the myths and legends of the past (witness not only all the new translations of literary classics such as Beowulf and the Iliad but also the number of lyric poems that continue to draw on the mythological and the legendary). Where are the poems that take as their subject the great discoveries of the twentieth century: special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, black holes, the double helix? Where is the interdisciplinary osmosis? Where, indeed, is the osmosis, or the fossil record or the cosmological constant?
..........— Richard King (1971 - ), English Freelance journalist, reviewer and poet. "Flesh and Stardust: C. P. Snow's Two Cultures Fifty Years On," Monday, July 19, 2010 [An abridged version of this essay was published in Meanjin, Vol. 69, No. 2, 2010].

[BenG]

This poem isn't science-free.


Tell me why the stars do shine;
Tell me why the ivy twines.
Tell me why the sky's so blue;
And I will tell you why I love you.

Nuclear fission makes the stars to shine,
Tropism makes the ivy twine,
Rayleigh scattering makes the sky so blue,
Testicular hormones are why I love you.

[kennyc]

"Love" it Ben!

[BenG]

I first encountered that poem in the book of jokes that Isaac Asimov wrote.

Typically, there was a little essay with each joke explaining how to tell it and why it was funny.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by BenG

I first encountered that poem in the book of jokes that Isaac Asimov wrote.

Typically, there was a little essay with each joke explaining how to tell it and why it was funny.

Knew I'd seen/read it before, but was scratching my head trying to remember....