Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Yeppers!



"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

- George Santayana

The Life of Reason, Volume I, which I recently read along with Volume II as an audiobook.

[AlexBell]

'To live amidst general regard, though it be but the regard of working people, is like "sitting in sunshine, calm and sweet."

Charlotte Brontë, in Jane Eyre

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

History is the sum total of all the things that could have been avoided.
-- Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967), German chancellor. Quoted in the Washington Times, 2 May 1998.

Man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole cloth; he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but out of such as he finds close at hand. The tradition of all past generations weighs like an alp upon the brain of the living.

- Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Yeppers!

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
- George Santayana

Hegel says somewhere that that great historic facts and personages recur twice. He forgot to add: "Once as tragedy, and again as farce."

- Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by bfisher

Hegel says somewhere that that great historic facts and personages recur twice. He forgot to add: "Once as tragedy, and again as farce."

- Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

Non-native speaker comprehension question: If things recur twice, doesn't that mean they happen three times?

If so, the translation of the Marx quote is wrong; in the German original Marx uses the verb sich ereignen, which means occur or happen.

But perhaps I don't get the meaning of recur right, so please enlighten me.

I'm not trying to nitpick, but by a weird coincidence I read someone misquoting Marx in German to the same effect just five minutes ago, so I'm curious.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Non-native speaker comprehension question: If things recur twice, doesn't that mean they happen three times?

Yes. 'occur twice' would seem to match the rest of the sentence.

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Non-native speaker comprehension question: If things recur twice, doesn't that mean they happen three times?

If so, the translation of the Marx quote is wrong; in the German original Marx uses the verb sich ereignen, which means occur or happen.

But perhaps I don't get the meaning of recur right, so please enlighten me.

I'm not trying to nitpick, but by a weird coincidence I read someone misquoting Marx in German to the same effect just five minutes ago, so I'm curious.

Yes, it may possibly be mistranslated. The translator's note says "D.D.L. New York, Sept. 12, 1897"; I don't know if it was a case of a native English speaker with an imperfect understanding of German or of a native German speaker with an imperfect understanding of English. Nevertheless, I do think that the translator captured Marx's wit, which is the main thing.

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by bfisher

Nevertheless, I do think that the translator captured Marx's wit, which is the main thing.

Yes, of course. I really wasn't meaning to criticize. It was just so weird to come across this literally minutes after seeing the same mistake in German in a completely different place.

[WT Sharpe]

I saw that gif on Facebook today and it reminded me of a quote from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

“You know,” said Arthur with a slight cough, “if this is Southend, there’s something very odd about it.…”
“You mean the way the sea stays steady as a rock and the buildings keep washing up and down?” said Ford. “Yes, I thought that was odd too. In fact,” he continued as with a huge bang Southend split itself into six equal segments which danced and spun giddily round each other in lewd and licentious formations, “there is something altogether very strange going on.”

[covingtoncat73]

"In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn’t cope with, and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in at about 2:55, when you know you’ve taken all the baths you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o’clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul." ~ Douglas Adams

[Chaiwala]

Originally Posted by kennyc

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald (9/24/1896 - 12/21/1940)

Hell of a quote here. One of my favorites from this thread.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by kennyc

"We work in the dark--we do what we can--we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art."
- Henry James

So much said in so few words. A master, for sure. Thanks for the quote.

[AlexBell]

'I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute submission and determined revolt.'

Charlotte Brontë, from Jane Eyre

[kennyc]

"Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
- Dylan Thomas born on this date in 1914

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by kennyc

"Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
- Dylan Thomas born on this date in 1914

Superbly crafted, great-sounding poem, but I can't agree with the sentiment. I prefer Tennyson's approach:

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.