Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[WT Sharpe]

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.

I read that book years ago. I don't recall that particular poem, but it's hilarious. Thanks for posting it!

[BenG]

Of course the first verse is an old love song.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

.....Perhaps the greatest disappointment is that poetry has remained almost entirely science-free ...

Not sure how many people consider lyrics of songs as related to poetry ... but thought I would draw attention to the lyrics of some songs by Muse, see "Supermassive Black Hole") as one example, and also the Death Cab for Cutie song "A Lack of Color".

ETA: Not trying to be a Smart-A, but found these songs curious when I first heard them and the quote made me think of them.

[Falcao]

Until 1982, Canada Day was known as Dominion Day. I always thought that had more of a ring to it. Beyond the zippy alliteration, it reminded us citizens that our domain of orderly domesticity was graced by the dominant power of our "Dominus." And the rights granted therein to us by the glorious English crown through her colonial appointee, the right honourable governor general.

There was another problem with Dominion Day. Dominion was the name of a national grocery store chain. It would be like calling the Fourth of July D'Agostino's Day.

Independence (now there's a great name for a day!) came slowly to our country. In 1965, we dumped the old, staid British ensign for our own new flag. It's the one with the big red maple leaf in the middle. A simple, sweet leaf! We also have moose and beavers on our coins. And we call our dollars loonies because the coin has an image of a loon. Another old bird, the Queen of England, is on the other side of the coin.

I remember singing "God Save the Queen" every morning in school. "Long live our noble Queen!" we belted, thousands of us tubby little obedient Canadians. I guess it worked. She's still alive. Now they sing "O Canada" in schools and at most sporting events; usually in French and English. Around the time we were changing anthems, dumping ensigns and renaming holidays, the official use of both languages became mandatory, except in Quebec where the required use of English is a bit fuzzy.

Canada Day comes and goes modestly every year. Sure, there are retail sales promotions and a long weekend. But there isn't bluster or commodity in Canadian celebration. Canada isn't big on bunting. Or jet flyovers, fireworks, marching bands or military pomp.

Canadians defer. We save our loonies and don't jaywalk. It's illegal, eh. We stand on guard at red lights, even when there is no traffic. We wait for clear, green governing lights to signal our turn and lead us on. Then we tuck our heads down, under wooly toques and worn-out scarves, one eye barely open, squinting headlong into the harsh prairie wind, cautiously, quietly, demurely Canadian.

[poohbear_nc]

I dabble in all the arts,
And make a mess of each.
I'm a person of many parts,
With a goal beyond my reach.
(Patricia Highsmith)

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

I dabble in all the arts,
And make a mess of each.
I'm a person of many parts,
With a goal beyond my reach.
(Patricia Highsmith)

I like that and it definitely describes my creative endeavors.

[WT Sharpe]

.....The philosophical spirit is too important to be left to the narrow preserve of the specialist. It ought to be the common possession of every educated person. It is difficult to overestimate the rate of social and cultural transformation that is occurring—and the need of a reflective response to it.
..........— Paul Kurtz (1925 - ), prominent American skeptic of the paranormal and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo who has sometimes been called "the father of secular humanism." The Transcendental Temptation: A Critique of Religion and the Paranormal (1986).

[BenG]

Jefferson refused to pin his hopes on the occasional success of honest and unambitious men; on the contrary, the great danger was that philosophers would be lulled into complacence by the accidental rise of a Franklin or a Washington. Any government which made the welfare of men depend on the character of their governors was an illusion.

Daniel J. Boorstin (U.S. historian), The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson (1948)

[boxcorner]

Heraclitus was renowned for saying, "You can't step into the same river twice."

At first I thought of a real river, but then I pondered ... river of time ... river of life?

from Theories for Everything by John Langone, Bruce Stutz and Andrea Gianopoulos
p-book published by the National Geographic Society in 2006 ISBN 0-7922-3912-1

[WT Sharpe]

.....You know everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.
..........— "Will" Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (1879 – 1935), American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer and actor. "From Soup to Nuts," by Will Rogers, The New York Times, August 31, 1924.

[WT Sharpe]

.....Then I stretched my hand out a little, and broke a small branch from a large thorn, and its trunk cried out: "Why do you tear at me?"
..........— Dante [Durante degli Alighieri] (c.1265 – 1321), Italian poet. The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto XIII: "The Wood of Suicides: Pier selle Vigne" (Antony S. Kline translation, ©2000).

[astrangerhere]

"I think I love the idea that problems have solutions. I think that's the appeal of mystery stories, whether they're Holmes or someone else. In those stories we live in an understandable world. We live in a place where every problem has a solution, and if we were only smart enough, we could figure them out."
-- The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

[BenG]

"...which brings us to the arts, whose purpose, in common with astrology, is to use frauds in order to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people talking much more entertainingly than people really talk, make paltry human enterprises seem important. Singers and musicians show us human beings making sounds far more lovely than human beings really make. Architects give us temples in which something marvelous is obviously going on. Actually, practically nothing is going on inside. And on and on.

The arts put man at the center of the universe, whether he belongs there or not. Military science, on the other hand, treats man as garbage - and his children, and his cities, too. Military science is probably right about the contemptibility of man in the vastness of the universe. Still - I deny that contemptability, and I beg you to deny it, through the creation and appreciation of art."

- Kurt Vonnegut, Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons
[Address to Graduating Class at Bennington College, 1970]


(Every place where I've found that quote on the web, has the last line as "through the creation of appreciation of art.", which doesn't really make sense. I no longer have a copy of Wampeters, etc. so I can't check the original.)

[WT Sharpe]

@astrangerhere & BenG:

Both wonderful and thoughtful quotes. Thanks!

[WT Sharpe]

.....A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitable with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.
..........— Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 – 1962), social activist, wife of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. You Learn by Living (1960), p. 63.