Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

.....We have no more a real democracy in the world today ...
..........— (A.E.) George W. Russell (1867-1935), Irish poet, artist, essayist. National Being: Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity (1917).

That certainly speaks volumes about Ireland, written during World War One.

[Billi]

Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky (11 November 1821–9 February 1881)

Maybe it's a good idea to remember Dostoyevsky today, who died 130 years ago. All the quotes are from The Idiot (1868)

It wasn't the New World that mattered ... Columbus died almost without seeing it; and not really knowing what he had discovered. It's life that matters, nothing but life — the process of discovering, the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery itself, at all.

Lack of originality, everywhere, all over the world, from time immemorial, has always been considered the foremost quality and the recommendation of the active, efficient and practical man...

Inventors and geniuses have almost always been looked on as no better than fools at the beginning of their career, and very frequently at the end of it also.

We are ridiculous, light-minded, with bad habits, we're bored, we don't know how to look, how to understand, we're all like that, all, ... it's sometimes even good to be ridiculous, if not better: we can the sooner forgive each other, the sooner humble ourselves; we can't understand everything at once, we can't start right out with perfection! To achieve perfection, one must first begin by not understanding many things! And if we understand too quickly, we may not understand well.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Billi

Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky (11 November 1821–9 February 1881)

Maybe it's a good idea to remember Dostoyevsky today, who died 130 years ago. All the quotes are from The Idiot (1868)

It wasn't the New World that mattered ... Columbus died almost without seeing it; and not really knowing what he had discovered. It's life that matters, nothing but life — the process of discovering, the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery itself, at all.

Lack of originality, everywhere, all over the world, from time immemorial, has always been considered the foremost quality and the recommendation of the active, efficient and practical man...

Inventors and geniuses have almost always been looked on as no better than fools at the beginning of their career, and very frequently at the end of it also.

We are ridiculous, light-minded, with bad habits, we're bored, we don't know how to look, how to understand, we're all like that, all, ... it's sometimes even good to be ridiculous, if not better: we can the sooner forgive each other, the sooner humble ourselves; we can't understand everything at once, we can't start right out with perfection! To achieve perfection, one must first begin by not understanding many things! And if we understand too quickly, we may not understand well.

Excellent!

[WT Sharpe]

.....I'm just a soul who's intentions are good;
.....Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.
..........— From Wikipedia: "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" is a song written by Bennie Benjamin, Gloria Caldwell and Sol Marcus for the singer/pianist Nina Simone, who first recorded it in 1964. "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" has been recorded or performed by many artists, and is widely known by the 1965 blues rock hit recording from The Animals.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

.....I'm just a soul who's intentions are good;
.....Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.
..........— From Wikipedia: "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" is a song written by Bennie Benjamin, Gloria Caldwell and Sol Marcus for the singer/pianist Nina Simone, who first recorded it in 1964. "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" has been recorded or performed by many artists, and is widely known by the 1965 blues rock hit recording from The Animals.

Conjures up memories of my misspent youth.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by boxcorner

Conjures up memories of my misspent youth.

That, too; but it mostly conjures up every time I've felt the sting of the maxim, "No good deed goes unpunished."

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

That, too; but it mostly conjures up every time I've felt the sting of the maxim, "No good deed goes unpunished."

Thanks for the insight; that's a sardonic take that hadn't occurred to me.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by boxcorner

Thanks for the insight; that's a sardonic take that hadn't occurred to me.

Of course, I should add that for me that's what it brings to mind. I certainly don't mean to be speaking for everyone.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Of course, I should add that for me that's what it brings to mind. I certainly don't mean to be speaking for everyone.

I expect many who do good deeds don't expect rewards, but I can think of a few who do. As regards these lyrics, I hadn't heard Nina Simone's rendition before, only that of The Animals, so thanks for that.

[WT Sharpe]

I can live without rewards or even gratitude. It's those times when I'm criticized for attempting to do the right thing that brings me down. I'm sure everyone's been through that.

[boxcorner]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I can live without rewards or even gratitude. It's those times when I'm criticized for attempting to do the right thing that brings me down. I'm sure everyone's been through that.

Maybe that's how the idiom "damned if you do, damned if you don't" arose. If it's ubiquitous - part of the human condition - then I wonder whether similar sayings exist in other natural languages. "Robots could soon have an equivalent of the internet and Wikipedia", so perhaps something similar will arise in some machine language(s) - grumbling about their human "masters".

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by boxcorner

Maybe that's how the idiom "damned if you do, damned if you don't" arose. If it's ubiquitous - part of the human condition - then I wonder whether similar sayings exist in other natural languages. "Robots could soon have an equivalent of the internet and Wikipedia", so perhaps something similar will arise in some machine language(s) - grumbling about their human "masters".

I'm constantly dropping hints, but he never updates my OS or changes the oil in my joints. What does he take me for?

[WT Sharpe]

.....For beyond the satisfaction of some real and natural necessities, all that the possession of wealth can achieve has a very small influence upon our happiness, in the proper sense of the word; indeed, wealth rather disturbs it, because the preservation of property entails a great many unavoidable anxieties. And still men are a thousand times more intent on becoming rich than on acquiring culture, though it is quite certain that what a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has.
..........— Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher. The Wisdom of Life and Other Essays, translated by Bailey Saunders and Ernest Belford Bax (M. Walter Dunne, publisher, 1901), "Wisdom of Life," Chapter 1: "Division of the Subject."

[TenaciousBadger]

One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.
An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty.
The Nouns were struck, moved, changed.
The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.

-- Permanently by Kenneth Koch

[gmw]

Here's a bit of dialogue from "The Light Fantastic" by Terry Pratchett. Specially chosen for the older gentlemen members of this forum (Note that the character Cohen is speaking with a slight lisp due to lack of teeth.)

...."When I wash a young man, carving my name in the world, well, then I liked my women red-haired and fiery."
....."Ah."
....."And then I grew a little older and for preference I looked for a woman with blonde hair and the glint of the world in her eye."
....."Oh? Yes?"
....."But then I grew a little older again and I came to see the point of dark women of a sultry nature."
.....He paused. Rincewind waited.
....."And?" he said. "Then what? What is it that you look for in a woman now?"
.....Cohen turned on rheumy blue eye on him.
....."Patience," he said.