# Pithy observations **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 8, 2025, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883 "2025-08-08T23:33:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/21 "2025-08-09T23:07:43Z")
Never withle while you’re pithing. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2025, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/22 "2025-08-09T23:30:46Z")
Don’t pithe me off. @Thzar-casm. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/23 "2025-08-10T01:17:13Z")
> [@glee](#): > > I started off with nothing … and I’ve still got most of it left. 🤢 Whereas I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/24 "2025-08-10T01:31:32Z")
Can we submit insults? “When they circumcised Herbert Samuel they threw away the wrong bit.” — [David Lloyd George](https://quotefancy.com/david-lloyd-george-quotes) ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/25 "2025-08-10T01:43:49Z")
That’s a form of pithy observation, so yes. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/26 "2025-08-10T02:33:27Z")
> [@iamatractorboy](#): > > That chewy white stuff on oranges is annoying. Yeah, it’s the absolute pith. ---
**Author:** ![superwombat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superwombat/32/16616_2.png) [@superwombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/superwombat)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/27 "2025-08-10T02:40:36Z")
Never pick your nose on a bumpy road. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/28 "2025-08-10T12:56:19Z")
Dorothy Parker was the queen of pithy observations. “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.” ― **Dorothy Parker** “If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.” ― **Dorothy Parker** “Tell him I was too fucking busy-- or vice versa.” ― **Dorothy Parker** ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/29 "2025-08-10T14:44:48Z")
“All he’d wanted was a comfortable living, somewhere sunny. To be taken seriously by the frivolous, regarded as wise by the unwise, and considered important by the unimportant.” – Joe Abercrombie, “The Devils” ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/30 "2025-08-10T15:38:07Z")
We suffer more in imagination than in reality. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/31 "2025-08-10T16:14:53Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > The brain is an organ that named itself. Reminds me of what Carl Sagan said, I think on Cosmos: “we are the way for the universe to understand itself”. Any intelligent aliens intercepting our television transmissions might take exception to that notion, though 😏 ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/32 "2025-08-10T16:15:55Z")
By “We” Carl was referring to “Sentient Beings”, not only humans I think. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/33 "2025-08-10T16:40:03Z")
> [@solost](#): > > Any intelligent aliens intercepting our television transmissions might take exception to that notion, though “Those poor people.” > [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > May I offer [Nelson Algren](https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nelson_Algren) TIL where “Never play cards with a man called Doc…” came from. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/34 "2025-08-10T16:46:51Z")
Scrolling through [George Herbert,](https://www.ccel.org/h/herbert/temple/ProverbsTrans.html) one pithy quote comes to mind: “Wow, Benjamin Franklin was a rip off artist!” ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/35 "2025-08-10T16:56:53Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > Never play cards with a man called Doc…” Reminds me of this one: (In reference to newspaper columnists) Never get into an argument with somebody who buys their ink by the barrel. I’m not sure what the modern equivalent would be. Never get into an argument with somebody whose followers have their own nickname. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/36 "2025-08-10T17:44:35Z")
> [@LurkMeister](#): > > And turn the volume down (or better yet, mute) during commercial breaks. That was a plot point in Carl Sagan’s book “Contact”. Written in 1985, set in the very near future…Sagen predicted that the 3 big TV networks would die because of an invention called Ad-nix which muted the advertising, and earned millions of dollars for one of the characters in the book.. ---
**Author:** ![Tierce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ea5d25/32.png) [@Tierce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tierce)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/37 "2025-08-10T18:25:40Z")
In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they’re different. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2025, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/38 "2025-08-10T22:45:03Z")
What is to give light must endure burning. - Viktor Frankl ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/39 "2025-08-11T00:03:36Z")
You come from nothing. You’re going back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing! ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2025, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pithy-observations/1021883/40 "2025-08-11T00:07:35Z")
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