…and Hodgeman is best known as the PC in those Apple commercials
“Mr. President, I bet my husband that I could get three words from you this evening.”
“You lose.”
(Calvin Coolidge)
Nature and Nature’s Laws lay hid in night.
God said “Let Newton be!”; and all was light
(Alexander Pope)
For those (like me) who didn’t get it. Very clever.
– Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
From an “Outer Limits” (1963) episode entitled “The Invisibles”:
“World conquerors may sometimes become fools, but fools never become world conquerors.”
Not brief, and maybe not very pithy, but I’ve always found the Gettysburg address to be a fine example of well-crafted english.
“…But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
–Abraham Lincoln, 1863
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. " - George Orwell; 1984
“The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one’s love upon other human individuals.” - George Orwell; Reflections on Gandhi
“The distinction that really matters is not between violence and non-violence, but between having and not having the appetite for power. There are people who are convinced of the wickedness both of armies and of police forces, but who are nevertheless much more intolerant and inquisitorial in outlook than the normal person who believes that it is necessary to use violence in certain circumstances. They will not say to somebody else, “Do this, that and the other or you will go to prison”, but they will, if they can, get inside his brain and dictate his thoughts for him in the minutest particulars.” - George Orwell; Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool
“NUTS!”
by General George S. Patton at the battle of Bastogne when asked by the Germans if he was going to surrender.
I always like a dog so long as he isn’t spelled backward.
- G. K. Chesterton
“Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately, in England at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever.” (Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest)
And then I give you the last line of my sig, which I rather like. It is from Pickwick Papers.
Roddy
The whales, you see, eat up the little fish.
- Thomas Churchyard
Life is too short for chess.
- Henry J. Byron
Or, as quoted in America (The Book):
“Mr. President, I bet my husband that I could get three words from you this evening.”
“Fuck you!”
It was actually Anthony McAuliffe. Undeniably eloquent.
No need for qualification here. There can be few examples in history of getting more said in fewer words.
Nitpick: Patton relieved the city. Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe actually said it. Or rather, he apparently said something much stronger that got cleaned up by his personnel before the message was delivered to the Germans.
Nuts. That wasn’t there when I started composing my post!
[QUOTE=silenusLady Astor: “Winston, if I were your wife I’d put poison in your coffee.”
Winston: “Nancy, if I were your husband I’d drink it.”[/QUOTE]
No, no, NO! It went like this:
Lady Astor: “Winston, if you were my husband I’d put poison in your tea.”
Churchill: “And if you were my wife, I’d beat the shit out of you.”
“Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it.”
– Tom Lehrer
This one has surfaced in my mind:
“And this stillness of life did not in any way resemble a peace. It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention.” - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Samuel Johnson