They fuck you up your mom and dad
They may not mean to, but they do;
They give you all the faults they had,
And add some new ones just for you.
But They were fucked up in their time
By fools in old style hats and coats,
Who half the time were sloppy stern,
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man,
It deepens like a coastal shelf,
Get out as quickly as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
Philip Larkin
“The wish to hear such baseness is degrading.” Dante; Inferno
“I tell you all my secrets, but I lie about my past.” Tom Waits song lyric; Tango 'Til They’re Sore
“You impudent jumped-up pantry boy!” Evelyn Waugh but I can’t remember the book or the character.
I think, xcheopis , that “jumped-up pantry boy” is from the Anthony Shaffer film Sleuth, delivered by Lawrence Olivier’s character (and in the Smith’s song This Charming Man , too!)
‘Living Well Is the Best Revenge’
Standing on the moon, with nothing left to do.
A lovely view of heaven, but I’d rather be with you.
“People scare better when their dying” Henry Fonda, Once upon a time in the west.
–Bernard Evslin
Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.
I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe,
and am not contain’d between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.
I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)
-Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
“…however, the number of deaths each year resulting from a flaming merkin is surprisingly small…”
-Cecil Adams
Only two things are infinite: The Universe, and Human Stupidity. And I’m not sure about the Universe.
-Albert Einstein
Friedrich Nietzsche
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.
Plato was a bore. (and Nietzsche was a jerk :p)
Mahata Gmandhi
It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct…And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart, who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha (non-violence) in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown in to the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in the their favor in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.
Let the Jews who claim to be the chosen race prove their title by choosing the way of non-violence for vindicating their position on earth. Every country is their home including Palestine, not by aggression but by loving service.
I confess that I have no argument to convince through reason. Faith transcends reason.
Authority intoxicates,
And makes mere sots of magistrates.
The fumes of it invade the brain,
And make men giddy, proud and vain.
–Samuel Butler
Awards are like hemorrhoids; in the end, every asshole gets one.
– Frederick Raphael
It may be that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong – but that is the way
to bet.
– Damon Runyon
Sports do not build character. They reveal it.
– Heywood Hale Broun
Committee – a group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing
can be done.
– Fred Allen
"I do not at all resent criticism, even when, for the sake of emphasis, it for a time parts company with reality. - Winston Churchhill
Also:
“On the highest throne in the world, we still sit on our own behinds” - Michel de Montaigne.
From there to here, from here to there; funny things are everywhere. Today is gone, today was fun, tomorrow is another one.
Dr. Suess
Fire And Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
© Robert Frost
“Ships and sail proper for the heavenly air should be fashioned. Then there will also be people who do not shrink from the dreary vastness of space.”
-Johannes Kepler, 1609
“I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”
-Sir Winston Churchill
“It has long been believed that a million monkeys at a million typewriters would eventually produce the works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know that’s not true.”
I don’t know who said it, but it’s one of my favorite quotes of all time.
“We’re actors. We’re the opposite of people” - Tom Stoppard, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”
Cyn
“Come up with a really neat quote and people will remember your name forever.” - anonymous
- T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
Probably doesn’t make much sense all by itself, but I love the whole poem and that’s my favorite part.