Quotation Contest
Dendeblogger writes in comments to the previous post:
"You have very interesting quotes and aphorisms on your site--I think that it might be fun, however, to see what your readers could come up with. You could ask for quotes or aphorisms that speak to your site's concern with politics, literature and philosophy, even chess."
That sounds like an idea for a contest. So here's the deal, in the comments to this post give me quotations or aphorisms you think speak to the content of this site, or that you believe I will like. The prizes four $15.00 gift certificates from Amazon or as an alternative to a gift certificate you may choose to receive three packages of Tim Tams delivered to your door. Now you're probably asking what the hell are Tim Tams and why would you offer them as prizes. I'm glad you asked. It's Jonathon's faultinspiration that provided the impetus I needed. Jonathon resides in Australia the home of these tasty biscuits. I entered his contests, I begged, I pleaded for him to send me Tim Tams. You see he sends his favorites Tim Tams, he holds contests, (fixed I think) he uses them as bribes. I tried. I entered the contests. I left comments to his posts suggesting he send me Tim Tams. and in spite of his graciousness, allowing me multiple entries, giving me hints, doing everything a gentlemen could be expected to do. I failed to win. He consoled me in my loss, he offered to send Tim Tams, but I let my pride get in the way. I declined.
It didn't happen. How do I know what they taste like. No way some Australian is going to keep me from enjoying a Tim Tam and a cup of coffee. I realized almost immediately what a terrible mistake I had made, how unkind I had been, but embarrassed by my rudeness I was unable to make amends, so I searched and found them on the Internet, I ordered some. I ate them. Yep they are that good. You may choose from the Original Tim Tam, or perhaps Mocha Coffee or Classic Dark, or Chewy Caramel, or Double Chocolate would be more to your taste. Choose three of your favorites, should you be a winner. Let me extend a special welcome to other readers of Jonathan's fine weblog who like me were afforded every opportunity, every kindness who enjoyed Jonathon's classic Australian hospitality but still failed in their quest for Tim Tams taunted with the promise of Tim Tams only to have those hopes dashed again and again here is your chance Tim Tams, Tim Tams, Tim Tams. I'm sorry that was a bit of rant wasn't it. It has been weighing heavily on my mind. I've lost sleep over it, indeed until I discovered my own source of Tim Tam's I was losing weight. Enough, send your entries, no duplicates of quotations I've already posted. Check the quotation category if you're not sure. Take your time, do your research, you have all month to submit your entries.
Comments
Just a quickie, haven't researched anything really good, but I like this one:
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect." -Mark Twain
All according to my plan--I thought my suggestion might result in prizes, and I think I have quite a few good suggestions. I've tried to pick out the ones that would compliment what onegoodmove is about.
First, to respond to Solonor: "When everyone is against you, it means you are absolutely right--or absolutely wrong." Albert Guinon, c. 1900.
On politics generally: "Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few." --Hume (Essays, 1742)
"Seek for food and clothing first, and then the Kingdom of God shall be added to you." Hegel, 1807
On conservatism--the most profound short assessment of it that I have yet found: "We read in conservative literature alternations of sentences, the first an appeal to the coarsest prejudice, the next a subtle hint to a craving and insatiable skepticism." --Walter Bagehot (Literary Studies, 1879)
On our current political crisis: "War does not feed on fixed rations" --Archidamus (cited in Plutarch's Moralia)
"Wars begin when you will, but do not end when you please." --Machiavelli (History of Florence, 1521-1525)
On foolishness (a common theme on onegoodmove):
"I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because they sometimes take a rest." --Alexandre Dumas, (fils, 1824-1895)
"I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of them; and I believe they both get paid in the end; but the fools first." --Robert Louis Stevenson (Kidnapped, 1886)
On the written word:
"The mind conceives in pain, but brings forth with joy." --Joubert, (Pensees, 1842) [this one was stuck on my computer screen for months]
"Only a person with a Best Seller mind can write Best Sellers." --Aldous Huxley
"Real books should be the offspring not of daylight and casual talk but of darkness and silence." --Proust (Time Regained, 1927)
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy?
"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." – Tom Lehrer
Why come up with an aphorism just so other fellows can filch it? Groucho Marx
I'm one of the sifted few to receive Tim Tams directly from The Source. However, my supply runs thin:
"Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger"
Abbie Hoffman
"When I'm good, I'm very good. When I'm bad, I'm better"
Mae West
I'd like to enter the contest but I feel that, given the hostility towards me displayed in the contest announcement, any energy I expend in coming up with scintillating aphorisms would simply be wasted.
Please Jonathon, your entry would be most welcome here. Perhaps if you reread my post you'll discover my true feelings. Remember Jonathon "Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future." -Paul Boese
"Tramps like us, baby we were born to run." -Bruce Springsteen
"Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive." -G. K. Chesterton
"Why be a man when you can be a success?" -Bertolt Brecht
Bwaaahahahaha! I'm the man who denied you the opportunity of enjoying Jonathon's Tim Tams. And now, I'm going going to win this one too. Slurp. Let me understand this game thoroughly though...
A few gems, like the GK Chesterton aphorism--all in all, though, not a very competitive contest yet. Still, I think I'll offer a few more, so that Norm will have some kind of selection.
From my favorite aphorists:
"Whoever is abandoned by hope is also abandoned by fear--this is the meaning of the word 'desperate'"
Schopenhauer, Pererga and Paralipomena, 1851.
"He that hath wife and child hath given himself as a hostage to fortune."
Bacon, Of Marriage
"The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quitely in his room."
Pascal, Pensees
Nothing is more depressing than consolations based on the necessity of evil, the uselessness of remedies, the inevitability of fate, the order of Providence, or the misery of the human condition. It is ridiculous to try to alleviate misfortune by observing that we are born to be miserable.
Montesquieu, Persian Letters, 1721
"That lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence."
Nietzsche, the Will To Power (writings c. 1885)
"All truths that are kept silent become poisonous."
Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
I respectfully submit the following:
John, Viscount Morley (1838-1923) Those who would treat politics and morality apart will never understand the one or the other. Rousseau.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics. The Duenna. Act ii. Sc. 4.
The earth has a skin, and this skin has diseases. One of these diseases is called "man".
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Throughout the centuries, man has considered himself beautiful. I rather suppose that man only believes in his own beauty out of pride; that he is not really beautiful and he suspects this himself; for why does he look on the face of his fellow-man with such scorn?
Comte de Lautreamont
I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.
George Carlin
Refuse to exist: I exist. Decide to exist: I exist. Refuse. Decide. I exist.
Simone de Beauvoir
Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question.
Albert Camus
Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact.
Jean-Paul Sartre
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
Soren Kierkegaard
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he doesn't become a monster. And when one gazes long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche
If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.
Arthur Schopenhauer
I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
Franz Kafka
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
George Orwell
The second half of a man's life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religous or political ideas.
Aldous Huxley
1> don,t make a pop when your are on the top
a little smile gose miles