Calis Beach and Fethiye Turkey Discussion Forum
General Topics => All things that have nothing to do with Turkey => Topic started by: Colwyn on June 10, 2011, 19:17:38 PM
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I thought it might be fun to share some our favourite, but little known, quotations. I hope this one fits the criteria - it certainly can't be found on Google.
I once heard the wonderful John Arlott in a radio interview describing an evening with a friend: "We were doing some plain and fancy two-handed drinking". Doesn't that evoke a brilliant image in the mind?
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If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end---I shouldn't be at all surprised. -- Dorothy Parker.
You've started me off now, Colwyn, I could see me getting deported from this here Forum !!
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One of my favourite, but obscure, qoutes makes serious point with funniest punchlines
To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead - Thomas Paine ;)
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Gordon, I heard a similar one about economists - "If all the economists in the world were laid end to end, it would serve them damn well right".
UBT - didn't know it, but now a new favourite (and from a good bloke, overall)
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There goes the good time that was had by all........Dorothy Parker.
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When Roosevelt asked Churchill "what are you going to do about the Indian Problem", Churchill replied
" Are you talking about the greatest democracy in the world or the second class citizens of your country"
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Two more I'd like to share ...
"The state, it cannot be too often repeated, does nothing, and can give nothing which it
has not taken from somebody."
"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big
enough to take from you everything you have."
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Have you sources for these quotes Gordon?
The second is contentious having been allegedly "misattributed" to Thomas Jefferson, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan. One confident corresondent says it was actually that great American intellectual and philosopher Gerald Ford (you know the guy who was reputed not to have sufficient brain power to walk and chew gum at the same time.
I have no idea who the first quote is from but it sounds like another US, right-wing, no-brain, tosspot to me. Perhaps Richard Nixon?
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No definitive source Colwyn, just remembered a website from some time ago, looked it up again upon commencement of your thread, et voila !!
Probably are from the "Good Ole US of A"!! Mr. Ford did come up with some howlers though, didn't he ?
I do hope you don't mind me "Hi-jacking" your postlike this, but, Obscure/Bizzare quotes is/are? one of my favourite ways of wasting time,now I have retired from winding people up !!
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A politician is a man who will double cross that bridge when he comes to it.
Oscar Levant, American composer 1906_1974
My VERY favourite, Attributed to that great person & doyen of a million sayings, Oscar Wilde;
A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. -
Personally, I believe that quote to be one of the most beautiful pieces of literary thought that I have ever seen committed to paper. My opinion, of course.
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Gordon, I think I have found the source of your first quotation on the state - the Webcrawler search engine came to my aid where Google had failed.
Many references suggest it is Henry George (1839-1897) US writer, politician and political economist. But this doesn't seem right to me. George was a supporter of state ownership in a number of areas including railway tracks, the telegraph service, water and, most strikingly, land - or, technically, the economic rent from land which he thought should be captured by the state through taxation. Private ownership of economic rent he saw as the primary cause of poverty. All of this doen't square with my initial understanding of the quotation which was that it is an anti-state sentiment.
However, another source cites William Graham Sumner and gives the text of his paper "What Makes the Rich Richer and the Poor Poorer?" (Popular Science Monthly, Vol. XXX, 1887, pp. 289-296) in which the phrase certainly does appear. Sumner was an early US sociologist - the first to teach a university course entitles Sociology (at Yale), a supporter of laissez-faire, free-market economics, and a vehement critic of socialism. That sounds like your boy.
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Having just "Googled" Sumner, I am inclined to agree to an extent that he may may be the perpetrator of said quote, he certainly does come across as being very "State-minded", if I may be so bold as to proffer that opinion?
More quotations to come, if you do not mind ?
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Fine by me. Not much point in starting a thread and then hoping there are no replies!
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Colwyn / Gordon The way this thread has philosophically developed has reminded me of a favourite Monty Python TV sketch. Although I am not sure which of you is Wilde and which of you is Whistler, but I certainly know that I am not Shaw ..... enjoy it again:D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXZJF0-d_M8
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I read this one today and thought it was brilliant
"Not much point in starting a thread and then hoping there are no replies!"
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A Rudyard Kipling one which I altered to suit 'emergency management'
"If you can keep your head whilst all those around you are losing their's..........you have obviously misunderstood the situation"
:D:D:D ;)
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There are many mysteries in old age but the greatest, surely, is this : in those adverts for walk-in bathtubs, why doesn't all the water
gush out when you get in ?
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.....now that I'm 78, I do Tantric sex because it's very slow. My favourite position is called the plumber. You stay in all day but nobody comes.
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A few in a lighter vein;
I was born in very sorry circumstances. Both of my parents were very sorry. Norman Wisdom.
I've never been married, but I tell people I'm divorced so they won't think something's wrong with me. Elayne Boosler, American comedienne.
Older people shouldn't eat health food, they need all the preservatives they can get. Robert Orben, American entertainer.
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UBT, you want philosophical, how about these;
I tell you everything that is really nothing, and nothing of what is everything, do not be fooled by what I am saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying. ~Charles C. Finn.
In this, the late afternoon of my life, I wonder: am I casting a longer shadow or is my shadow casting a shorter me? ~Robert Brault.
Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light? ~Maurice Freehill.
While seeking revenge, dig two graves - one for yourself. ~Doug Horton.
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quote:
Originally posted by usedbustickets
I certainly know that I am not Shaw
On this mention of Shaw I could not resist putting in one from the great man. This may be rather tpp well known to count as "obscure" (but if it is new to you I am pleased to pass it on); it is certainly a favourite. [Sexism retained as in original]
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw.
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"Whenever I learn something new some of the old stuff has to be forgotten to make room for it" - Homer Simpson
I'll get my coat. :D
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I don't think that the "post-starter"; Colwyn, would castigate anyone for a light-hearted approach to the main subject, St ;)eve.
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Cant see the end of this one - could run and run.... !
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Winston Churchill and the German Chancellor are watching an international football match at Wembly, just after WW II, between England and (West) Germany. Germany winning and the Chancellor turns to Winston and says; "It appears that we are beating you at your national game". Without batting an eye Winston replies; "We have beaten you at your national game........Twice!"
Winston quotes are brilliant.:D
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So far all the responses are from men. Is the liking of an elegant turn of phrase, or an unexpected insight, a "man thing"?
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I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again.
Joan Rivers
I succeeded by saying what everyone else is thinking.
Joan Rivers