Great Quotes δ' : Being laconic is being philosophical

[Kyriakos]

Great Quotes I

Great Quotes II

Great Quotes III

New thread, with a quote by Chilon of Sparta in the title.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Brought to you by CFC

 

[r16]

ı haven't become printable yet , so it must go to what people in CFC have themselves said thread .

 

[GoodSarmatian]

This one doesn't require source and context ?
Here's one I remember from an internet comment somewhere a couple of years back:
"The fundamentalist doesn't worship God. The Fundamentalist worships himself by proxy of God."

 

[Arakhor]

Moderator Action: Whilst certain posts may contain memorable quotes, please use the Brought to you by CFC thread for comments made on these forums. Thank you.

 

[civvver]

I always liked:

Work is the curse of the drinking class. -Oscar Wilde

and

If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution. -Steve Jobs. Cus it's so true. People try to make and design things without understanding the purpose of the thing. All things are to solve some sort of problem.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution. -Steve Jobs. Cus it's so true. People try to make and design things without understanding the purpose of the thing. All things are to solve some sort of problem.

My father put it in a similar way; roughly paraphrased: "Everyone has a solution, but few actually know the problem."

 

[Kyriakos]

"Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made".
Franz Kafka

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

This one doesn't require source and context ?

As long as it's laconic or philosophical, I suppose.

Anyway, this one is certainly the former.
"N U T S"
-Gen. Anthony McAuliffe (US 101st Airborne Division), 22 December 1944 response to surrender demand of Gen. Hasso von Manteuffel (German 5th Panzer Army) during the Siege of Bastogne

Spoiler :

The response was typewritten on a piece of paper. One surmises that in later times it would be an electronic message, stylized as

N U T S
U
T
S

On a more philosophical note, some Camus. While I take umbrage with his overall hostility to the powers (and potential benefits) of reason, he makes a good point in the necessity of setting limits on our hubris.
"Socrates, facing the threat of being condemned to death, acknowledged only this one superiority in himself: what he did not know he did not claim to know. The most exemplary life and thought of those centuries close on a proud confession of ignorance. Forgetting that, we have forgotten our virility. We have preferred the power that apes greatness, first Alexander and then the Roman conquerors whom the authors of our schoolbooks, through some incomparable vulgarity, teach us to admire."
-Albert Camus, Helen's Exile (translation by Justin O'Brien)

 

[Dachs]

As long as it's laconic or philosophical, I suppose.

Anyway, this one is certainly the former.
"N U T S"
-Gen. Anthony McAuliffe (US 101st Airborne Division), 22 December 1945 response to surrender demand of Gen. Hasso von Manteuffel (German 5th Panzer Army) during the Siege of Bastogne

Spoiler :

The response was typewritten on a piece of paper. One surmises that in later times it would be an electronic message, stylized as

N U T S
U
T
S

22 December 1945, huh?

Joking aside, I like that quotation. I like lots of pithy quotations from military history, even if they didn't actually happen that way. Military evergreens!

---

"Wicked men, you are sinning against your fathers, who conquered the world under Philip and Alexander!"
[Epi tous pateras, ho kakai kephalai, tous meta Filippou kai Alexandrou ta ola kateirgasmenous]

-Antigenes, commander of the Silver Shields, at the Battle of Gabiene, 316 BC, pace Diodoros Sikeliotes XIX.41

Spoiler explanation :

Antigenes was a commander in the army of Eumenes of Kardia during the wars of Alexander's successors. At Gabiene, Eumenes' troops fought the army of Antigonos. Many of Antigonos' troops were relatively newly joined, or had served in the west during the conquests of Alexander. Antigenes, however, commanded the Silver Shields (Argyraspidai), a unit partially comprised of sexagenarian veterans of Alexander's wars. In the two battles that Eumenes fought with Antigonos, at Paraitakene and Gabiene, the Argyraspidai outfought every unit sent to attack them, and defeated every unit they attacked.

According to Diodoros, this particular message was actually shouted by a horseman who took his instructions from Antigenes and rode out between the lines. Diodoros' source for the campaigns of Eumenes was the historian Hieronymos of Kardia, a countryman of Eumenes', officer in his army, and later a general and administrator for Antigonos; Hieronymos' history is generally reliable.

I have seen the quotation translated both as a rhetorical question and as a statement.

"I hope to go through the Siegfried Line like [redacted] through a goose. That is not quotable."

-MG George S. Patton Jr., CG Third Army, press conference 7 SEP 1944 2100 hours, pace Martin Blumenson, The Patton Papers

Spoiler explanation :

Patton's Third Army had just completed its rapid dash across France, bagging thousands of German prisoners and bypassing every defense line the Germans could throw together. Next came the defenses of the West Wall, which the Western Allies referred to as the Siegfried Line. (Ironically, the Germans actually did have a Siegfried Line in the First World War, but the Allies chose to call it the "Hindenburg Line".) Patton consistently denigrated the value of fortifications, and suggested that a man who used fortifications knew he was going to get beaten, otherwise he wouldn't need to use them. This was very pithy and quotable, but as it turned out, Third Army had a remarkably tough time with the German defenses in the fall of 1944.

First came the barrier of the Moselle River in eastern France. Patton gave his press conference during Third Army's initial attempt to force the Moselle, which did not go well; he remained publicly optimistic and even seemed disconnected from the battle to cross the river, as if he were still in "pursuit mode" and this was just a temporary obstacle. Eventually, however, Third Army managed to cross the Moselle and fought a series of difficult battles with German armored reserves in Lorraine.

Mud and poor supply slowed the Americans down, but even worse was Patton's inexplicable fascination with the fortress of Metz. Before the First World War, back when the Germans controlled the city, they had upgraded the Metz-Diedenhofen fortress complex to a network of highly advanced armored fortifications, thoroughly protected against modern high explosives. Later, Metz was integrated into the French Maginot Line. It was the fortress par excellence, and it had been the American objective in November 1918 before the Armistice intervened. Patton, who had served in the American Expeditionary Force during that war, became obsessed with the notion of "finishing the job" from 1918, and ordered an entire army corps, Walton Walker's XX, to waste the entire autumn trying to capture Metz from a numerically and qualitatively inferior German force. The German commanders of Army Group G, Balck and Mellenthin, were happy to see the Americans waste months on a glorified outpost rather than the real German vulnerabilities. The Americans suffered significant casualties in the attempt to reduce Metz, and still had not even managed to reach the Siegfried Line - let alone go through it like crap through a goose.

Patton's Third Army did not end up breaking through the West Wall until 1945.

"We're in a chamber pot, and tomorrow we're going to be [redacted] on."

-General Auguste Ducrot, CG 1st Corps, night of 31 AUG - 1 SEP 1870, immediately before the Battle of Sedan, pace Dr. C. Sarazin, Récits sur la dernière guerre franco-allemande, quoted in Showalter, Wars of German Unification

Spoiler explanation :

In the summer and fall of 1870, the imperial French army was about as obliging an enemy as the Germans could have expected. First, the Army of the Rhine fought the Germans alone around the fortress of Metz and let itself be besieged there. Then, the rescue effort of the Army of Chalons was badly mismanaged, and after it marched to the fortress of Sedan on the Belgian border it soon found that the German army had arrived to encircle it. The night before the Battle of Sedan, German campfires formed a semicircle of light around the trapped French. The German commander, General Moltke, called the position a "mousetrap"; Ducrot, according to Sarazin, the senior medical officer of one of his divisions, had a rather more homely metaphor.

"Oh Lord, if you won't give us the victory today, at least don't give it to those scum on the other side! In God's name, march!"
[Lieber Gott, steh mir heute bei, oder willst du mir nicht beistehen, so hilf wenigstens auch dem Schurken von Feind, sondern sieh wie's kommt. In Gottes Namen, marsch!]

-General Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, prayer delivered before his troops immediately before the Battle of Kesselsdorf, 15 DEC 1745 (sources basically innumerable)

Spoiler explanation :

Fairly straightforward, I should think.

Some historians, e.g. Ranke, claim that attributing the quotation to Leopold von Anhalt-Dessau is an error and that it was actually said by Count Sporck at the Battle of St. Gotthard in 1664. This particular sentiment, however, is pretty common in Christian armies, and one writer suggests that it goes back as far as the Third Crusade. The Old Dessauer's formulation here, though, is the most famous.

Leopold's army of Prussians was slightly outnumbered by the Austro-Saxon army it fought at Kesselsdorf, but it still won the battle. Frederick the Great, who was within a day's ride but not actually present at the battle, apparently removed his hat in salute to the Old Dessauer when meeting him that evening, in acknowledgment of the aged warrior's victory. It was the Old Dessauer's swan song; the Peace of Dresden, which ended the war, was signed shortly thereafter, and he died two years later.

A literal translation of the quotation would be something like "oh Lord, stand by me today, but if you don't wish to stand by me, at least don't help those enemy scoundrels, but rather see how it goes [i.e. "let us try it ourselves"]! In the name of God, march!"

 

[Kyriakos]

22 December 1945, huh?

Joking aside, I like that quotation. I like lots of pithy quotations from military history, even if they didn't actually happen that way. Military evergreens!

---

"Wicked men, you are sinning against your fathers, who conquered the world under Philip and Alexander!"
[Epi tous pateras, ho kakai kephalai, tous meta Filippou kai Alexandrou ta ola kateirgasmenous]

-Antigenes, commander of the Silver Shields, at the Battle of Gabiene, 316 BC, pace Diodoros Sikeliotes XIX.41

Spoiler explanation :

Antigenes was a commander in the army of Eumenes of Kardia during the wars of Alexander's successors. At Gabiene, Eumenes' troops fought the army of Antigonos. Many of Antigonos' troops were relatively newly joined, or had served in the west during the conquests of Alexander. Antigenes, however, commanded the Silver Shields (Argyraspidai), a unit partially comprised of sexagenarian veterans of Alexander's wars. In the two battles that Eumenes fought with Antigonos, at Paraitakene and Gabiene, the Argyraspidai outfought every unit sent to attack them, and defeated every unit they attacked.

According to Diodoros, this particular message was actually shouted by a horseman who took his instructions from Antigenes and rode out between the lines. Diodoros' source for the campaigns of Eumenes was the historian Hieronymos of Kardia, a countryman of Eumenes', officer in his army, and later a general and administrator for Antigonos; Hieronymos' history is generally reliable.

I have seen the quotation translated both as a rhetorical question and as a statement.

Going from the text in greek, it seems to say "(you turn/fight) Against/onto your fathers, oh bad minds (literally bad heads), the ones who conceived* of it all under Philip and Alexander"

*the verb "katergazomai" (ta ola kateirgasmenous) means to process; eg in industry it means to turn a primary material into something else, through a process. More specifically when used about ideas it refers to making an elaborate concept; eg to weave a plan is often written using this term; katergazomai schedion etc.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Bow before the witty onslaught of the Dread Emperors and Dread Empresses of Praes!

“Maybe I won’t go to Heaven but you’ve never owned a pit full of man-eating tapirs so who’s the real loser here?”
—Dread Empress Atrocious, best known for comprehensive tax reform and having been eaten by man-eating tapirs. They were later executed by her successor for treason after a lengthy trial.



“Morality is a force, not a law. Deviating from it has costs and benefits both – a ruler should weigh those when making a decision, and ignore the delusion of any position being inherently superior.”
—
“There’s no surer sign you’re being played than being certain you’ve grasped your opponent’s intent.”
—
“Please, do keep digging your own grave. I look forward to your splendidly inevitable demise.”
—Dread Emperor Benevolent the First



"Funny, isn’t it? No matter what language they speak, everyone sounds the same when you pull out their fingernails.”
—Dread Emperor Foul III, “the Linguist”



“See, this is exactly the kind of trouble I’d be avoiding by mind controlling the entire world. You fools are making my point for me, can’t you see?”
—
“I imagine the High Lords would be inclined to protest the mind control, if I hadn’t seized control of their minds, which just goes to show this was the right decision all along.”
—Dread Emperor Imperious, shortly before being torn apart by an Ater mob



“Hahahahaha. Ha. You can’t beat me now, this is the first part of my plan!”
—
“I can’t beat your band of heroes, true, but what if there were another eight bands also out for my blood? Ha! What are you going to do, form a line?”
—
“Ah, but being defeated was always part of my plan! Yet another glorious victory for the Empire.”
—
“Oh, I get it. The real treasure was the people I had executed along the way!”
—
“Ah, but every palace you destroy has to be rebuilt! You’ve single-handedly pulled the Empire out of a slump, hahaha. Once again sweet victory is mine.”
—
“Oh, woe is me, you’ve destroyed my army… Hahaha, you fell for it again! I haven’t paid them in a year, they were about to depose me. Once more, Irritant triumphs against all odds!”
—Dread Emperor Irritant I, the Oddly Successful


“Tyrants do not lose. We face temporary setbacks.”
—Dread Empress Maledicta II


“I see I’ll have to take drastic measures to ensure intelligent conversation around here.”
—Dread Empress Maledicta II, before having the tongues of the entire Imperial court ripped out



“Nothing is half as dangerous to a villain as victory. We raise our own gallows.”
—
“Maybe I’ll lose one day. But not today, and not to the likes of you.”
—Dread Empress Maleficent the First



“Any plan with more than four steps is not a plan, it is wishful thinking.”
—
“I never keep grudges. Not for long, anyway.”
—
"The closest equivalent I’ve found to the Imperial court is the act of shoving your hand in a bag that could be full of jewels but is, most of the time, full of razor blades.”
—
“The worst sin a villain can commit is to hesitate.”
—
“Sometimes you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, executing the hens who laid them on trumped up charges and setting the most rebellious henhouse on fire as an example to the others.”
—
“To bargain with devils is to paint with your own blood: the greater the work, the harsher the price.”
—Dread Empress Maleficent II



“The most important part of any summary execution is to remember to have fun and be yourself.”
—
“You’d be surprised at the breadth of things that can be powered by the souls of the innocent. Fortresses, swords, my favourite chandelier.”
—
“You have to enjoy life’s little pleasures, like lazy mornings and strawberries and invading Callow with an invisible army.”
—Dread Empress Malevolent II



“The best revenge isn’t living well, it’s living to crucify all your enemies.”
—
“Where have all the good men gone? Graveyards, mostly.”
—Dread Emperor Malevolent III, the Pithy



“Only heroes get to have the torch handed to them. Villains must take it from their predecessor’s corpse.”
—
“I trust people to act according to their nature. Anything more is sentimentality.”
—
“Power is mostly a matter of making the right corpses at the right time.”
—Dread Empress Malicia the First, First of her Name



“It is impossible for the Empire to make an appreciable gain so long as this gain is a loss to every other nation on Calernia. To remedy this, we must discard the traditional lines of allying only to Evil polities and make it so that it is in the interest of other powers for us to rise.”
—Extract from ‘The Death of the Age of Wonders’, a treatise by Dread Empress Malicia



"Note: only offer the hero the chance to replace my right-hand man when my right-hand man is no longer in the room. Additional note: find out estimated rebuilding cost for the summer palace.”
—
“Note: those meddling heroes keep surviving getting thrown off cliffs. Must build taller ones in anticipation of the next encounter.”
—
“Note: orc buoyancy is limited. Avoid fighting the damnable rebels near shoddily-built dams in the future.”
—
“Home is wherever you can order someone drowned and not get any odd looks.”
—
“Look, if he didn’t want to be fed to my acid-spewing crocodiles he shouldn’t have brought me bad news.”
—
—Dread Emperor Malignant II, the Particularly Petty



“You can never have too many tiger pits, Chancellor. That’s the same lack of vision that has people say “that’s too large a field of energy to absorb” or “calling yourself a living god is blasphemy”.”
—Dread Emperor Malignant III, before his death and second reign as Dread Emperor Revenant



“Of course I don’t step on people’s throats using my own heels. Have you seen how gorgeous these boots are? I’m not getting blood on these beauties: it takes at least two princes to get the right amount of skin, and duke leather just isn’t the same.”
—Dread Emperor Nihilis I, the Tanner



“If I had an aurelius for every assassination attempt, I wouldn’t have to keep raising taxes.”
—Dread Emperor Pernicious, the Imperiled



“That’s the thing with invincibility. You have it until you don’t.”
—Dread Empress Prudence the First, the ‘Frequently Vanquished’



“There’s a natural hierarchy to the world, Chancellor: there’s me, then my boot, then all of Creation under the boot.”
—
“A villain should make plans with the understanding that everything you can conceive of going wrong will, and then a few others things too.”
—''Dread Empress Regalia
“Gaining power’s a lot like scaling a tower, Chancellor. The longer you do, the more likely you are to fall.”
—Dread Empress Regalia the First, before ordering her Chancellor thrown out the window



“Your mistake, Queen of Blades, is in thinking that virtue is the province of Good. Every Tyrant who has ever claimed the Tower, every fool and every madman, had the seed of greatness in them. Courage, cleverness, ambition, will. We may lose our way, we may lose ourselves, but every time we get… a little closer. You think I am afraid of death? I am a droplet in the tide that will drown Creation. I take pride in this, even in my hour of failure. Empresses rise, Empresses fall. But the Tower?
Oh, the Tower endures.”
—Last words of Dread Empress Regalia the First



“They call Ater the City of Gates and then forget to mention how often those are shut on people’s fingers.”
—
“Oh, on most days we lose. But once in a while, just once, it works. And those moments of perfect clarity where all the world is in the palm of your hand, a hundred thousand middling minds made into flawless assembly by your will? Those are worth all the rest.”
—
“The only thing more dangerous than being hated by a villain is to be loved by them.”
—
"Here is the truth of our dreadful crown: to claim it a declaration of war on banality, on mediocrity. The banner of the enemy is apathy, the slow grind of the inevitable. Victor or ruin, every Tyrant that ever lived bet their madness against the bridle of the Heavens.”
—
“No man in Creation is so dangerous as a well-meaning fool.”
—Dread Empress Regalia II



“Mark my words, the Imperial banner will be flying above Summerholm by midsummer.”
—Dread Empress Regalia II, shortly before initiating the Sixty Years War



"Who should really be afraid, between the dragon and the peasant with a sword?"
—Dread Emperor Reprobate the First



“My dear Chancellor, I didn’t murder my entire family and use their blood to turn myself into an undead abomination to be told I couldn’t do things.”
—Dread Emperor Revenant



“The source of wonder and horror is the same, and the boundary between them thinner than you would think.”
—
“It probably doesn’t count as cannibalism if you’re already dead.”
—Dread Empress Sanguinia I, the Gourmet



“This eye for an eye business is horridly proportional. I assure you, if I’m losing an eye then so is everyone else.”
—
“Ah, mortal wounds. My only weakness.”
—
“I’ll be honest, Chancellor – revenge is the motivation for over half the decrees I’ve made.”
—Dread Empress Sanguinia II, best known for outlawing cats and being taller than her



“Invading? Good Gods, of course not. We’re merely manoeuvring.”
—Dread Empress Sinistra II “the Coy”, after being hailed by the garrison of Summerholm



“Of course not, did you see the height of that drop? That is the last we’ve seen of the Shining Prince, I assure you.”
—'''Dread Empress Sinistra IV, the Erroneous
“Now kneel, fools, and witness my ascension to GODHOOD!”
—Last words of Dread Empress Sinistra IV, the Erroneous



“There’s only a thousand of them, I don’t care if they’re on a hill. This will be over by midday, Black Knight, mark my words.”
—Dread Empress Sulphurous, the Technically Correct



“The classic Callowan blunder. Sending an army into the Wasteland you can’t handle if it comes marching back as undead.”
—
“Three can keep a secret, if two are dead. Unless you’re a necromancer, anyway, then the world is your blasphemous undead oyster.”
—
“The essence of sorcery is blasphemy. Through will and power, every mage usurps dominion over the laws of Creation from the gods Above and Below.”
—
“I was once told that character is what you are in the dark. I found, my dear Chancellor, that I was the dark.”
—Dread Emperor Sorcerous



“Taxes. Taxes and triplicate forms.”
—Dread Emperor Terribilis I, upon being asked what powerful sorceries he would use to humble the High Lords



“The best defence is to have killed all your enemies.”
—Dread Emperor Terribilis I, the Thorough



“It is a shallow soul who fights to the cry of ‘might makes right’. The truth is more concise: might makes.”
—
“Doubt is the mother of failure.”
—Dread Emperor Terribilis I, the Lawgiver



“Only if it’s ‘being executed’.”
—Dread Emperor Terribilis I, upon being asked for a last request by a hero



“Do not make laws you do not intend to enforce. Allowing one law to be broken with impunity undermines them all.”
—
“Did you really think I wouldn’t cheat just because I was already winning?”
—
“Trust is the victory of sentiment over reason.”
—
“Always mistrust these three: a battle that seems won, a chancellor who smiles and a ruler calling you friend.”
—
“Threats are useless unless you have previously committed the level of violence your are threatening to use. Make examples of the enemies you cannot control so those that you can will be cowed. This is the foundation of ruling.”
—
“Mercy might be the mark of a great man, but then so’s a tombstone.”
—
“Never wound a man you do not intend to kill.”
—Dread Emperor Terribilis II



“Ha! And I bet you didn’t even see it coming!”
—
“Treason is more art than act.”
—
“I’ve been told one can only be betrayed by a friend, which is why I constantly surround myself with enemies.”
—
"I’ve yet to encounter a situation that couldn’t be improved by a copious amount of lies and body doubles.”
—
“There’s nothing better in life than the look on your enemy’s face when they realize you’ve played them every step of the way. Why do you think I keep starting secret cabals trying to overthrow me?”
—
“I’m not saying all your closest friends are shapeshifting devils I sent to spy on you after having the originals murdered, but I’m certainly implying it very heavily."
—Dread Emperor Traitorous;



“Gentlemen, there is no need to worry: our plan is flawless. The Emperor will never see it coming.”
—Grandmaster Ouroboros of the Order of Unholy Obsidian, later revealed to have been Dread Emperor Traitorous all along



“My dear friends, I have a confession to make. Some creative reframing of the truth may have taken place during the planning of this coup.”
—Dread Emperor Traitorous, addressing the Order of the Unholy Obsidian upon successfully usurping the throne from himself



"If Creation is not mine, what need is there to be a Creation at all?”
—
“All lessons worth learning are drenched in blood.”
—Dread Empress Triumphantnote , First and Only of Her Name



“Don’t think of it so much as a fall, but rather as an opportunity to learn how to fly.”
—Dread Emperor Venal, in the act of succeeding his predecessor



“Those who live by the sword kill those who don’t.”
—Dread Emperor Vile the First



“Before embarking on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. One for the fool and one for all those pesky relatives.”
—
“And on your grave we shall have inscribed: he was witty all the way into the tiger pit.”
—Dread Emperor Vindictive the First



“I’ve found that the best way to win at shatranj is usually to turn into a giant snake and tear my opponent’s throat out.”
—Dread Empress Vindictive III

#1 Dread Emperor Traitorous
#2 Dread Empress Malevolent II
#3 Dread Emperor Irritant I

 

[Dachs]

Going from the text in greek, it seems to say "(you turn/fight) Against/onto your fathers, oh bad minds (literally bad heads), the ones who conceived* of it all under Phillip and Alexander"

*the verb "katergazomai" (ta ola kateirgasmenous) means to process; eg in industry it means to turn a primary material into something else, through a process. More specifically when used about ideas it refers to making an elaborate concept; eg to weave a plan is often written using this term; katergazomai schedion etc.

Thank you!

Your explanation, for whatever reason, reminded me of this.

 

[Kyriakos]

The annoying lack of a double "p" in the english version of Philippos keeps making me give that term a double l!

 

[Commodore]

"Wakanda forever, but where's my money?"

-Denzel Washington

 

[Takhisis]

‘Humanity will come to regret the day we taught Legos how to walk.’
found in 5 Inventions that prove ‘The Terminator’ is upon us, article by Fletcher Wortmann in Cracked, 02/07/2011

 

[r16]

there are unfounded allegations that ı am not anti-American recently . And while there is indeed a claimed attempt by the US to economically punish New Turkey for the so-called Strategic partnership with Iran (which is merely a temporary Qatari need in face of Saudi pressure and am not the one ever to say New Turkey is like ever for Turkish interests) this is entirely personal . Stuntwoman , being what she is , is now painted as valueless , so that she or her country people might take offence , despite to apparently prevalent objection of "But, she is beautiful..." and like obvious this will be my bane for the next five years or whatever . So from a book , like of which will not available in New Turkey , because they respect Kemal for the duration :

How George Washington Fleeced the Nation And Other Little Secrets Airbrushed From History.

Spoiler :

"On closer inspection, other elements of America’s ‘founding story’ are also not quite as clear cut as our teachers led us to believe. The original break with the mother country is laid at the feet of the British, whose policy of extortionate taxation viciously pushed the reasonable colonists too far. In fact, all the taxes raised in America stayed in America and were to be used for ensuring the military defence of the colonists themselves. They always intentionally aimed only to recover a small proportion of actual costs, the rest having to be met by British taxpayers.


The infamous Townshend duties, imposed by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1767 on a range of household goods, including glass, paper and, notoriously, imported tea, and which history portrays as being responsible for igniting the American Revolution, were planned to raise in their first year a mere £43,000 (from two and a half million colonists) to contribute towards defence costs estimated at £406,000. The individual scale of the demand was minimal. At the time, the average American paid sixpence a year in tax (about £2.60 in modern values). By comparison, their British counterpart was stumping up 25 shillings, 50 times more.
...

The Boston Tea Party in 1773, the iconic rebuffing of excessive British taxes, was in fact nothing of the sort. The measures being protested were injurious all right, but not for the reasons history asks us to remember. The attack on the tea shipments in Boston harbour was in reaction to the introduction of the Tea Act, by which Britain was seeking to increase tea imports into America to help save the ailing East India Company from bankruptcy. The Act in fact reduced taxes on tea. That was the problem for American traders, who had profited enormously from smuggling the stuff in and undercutting the official market where tea sold very expensively because of the customs taxes levied. The Governor of Massachusetts estimated at the time that five-sixths of all tea consumed in the colony was smuggled. There was so much of the illicit trade going on, and few prosecutions, that engaging in it was regarded less as a serious crime and more as a commercial gamble. So reducing the tax threatened to undermine the lucrative smuggling trade with mountains of cheap legitimate tea. That was the problem the Bostonians had. And that was why they revolted. Post-Revolution, the story took on a far different and more uplifting patrioticly shade.


...

An oft-quoted illustration of Washington’s dedication to the service of his country is the decision he made, when asked to take command of the Continental Army at the start of the War of Independence, to gallantly agree to forego a salary. He merely asked to be paid his expenses. It was a canny choice. Had he taken the pay (at $500 a month) he would have garnered $48,000 for his pains in his eight-year war service. By opting for expenses, his account at the end amounted to an eye-watering $447,220 (by the smallest estimate), in the order of $9 million in today’s values. He even managed to include in the bill the cost of a new carriage and imported wines for his headquarters.


When Washington became America’s first President in 1789, he again offered to work ‘just for expenses’. A wiser Congress this time insisted on paying him a salary. At $25,000, it was the equivalent in modern values of over $600,000. (The official salary of the President today is only $400,000.)"

 

[Takhisis]

Some excerpts from a Long Read article which I found on the Graun:

Coming face-to-face with the current onslaught of linguicide, I find myself wanting to venture a modest proposal. What if anglo-globalism wasn’t a one-way street? What if the pre-contact languages of the Americas were taught in American high schools? What if British schoolchildren learned some of the languages spoken by the actual residents of the former empire? (This is a utopian project obviously. But how much would it actually cost to add a linguistic elective to larger high schools? One jet fighter? A few cruise missiles?)

(…)

Noam Chomsky’s idea of a universal grammar underpinning all languages was based on a rather narrow empirical base. More recent research into dozens of smaller languages, like Kayardild and Pirahã, has been steadily whittling away at his list of supposed universals. We now know there are languages without adverbs, adjectives, prepositions and articles. There seems to be hardly anything that a language “needs” to be – just thousands of natural experiments in how they might be assembled. And most of them are about to be lost.

(…)historically speaking, monolingualism is something of an aberration.

(…)
A resident of another linguistic hotspot, the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea, once told Evans: “It wouldn’t be any good if we talked the same; we like to know where people come from.” It’s a vision of Babel in reverse. Instead of representing a fall from human perfection, as in the biblical story, having many languages is a gift. It’s something to remember before we let English swallow the globe.​

I really recommend that you read the entire article (and it's the Graun, no paywall and you can donate afterwards if you want).

 

[Kyriakos]

Some excerpts from a Long Read article which I found on the Graun:

Coming face-to-face with the current onslaught of linguicide, I find myself wanting to venture a modest proposal. What if anglo-globalism wasn’t a one-way street? What if the pre-contact languages of the Americas were taught in American high schools? What if British schoolchildren learned some of the languages spoken by the actual residents of the former empire? (This is a utopian project obviously. But how much would it actually cost to add a linguistic elective to larger high schools? One jet fighter? A few cruise missiles?)

(…)

Noam Chomsky’s idea of a universal grammar underpinning all languages was based on a rather narrow empirical base. More recent research into dozens of smaller languages, like Kayardild and Pirahã, has been steadily whittling away at his list of supposed universals. We now know there are languages without adverbs, adjectives, prepositions and articles. There seems to be hardly anything that a language “needs” to be – just thousands of natural experiments in how they might be assembled. And most of them are about to be lost.

(…)historically speaking, monolingualism is something of an aberration.

(…)
A resident of another linguistic hotspot, the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea, once told Evans: “It wouldn’t be any good if we talked the same; we like to know where people come from.” It’s a vision of Babel in reverse. Instead of representing a fall from human perfection, as in the biblical story, having many languages is a gift. It’s something to remember before we let English swallow the globe.​

I really recommend that you read the entire article (and it's the Graun, no paywall and you can donate afterwards if you want).

According to an actual person of letters (Fernando Pessoa) there are only three languages likely to play an international role. English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Seems quite logical (maybe the portuguese one less so, but at least there is Brazil, and a couple african countries) given that French is only spoken as first language in France and a number of african nations, and German is only a first language in Germany/Austria and some bordering stuff (eg parts of Switzerland).

Speaking at least a second language is obviously positive. For starters, you are always provided with added info if you don't identify something as a singularity. That said... it isn't like you gain much more if you can use base x, x1, x2 etc for arithmetic, despite gaining something if you are fluent in at least two different ways.

 

[cardgame]

Replace portuguese with chinese

portugal and brazil cannot into relevance