Great Quotes δ' : Being laconic is being philosophical

[Samson]

Anglo-Saxon England was one of the best-run kingdoms in Europe, you may recall.

It started as an exercise in ethnic cleansing, and ended when the "government" could not defend the borders from the vikings. For some values of "best-run".

 

[Arakhor]

I specifically meant the unified kingdom, but anyway. Let's get back to the quotes.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

"If that's the world's smartest man, God help us."
— Lucille Feynman on her son

 

[Ferocitus]

Everything happens for a reason you make up afterwards.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

'[M]y dad made one rule for me and that was: "I don’t care what you do in life, but challenge people with greater power than you and defend those with less power."'
— George Clooney

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

W H E R E
I S
T H A T
T U R K E Y ?
I T
H A S
N O T
A R R I V E D
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !​

— Charles Dickens, as quoted by George Dolby, Charles Dickens as I Knew Him, p.358

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

"What Lindell has done — repeatedly and confidently predicting Trump’s return to office time after time, missed deadline after missed deadline — isn’t just moving the goalposts; it’s … well, metaphors fail. It’s moving the whole damn field. It’s changing the sport entirely. It’s inventing a new game that only he can win, and then managing to lose said game, repeatedly."
— Zack Stanton, "The Worst Political Predictions of 2021"


The wisdom of Jean Perron, translated from the French by @Rub'Rum:

"We'll cross the river once we're at the end of the tunnel."
"You shouldn't delay what belongs to Caesar."
"I remembered yesterday like it happened tomorrow."
"Paris was not built in the middle of the day."
"It's starting to smell like hot water."
"You shouldn't put the skin of the bear in front of the plough."
"They have William Tell's sword dangling over their heads."

 

[Lexicus]

A really moving piece of writing I encountered today:

It is fitting that the Red Special should stop here and that we should do honor to John Brown. He was the greatest liberator this country has known. He dared the whole world and gave up his life for freedom. What more can a man do?

A few years I came and followed his steps from this spot all the way to Charles Town, where he was hanged. All the way he was the only calm person. Kindly, sweetly, and not even hating those who hounded him, he went his way.

Even members of the poor despised race for which he had done so much were taught to despise him and look upon him as something vile. On that bright, sunny morning when he was led upon the gallows, he smiled. “This is a beautiful country,” he said. “I had not seen it before.” He went to his death without fear, knowing his work was done.

As I stand here on this spot where he stood, I can see him as he stood here with a rifle in his hand, and his sons on the ground, one dead and the other dying. What a heroic figure he is as I see him.

Even today he is not appreciated. But as time goes on the fog that obscures the acts of great heroic men will be swept away, and he will stand as one of the most heroic figures in the world. Emerson has said: “The time will come when John Brown will have made the gallows as glorious as Jesus Christ made the cross.” The Socialist Party is carrying on the work begun by John Brown.
​

 

[Takhisis]

Funnily enough, I found this deep text transcribed into a Youtube comment:

“Um… thank you. I’m not much for public speaking, or much for speaking, or, come to think of it, much for the public. And I’m not very good at lying. So let me just say that, in my experience, high school sucks. If I had to do it all over again, I’d have started advanced placement classes in preschool so I could go from eighth grade straight to college. However, given the unalterable fact that high school sucks, I’d like to add that if you’re lucky enough to have a good friend and a family that cares, it doesn't have to suck quite as much. Otherwise, my advice is: stand firm for what you believe in, until and unless logic and experience prove you wrong; remember, when the emperor looks naked, the emperor is naked; the truth and a lie are not “sort of the same thing”; and there is no aspect, no facet, no moment of life that can’t be improved with pizza. Thank you.”​

It's Daria Morgendorffer's graduation speech, btw.

 

[Farm Boy]

I'll put a mostly Republican stamp of approval on homage to John Brown. Executed for treason to a state.

 

[Ferocitus]

Some gems from Edward Bernays...

Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.

The best defense against propaganda: more propaganda.

When I came back to the United States, I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could
certainly use it for peace. And "propaganda" got to be a bad word because of the Germans using it,
so what I did was to try and find some other words. So we found the words "counsel on public relations".

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Dear God, calamity again! ...
It was so peaceful, so serene;
We but began to break the chains
That bind our folk in slavery ...
When halt! ... Again the people's blood
Is streaming! Like rapacious dogs
About a bone, the royal thugs
Are at each other's throat again.

— Taras Shevchenko, "Calamity Again", 1859

 

[Lexicus]

The great human asset is man himself. In order to rate the terrestrial globe, it is necessary to begin by rating men. To exploit the soil, the mines, the waters, all the substances and all the forces of our planet, it needs man, the whole of man; humanity, the whole of humanity. The complete exploitation of the terrestrial globe demands the united labour of white, yellow, and black men. By reducing, diminishing, and weakening, or, to sum it up in one word, by colonising a portion of humanity, we are working against ourselves. It is to our advantage that yellow and black men should be powerful, free, and wealthy. Our prosperity and our wealth depend on theirs. The more is produced, the more will there be consumed. The greater the profit they derive from us, the greater the profit we shall derive from them. If they reap the benefit of our labours, so shall we fully reap theirs.

-Anatole France

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

"And also, consider this: For all its grimness and supposed nihilism, this picture ends with the foiling of the Joker’s plan to turn the people of Gotham against one another — when terrified citizens, given the power to destroy, refuse to do so. This was actually a hopeful message in 2008, but it plays like pure fantasy today. So, what does it say about us as people that we failed to live up to the moral vision of The Dark Knight, of all movies?"

— Bilge Ebiri, "The 101 Best Movie Sequels of All Time"

 

[Kyriakos]

God, in his wrath, had allowed people to fall into corruption; the mouths of men were full of blasphemy and of deceit and of fraud. Yet not all were evil, and when it was known that the queen was about to send a man who would carry out in this land the law of England, those who were less evil were cheered, for they felt that law is better than disorder. The Christian came to us but it was not long before he too began deceiving and oppressing us, in concealing abominable crimes, and in selling decisions. We did not blame him in the beginning; the English justice he administered was not familiar to anyone, and the apparent excesses of the new judge may have obeyed certain valid arcane reasoning. Everything must have a justification in his book, we wished to think, but his kinship with all evil judges the world over was too obvious to be overlooked, and at last we were forced to admit that he was simply a wicked man.

From the nice story, "The Man on the Threshold".

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

 

[Samson]

“The [X] business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

X = music for Hunter, but totally would be the internet these days, and probably many others as well.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

"The unborn" are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don't resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don't ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don't need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don't bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It's almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.

Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.​

— Pastor Dave Barnhart, St. Junia Methodist Church

 

[Arakhor]

Wow. That one's good.

 

[Takhisis]

By Rebecca Seal:

“Let’s be real with ourselves: how many of us are using the time afforded us by our banking app to write poetry? We just passively consume crap on Instagram.”​

From an article on the Grauniad about digital amnesia. Side note: the word ‘amnesia’ in the url is misspelled. Maybe it was written on a smartphone.