Great Quotes δ' : Being laconic is being philosophical

[Samson]

This week marks the 71st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which led to the deaths of over 129,000 people. Earlier this month British MPs voted to maintain the UK's nuclear deterrent, which aims to prevent a repeat of this tragedy by making sure it can happen again at any given moment - New Scientist, 6th August 2016

 

[Takhisis]

And we're just short of the five-year anniversary of that publication, which is the only way to add any lustre to such dire tidings.

 

[Ferocitus]

To sum up, it would be desirable to quote two statements, which my teacher assigned to Archimedes:
"The longer you look at water, the more dregs you discover."
and
"When dealing with water, turn to experience."
A. Sh. Gotman, Navigating the wake of past efforts, Journal of Ocean Technology, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2007.

Has anyone here ever heard of these two quotes?
(I've lost touch with Ada since she retired from Novosibirsk University, so I don't know if she ever confirmed their provenance.)

 

[Kyriakos]

Strangers, they say, supply the daintiest meat.

Seilinos is answering Odysseus' inquiry about whether the cyclopai are kind to strangers
Quote is from the play Cyclops, by Euripides.

There are some more nice quotes, such as the descriptions of the Cyclops ("the god-hated cook of Hades") and the comedic dialogue between Polyphemos and his friends...
-No one has ruined me.
-So you are fine.
-No one has blinded me.
-So you can see.
(...)
-Where is no one?
-Nowhere, of course.

 

[Ferocitus]

There is no opinion so absurd that some philosopher will not express it. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, "Ad familiares"

Takes one to know one, dude.

 

[Ferocitus]

I don't do it for the money. Donald Trump, Art of the Deal.

 

[Ferocitus]

An oak is a tree. A rose is a flower. A sparrow is a bird.
Russia is our fatherland. Death is inevitable.
P. Smirnovski, A Textbook of Russian Grammar.
(Nabokov, The Gift).

 

[Ferocitus]

Grim ones from Channel Nein.

There are lies. Damn lies. And applause.

The more Russian literature you read, the less German philosophy you care to understand.

If it’s any consolation, there isn’t any.

Let's be honest: every Monday is Kafka's birthday.

Anything is possible. And, yes, that's the bad news.

 

[Ferocitus]

Applied post-modern metaphysics?

 

[Kyriakos]

If typographical systems could bet, they'd bet likewise on Godel sentences

 

[Ferocitus]

Ask not what your country can do for you.
You really don't want to know.


Some call it happiness: I call it anxiety deficit disorder.

 

[Ferocitus]

The principal task of civilisation, its raison d'etre, is to defend us against Nature.
The Future of an Illusion, 1927.

Freud. He says get a phone case.
Channel Nein!


Ideology: The mistaken belief that your beliefs are neither beliefs nor mistaken.

Channel Nein!

 

[Ferocitus]

Borges: Argentina’s greatest German author.

Psychoanalysis: Smoking your father’s cigar. On your mother’s couch.

Channel Nein!

 

[Kyriakos]

He wasn't particularly german-like as an author, though
Also, don't latin american writers worship France?

 

[Ferocitus]

He wasn't particularly german-like as an author, though
Also, don't latin american writers worship France?

Probably.

Spanish: A language spoken by Cervantes. In a story written by Borges.

 

[Ferocitus]

Metaphor: Just another word. For just another word.
Simile: The metaphor’s, like, less articulate cousin.
Channel Nein!

 

[Ferocitus]

Just found one for you.

Formulaic
Comedy = tragedy + time.
Dark comedy = tragedy + time + tragedy.
German comedy = tragedy + time - comedy.
Dark German comedy = Greek tragedy.

Channel K.Nein!

 

[Kyriakos]

Metaphor: Just another word. For just another word.
Simile: The metaphor’s, like, less articulate cousin.
Channel Nein!

I think one can see the metaphor-simile distinction also in terms of use-mention (formal logic), although with some build-up. I think that it is fair to say that a simile can be seen as a particular type of "mention" of a term, although it unlike usual mentions (eg "'Man' has three letters, and isn't alive") substitutes the needed term signifying likeness by pushing the term away from the domain of the rest of the sentence without explicitly isolating it in quotation marks. If I say "that man is like a monster", it can be tied to a phrase like "'Monster' is what I can see him as".
The metaphor, on the other hand, isn't pushed to some other domain, because ITSELF carries the entire sentence to that other domain. ("He is a monster" takes you to a world where monsters in ways do exist; regardless of the various complexities of language as well as the rest of the text allowing for different effects of the sentence containing the metaphor).
At least that is my take

 

[Ferocitus]

We're having hysterics here with some of these. Last batch. Promise.

Aphorisms: 1. Old ships in new bottles. 2. Philosophy for those with little Zeit. Written by those with little Geist.
Capitalism: The ship of state rigged by pirates.
Communism: The ship of state rigged by the state.
Political rhetoric: Smoke that can’t look itself in the mirror.
Dead certainty: Socrates without a question.
Diplomacy: The art of turning swords into plowshares. Plowshares into tractors. And tractors into tanks.
GOP: An American political party devoted to the principle of one nation under God. And one above.
Hermeneutics: The science of reading text messages.
Critical Hermeneutics: The art of deleting them.
Justice: A stick disguised as a carrot.
Kafka: A law under arrest.
Logic: A multiple-choice question that is A. True or B. False.
LinkedIn: A close-knit community of distant acquaintances who would like you to join in the fun of finding a job.
Nationalism: The fallible notion of an infallible nation.
Poet: One who breaks lines to complete a thought.
Prose: Poetry without the poetry.
Poetry: Prose without the punctuation.
Postmodernism: Never meeting a cat you didn’t already know from the Internet.
Profit: A dog that runs away from the poor and returns to the rich
Rhetoric: The art of saying what people don’t want to hear in a way they wish they’d said.
Technology: The deepest abyss on the flattest of screens.
Channel Nein!

 

[Kyriakos]

I like the Kafka one, but you know I can't bring myself to like many messages with a german title