Great Quotes III: Source and Context are Key

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A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society

To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers of the condition of the working class, organisers of charity, members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole-and-corner reformers of every imaginable kind. This form of socialism has, moreover, been worked out into complete systems.

The Socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social conditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. They desire the existing state of society, minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements. They wish for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat. The bourgeoisie naturally conceives the world in which it is supreme to be the best; and bourgeois Socialism develops this comfortable conception into various more or less complete systems. In requiring the proletariat to carry out such a system, and thereby to march straightway into the social New Jerusalem, it but requires in reality, that the proletariat should remain within the bounds of existing society, but should cast away all its hateful ideas concerning the bourgeoisie.

A second, and more practical, but less systematic, form of this Socialism sought to depreciate every revolutionary movement in the eyes of the working class by showing that no mere political reform, but only a change in the material conditions of existence, in economical relations, could be of any advantage to them. By changes in the material conditions of existence, this form of Socialism, however, by no means understands abolition of the bourgeois relations of production, an abolition that can be affected only by a revolution, but administrative reforms, based on the continued existence of these relations; reforms, therefore, that in no respect affect the relations between capital and labour, but, at the best, lessen the cost, and simplify the administrative work, of bourgeois government.

Bourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression when, and only when, it becomes a mere figure of speech.

Free trade: for the benefit of the working class. Protective duties: for the benefit of the working class. Prison Reform: for the benefit of the working class. This is the last word and the only seriously meant word of bourgeois socialism.

It is summed up in the phrase: the bourgeois is a bourgeois — for the benefit of the working class.
 
"Aztec gold is why Spanish conquistadors came to the New World, making them the first Hispanics to take away American jobs."
-Stephen Colbert, America Again
 
"Aztec gold is why Spanish conquistadors came to the New World, making them the first Hispanics to take away American jobs."
-Stephen Colbert, America Again

Now this is a very nice quote, I like.
 
"The problem with the American Superman is he's basically a god trapped in the mind of a crossing guard. His M.O. for crime prevention is hovering above the ground, arms crossed with an exasperated frown on his face. Come on! We're talking about Superman here, continents shift when he yawns and oceans boil when he farts in the tub. But it's wasted on a guy who has the personality of a mannequin."

-Cyriaque Lamar, Foreign Rip-Offs Cooler Than The Hollywood Originals
 
"There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"
-in response to a query regarding polio vaccine patents, Jonas Salk, 12 April 1955 interview on See It Now
 
Every time I read this line, I can't stop chuckling.
"When you saw the burger described as 'Guy’s Pat LaFrieda custom blend, all-natural Creekstone Farm Black Angus beef patty, LTOP (lettuce, tomato, onion + pickle), SMC (super-melty-cheese) and a slathering of Donkey Sauce on garlic-buttered brioche,' did your mind touch the void for a minute?"
-Pete Wells, As Not Seen on TV, nytimes.com
 
"In fact, rather than think of the Tokugawa samurai as a warrior, it might be more appropriate to think of him as a government employee, a GS-12, for example. [...] Tsunetomo [one of the samurai who helped develop the mythology behind bushido/samurai/etc.] was a GS-12 who longed to be something more."
- G. Cameron Hurst III, "Death, Honor, and Loyalty: The Bushido Ideal"



Not the funniest quote even with context, but it made me laugh a bit, given 1) the juxtaposition of the mythical, heroic samurai and the stereotypical bureaucrat; 2) my father was a GS-14, so I definitely got the analogy there; 3) the whole point of the article being that the samurai mythos was developed by bored, useless bureaucrats who dreamt of having awesome lives, and these few lines summarize it pretty well.
 
"I know that you are fond of Japanese things. Now, do you really imagine that the Japanese people, as they are presented to us in art, have any existence ? [...] The actual people who live in Japan are not unlike the general run of English people; that is to say, they are extremely commonplace, and have nothing curious or extraordinary about them. In fact the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people."

- Oscar Wilde


In a way it still applies today, I suppose.
 
Sounds like he's basically sketching out a theory of Orientalism there. :think:
 
In a way it still applies today, I suppose.

Well Japanese culture is fairly different thanks to its period of isolation. And a lot of Japanese have a queer view on the world outside of Japan. I heard their universities are struggling with its students trying to get them to go and study abroad.
 
Well Japanese culture is fairly different thanks to its period of isolation. And a lot of Japanese have a queer view on the world outside of Japan. I heard their universities are struggling with its students trying to get them to go and study abroad.

I think the point here isn't so much about how different or similar the Japanese people are, but rather that some non-Japanese idealize Japan.
 
I think the point here isn't so much about how different or similar the Japanese people are, but rather that some non-Japanese idealize Japan.

But surely the reason they do idolize them is because they are so different and that's it is not fake as he suggests. Hell just their sweet/salty snacks contains so much crazy and it's merely one small aspect of their everyday culture. Naturally all opinions on what is crazy is subjective and blah blah.
 
Perhaps I should've said something about Japanese stereotypes (good and bad and weird) rather than idealizing Japan per se. There's a lot of what people think is Japan/Japanese but isn't really, or makes much more sense in context. Or something or whatever.


Or, well, rather, Japan is very different than what a lot of people think it is, especially those who only read about it on the internet or play video games/watch anime.
 
But surely the reason they do idolize them is because they are so different and that's it is not fake as he suggests. Hell just their sweet/salty snacks contains so much crazy and it's merely one small aspect of their everyday culture. Naturally all opinions on what is crazy is subjective and blah blah.
Wilde's comment isn't a denial that Japan is different, but rather a rejection of its construction as something exotic. He's not asserting that Japan is identical or even similar to England, but that both England and Japan are basically mundane places, even if they are each mundane after their own fashion. The exotic only emerges when the viewpoint of one is adopted to the exclusion of the other: in this case, when Japan is viewed at through English eyes to the exclusion of Japanese eyes.
 
Somewhere in Attic Nights I saw a rather sweet quote:

"History hides everything obvious and reveals all that is hidden" (note: not exact quote most likely).

However, for the life of me I can't find out who said that. Mind helping, CFC?
 
"We don’t want to get too serious here, and hopefully we’ll find time for some silliness, because artichokes rain manfully on the plains of Ottawa."

-A review of Monty Python's Flying Circus: "Whither Canada?"
 
"When a person has an accent, it means they can speak one more language than you"
- Fernando Lamas, the guy who was the inspiration for the "The Most Interesting Man in the World", when Johnny Carson teased him about his accent during an appearance on The Tonight Show
 
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