Here goes with this months colletion of interesting and/or amusing quotes …
Mathematical Glossolalia
As though time could have a hobby
we speak in eigenvalues, the harmonious
oscillations in the green flash before sunset.
We interpret raised to the power to mean
you were taken in by numbers
as a young babe & your childhood
can be classified irrational. Euclid,
Euler, the empty set’s a nest atop a piling.
If two words diverge on the open seas &
the dot product is without derivative, the intercept
can be found only by Venn diagrams on the tongue.
Swallowed by wave functions, turning back, theorems
to explain the circumference of illusion, good heavens,
the sailboat’s isosceles never goes slack.
[Jennifer Gresham; Scientific American; 02/2020]
Yestreen I wed a lady fair,
An ye wad believe me,
On her cunt there growes nae hair,
That’s the thing that grieves me.
It vexed me sair, it plagued me sair,
It put me in a passion,
To think that I haed wad a wife,
Whase cunt was oot o fashion.
[Robert Burns (1759-96)]
Is there one maxim which ought to be acted upon throughout one’s whole life? Surely it is the maxim of loving kindness: Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.
[Confucius]
Naturism is … a philosophical belief in a natural, naked lifestyle, characterised by respect for oneself, for others, and for the natural environment.
…
Naturists believe that nudity is an enjoyable, natural and moral state which brings benefits to themselves and to society at large.
[From “Is Naturism the solution to low body confidence?” at https://buzz.bournemouth.ac.uk/2020/01/is-naturism-the-solution-to-low-body-confidence/]
Physiology is just functional anatomy. Biochemistry is the anatomy of biomolecules. Genetics is the anatomy of DNA. Physics is the anatomy of the universe. All science is – anatomy.
[Prof. Alice Roberts on Twitter]
We couldn’t overlook the stupidity of an entire nation democratically voting to deprive itself of all its human rights for possibly generations to come. We thought about making 17.4 million individual awards but that wouldn’t work as voting is anonymous and many of the people who voted for Brexit have since died – in some cases as a consequence of their vote already, so those ones should really get special mentions.
[Stu Pidkunz, Chairman of Darwin Awards on giving the UK a DA for Brexit]
And nightly now beneath their shade
are buggeries, rapes, and incests made.
Unto this all-sin-sheltering grove
whores of the bulk and the alcove,
great ladies, chambermaids, and drudges,
the ragpicker, and heiress trudges.
Carmen, divines, great lords, and tailors,
‘prentices, poets, pimps, and jailers,
footmen, fine fops do here arrive,
and here promiscuously they swive.
[John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, on St James’s Park, London; 1673. Quoted in Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveller’s Guide to Restoration Britain]
He [John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester] is also suspected of being the author of Sodom, almost certainly the rudest play ever written, about a debauched king who encourages his sex-crazed subjects to indulge themselves in as much sodomy as they like. Just to give you a flavour of its lewdness, the dramatis personae includes: King Bolloximian and Queen Cuntigratia; Prince Prickett, Princess Swivia and General Buggeranthus; Pockenello (a pimp, catamite and the king’s favourite), Borastus (the buggermaster-general), Pene, Tooly and Lady Officina (pimps and she-pimp of honour); Fuckadilla, Cunticula and Clitoris (maids of honour); Flux (physician-in-ordinary to the king) and Virtuoso (dildo-maker to the court).
[Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveller’s Guide to Restoration Britain. Sodom was published in 1684.]
The common people of London, giving way to their natural inclination, are proud, arrogant and uncivil to foreigners, especially the French, against whom, they entertain a great prejudice and cherish a profound hatred, treating such as come among them with contempt and insult. The nobility, though also proud, have not so usually the defects of the lower orders, displaying a certain degree of politeness and courtesy towards strangers; and this is still more the case with those gentlemen who have been out of the kingdom, and travelled, they having taken a lesson in politeness from the manners of other nations.
[Lorenzo Magalotti, Florentine nobleman, c1667. Quoted in Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveller’s Guide to Restoration Britain]
When it comes to addressing important people, modern practice is useful in so far as forms have not greatly changed. You should address the king as ‘Your majesty’ and a duke or an archbishop as ‘Your grace’. Speaking to lesser lords and bishops or their wives, you can simply say ‘Your lordship’ or ‘Your ladyship’, and to clergymen ‘Your reverence’. If a man is a knight or a baronet, then call him ‘Sir John’ or whatever his first name is. His wife is ‘Your ladyship’, ‘Dame Alice’ or ‘Lady Smith’. Gentlemen are referred to as ‘Mister’ or ‘Master’ (both written ‘Mr’). The term ‘Esquire’ is used after a gentleman’s name to indicate that he has a coat of arms – note that it is not used for non-armigerous gentlemen. Nor do you call a tradesman or ordinary farmer ‘Mr’ – at this time he does not have a pre-title, only his name. Wives, sisters and daughters of gentlemen are addressed as ‘Mistress’ (written ‘Mrs’ or ‘Mtress’), whether they are married or not, and letters should be directed to them as ‘Mrs Smith’, even if they are under the age of ten. I would strongly recommend that you do not address an unmarried woman in the 1660s as ‘Miss’: this is the way people refer to noblemen’s concubines.
[Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveller’s Guide to Restoration Britain]
Justice is a relative concept in all ages. If it is fairness you want from your legal system, I suggest you visit a period of history that prioritises the person over property, reality over religion, science over superstition, equity over influence and fairness over the process of the law. In finding such a time, I wish you luck.
[Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveller’s Guide to Restoration Britain]
I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.
[Truman Capote]
Boris Johnson – speaking literal gibberish in between staring at the ceiling. It’s like watching a penguin on acid trying to catch invisible fish in its mouth.
[@Otto_English on Twitter]
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves, yet wiser people so full of doubts.
[Bertrand Russell]
So, we must keep talking about sex. We must keep educating children about sex, and not just about what happens when a sperm gets its hands on an egg. We must talk about consent, pleasure, masturbation, pornography, love, relationships and our own bodies. Because the only way we will dispel shame is to drag sex out in the open and have a good long look at it. History has shown us how damaging shaming sexual practices, in all their myriad forms, can be. Let’s learn the lesson.
[Kate Lister; A Curious History of Sex]
