So time for something slightly more light-hearted than most of what’s happening currently: our monthly round-up of recently encountered quotes, some thought-provoking, others amusing.

A cover up? Certainly not! It is responsible discretion exercised in the national interest to prevent unnecessary disclosure of eminently justifiable procedures in which untimely revelation could severely impair public confidence.
[@YesSirHumphrey on Twitter]

Thrice-called banns might be a public torment, for example, for those cursed with unfortunate names. Was it this which persuaded Miss Pleasant Love to marry by licence in Nottinghamshire in 1710, Avis Urine to seek a licence in Sudbury in 1712? It is noticeable that in the index of names to the volume of Suffolk licences from which the last example was taken two of the largest entries relate to the families of Prick and Balls. It is also noticeable that they were conspicuously successful in avoiding each other in the matrimonial market.
[RB Outhwaite, “Age at Marriage in England from the Late Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century”; Transactions of the Royal Historical Society; Vol. 23 (1973), pp 55-70]

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is. I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute.
[Rebecca West, 1913]

Women are people, and people are more interesting than clichés.
[Helen Lewis; Guardian; 15 January 2020]

Don’t be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn’t do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today.
[Malcolm X]

Never let a serious crisis go to waste: it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.
[Rahm Emanuel, President Barak Obama’s Chief of Staff]

At first glance, hand washing is an act of self care. Frequent hand washing protects us individually from contracting the virus. But it is also an act of community care; we help protect others when we help protect ourselves. So too with the recommendation to stay home when sick. Although there is definitely a level of privilege in being able to take time off work, it is clearly important to take care of our communities by preventing the spread of illness.
[Gesshin Claire Greenwood on Medium]

Interdependence is a fundamental law of nature. Even tiny insects survive by mutual cooperation based on innate recognition of their interconnectedness. It is because our own human existence is so dependent on the help of others that our need for love lies at the very foundation of our existence. Therefore we need a genuine sense of responsibility and a sincere concern for the welfare of others.
[Dalai Lama quoted by Gesshin Claire Greenwood on Medium]

It’s only quarantine if it comes from the Quarré region of France. Otherwise it’s just sparkling house arrest.
[h/t Alden Tullis O’Brien on Facebook]

Splay the legs as wide as possible, and then make sure they’re fixed in position with the wing nut.
[Instructions for setting up an easel quoted by @19syllables on Twitter]

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.

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]

OK, so we’ve got to the last round-up of iinteresting and/or amusing quotes for this year. So here goes …

Firewood, after becoming ash, does not again become firewood. Similarly, human beings, after death, do not live again.
[Eihei Dogen]

When an animal is being particularly busy underneath a few leaves, thinking very deeply about things, giving himself up to very serious reflection, he does not want to be disturbed.
[AA Milne]

Preparation and precaution were, however, the natural flowers of Mr Mudge’s mind, and in proportion as these things declined in one quarter they inevitably bloomed elsewhere. He could always, at the worst, have on Tuesday the project of their taking the Swanage boat on Thursday, and on Thursday that of their ordering minced kidneys on Saturday. He had, moreover, a constant gift of inexorable inquiry as to where and what they should have gone and have done if they had not been exactly as they were.
[Henry James, In the Cage]

Science is not a system of beliefs. According to the philosopher Karl Popper, science is the search for truth, not the search for certainty. It is an iterative process of posing a question, designing a controlled experiment to test the question, and making interpretations based on experimental outcomes.
[https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/how-do-we-know-what-we-know/]

Last sleep in day of holiday
White linen sheets
In an all white room
Two stir slowly
As winter day breaks
Fingers trace along lines
Till hands open unto curves
Skin awakens before eyes
Warmth beckons our movement
As instinct guides
On a January morn
[KiraLili; Slow January Morn]

eyes slurred dews cherry
kisses and masturbations
a high school story
[Rajat Kanti Chakrabarty; A High School Story]

late at night
a shepherd
woke his wife
 
I saw … heard
angels sing
in the sky!
 
it’s the wine
she mumbled
or UFOs!
[Paul Callus, A Light-Hearted Christmas]

What if Dogen was, like, right about all that “there are millions of eyes everywhere” stuff? What if, like, the universe is the Ultimate Surveillance State?
[Brad Warner]

To an astonishing degree, nature is the way it is because it couldn’t be any different.
[Natalie Wolchover, Quanta Magazine]

All that was required of them (ie. the brain-washed masses) was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances. The larger evils invariably escaped their notice.
[George Orwell]

That’s all for now. Have a good Christmas and New Year and we’ll see you with more quotes in January.

So here’s this month’s collection of quotes – some interesting, some amusing …

No Park – no Ring – no afternoon gentility –
No company – no nobility –
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease
No comfortable feel in any member –
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flow’rs, no leaves, no birds,
November!
[Thomas Hood (1799–1845), No!]

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli’ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England’s overthrow;
By God’s providence he was catch’d
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
[Alan Moore, V for Vendetta]

Government ministers are like economists – ask two of them this question and you get three different answers.
[Graham Page]

When I ceased to accept the teachings of my youth, it was not so much a process of giving up beliefs, as of discovering that I had never really believed.
[Leslie Stephen]

I tend to become uncomfortable around all ideologies that brand themselves as “the truth” or “the way”. This not only includes most religions, but also atheism, radical bi-partisan politics or any system of thought, including “woke” culture, that finds its energy in self-righteous belief and the suppression of contrary systems of thought. Regardless of the virtuous intentions of many woke issues, it is its lack of humility and the paternalistic and doctrinal sureness of its claims that repel me.
Antifa and the Far Right, for example, with their routine street fights, role-playing and dress-ups are participants in a weirdly erotic, violent and mutually self-sustaining marriage, propped up entirely by the blind, inflexible convictions of each other’s belief systems. It is good for nothing, except inflaming their own self-righteousness.
[Nick Cave at https://reason.com/2019/10/21/nick-cave-slams-woke-culture-as-self-righteous-and-suppresive/]

Some of us … are of the generation that believed that free speech was a clear-cut and uncontested virtue, yet within a generation this concept is seen by many as a dog-whistle to the Far Right, and is rapidly being consigned to the Left’s ever-expanding ideological junk pile.
[Nick Cave at https://reason.com/2019/10/21/nick-cave-slams-woke-culture-as-self-righteous-and-suppresive/]

Cat: a pygmy lion who loves mice, hates dogs and patronizes human beings.
[Oliver Herford (1863-1935)]

Saw someone with a shirt saying:
      Truth + God = Life
I hope they realise that it also follows …
      Truth = Life – God
      God = Life – Truth
Seriously, do the maths people.

Europe is not a market, it is the will to live together. Leaving Europe is not leaving a market, it is leaving shared dreams. We can have a common market, but if we do not have common dreams,
we have nothing. Europe is the peace that came after the disaster of war. Europe is the pardon
between French and Germans. Europe is the return to freedom of Greece, Spain and Portugal. Europe is the fall of the Berlin Wall. Europe is the end of communism. Europe is the welfare state, it is democracy.
[Esteban González Pons on the 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome]

When I talk to managers I get the feeling they are important. When I talk to leaders I get the feeling that I am important.

Psychopathic traits such as risk taking, overconfidence and superficial charm can make men more attractive to romantic partners, despite them having little interest in committed relationships, researchers at Canada’s Brock University have found.
[Science Focus magazine, 12/2019]

No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed, and love of power.
[PJ O’Rourke, writer (b.14 Nov 1947)]