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)]

This month’s selection of recently encountered quotes …

As someone who escaped the lurid treadmill of life in a circus family I have always had the most disagreeable fear that one day the exploding clown car would come back to haunt me.
[Sir John Major]

Anglo-Saxon words
Refuted by my scrabble app:
Cunt. Quim. (Frig’s OK.)
[@19syllables; https://twitter.com/19syllables/status/1176959628925636608]

Magnus nodded sagely. “The more you see of the world, Alva, the more you will find the line blurred between right and wrong. People move about, taking with them their beliefs, their customs, their language. They blend and meld with the places they settle until it is difficult to determine Viking from Anglo-Saxon, pagan from Christian. We are all growing and changing with every passing moment. And I am by your side. We will be changed by this together.”

[God] just seems very man-made to me. There are so many theories, and not everyone can be right. It’s human nature to need a religious crutch, and I don’t begrudge anyone that. I just don’t need one.
[Janeane Garofalo; Showbiz; 1995]

The one who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd … The one who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been.

Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy’s Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day’s work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city’s reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty.
[PG Wodehouse; The Best of Wodehouse: An Anthology]

Don’t worry … we will be what we need for each other. We will become who we need to be to give each other light.
[Gesshin Claire Greenwood; https://medium.com/@clairegesshin/facing-the-end-of-everything-c3056f44e836]

Life is filled with suffering, but it is also filled with many wonders, like the blue sky, the sunshine, and the eyes of a baby … life is both dreadful and wonderful. To practice meditation is to be in touch with both aspects.
[Thich Nhat Hanh; Being Peace]

If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.
[Nikola Tesla]

Whether the weather be hot,
Or whether the weather be not,
We’ll weather the weather
Whatever the weather
Whether we like it or not!
[unknown]

The standard business model for corporations is to lie, confuse and deny anything that may threaten their profitability.
[Steven Magee]

Ninety percent of what’s wrong with you
could be cured with a hot bath,
says God through the manhole covers,
but we want magic, to win
the lottery we never bought a ticket for.
(Tenderly, the monks chant,
embrace the suffering.) The voice never
panders, offers no five-year plan,
no long-term solution, no edicts from a cloudy
white beard hooked over ears.
It is small and fond and local. Don’t look for
your initials in the geese honking
overhead or to see through the glass even
darkly. It says the most obvious shit,
ie. Put down that gun, you need a sandwich.
[Mary Kerr; VI. Wisdom: The Voice of God]

When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.
[Lin Yutang]

In between everything else this month, I’ve still managed to spot quite a few interesting or amusing quotes …

A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit … Stupid people cause losses to other people with no counterpart of gains on their own account. Thus society as a whole is impoverished.
[Carlo Cipolla, essay “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity”]

Treat yourself the way you would treat a small child.
Feed yourself healthy food.
Make sure you spend time outside.
Put yourself to bed early.
Let yourself take naps.
Don’t say mean things to yourself.
Don’t put yourself in danger.
[unknown]

Jim Hacker: “I know exactly who reads the papers. The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country. The Times is read by people who actually run the country. The Guardian is read by people who know they don’t run the country but think they ought to. The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by people who own the country. The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.”
Sir Humphrey: “What about the people who read the Sun?”
Bernard: “They don’t care who runs the country as long as she’s got big tits.”
[Yes Prime Minister]

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.
[Yes Prime Minister]

Bernard, a good speech isn’t one where we can prove the minister’s telling the truth. It’s one in which nobody else can prove he’s lying.
[Yes Prime Minister]

“We don’t think our study is practically useful for society, but we hope that it will contribute to our understanding of the symmetric beauty in nature.”
[Munetaka Sugiyama quoted in Smithsonian Magazine]

By upholding international human rights principles, the rule of law is key to closing the gap between human rights aspirations and human rights realities, and to promoting and protecting human rights. We see how the rule of law operationalises human rights through constitutional and legal protections of human rights, an independent and impartial judicial system, effective legal remedies, and competent, accountable and inclusive institutions.
The rule of law has a role in preventing violence … as well as protecting human rights. We are mindful that societies in which human rights are valued, and people are empowered and listened to, are more likely to be just, fair, stable and free from violence. In this session … we take the opportunity to stress the importance of the rule of law in enshrining equality before the law, access to justice, and participation in decision making on the basis of equality, thereby empowering the whole of society.
[UK government statement (19 June 2017) to the 35th Session of the UN Human Rights Council. I just wish they behaved as if they believed it.]

Unexpected guests
receive unexpected views.
(Who wears pants at home?)
[Courtney Symonds]

Or just be a decent person first because that’s like literally the first requirement for anything at all. Be it just friendship, a nice conversation with a stranger, a night of fun, a serious relationship, a not serious relationship. They all start with being a decent human.
[@Suhaila]

In the later stages of its natural career, the academic will sometimes leave their pack without warning, find a obscure hill, and choose to die on it in defiance of all reason. Scientists are uncertain if this tragic death ritual serves any adaptive purpose.
[Danielle Navarro]

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.
[Jimi Hendrix]

CLERKENWELL.
FISHING WITHOUT A ROD OR NET. Edward White, 15, a blindmaker’s apprentice, of Victor-road, Holloway, was charged, before Mr. Hosack, with fishing with a hook and line in the lake at Finsbury Park, contrary to the bye-laws of the Metropolitan Board of Works. It was stated on behalf of the Board of Works that the boy was charged under the 7th bye-law, which forbids fishing in the lake. A Park Constable proved having seen the lad fishing with a line which had a hook at the end of it. In answer to the Magistrate, the Witness admitted that the Defendant had neither a rod nor a net. Mr. Hosack said the bye-laws said nothing about fishing with a line, but only with a “rod or net”. The contrivance used by the Defendant did not therefore, come within the bye-law. The boy was then discharged, amid considerable laughter.
[Press report; source & date unknown. H/T @IanVisits]

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
[Upton Sinclair, 1934]

Norman saw on English oak.
On English neck a Norman yoke;
Norman spoon to English dish,
And England ruled as Normans wish;
Blithe world in England never will be more,
Till England’s rid of all the four.
[Sir Walter Scott]

You can lead a horse to water but you can’t climb a ladder with a rabbit in each hand.
[Bob Mortimer]