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]

A monthly round-up of recently encountered quotes, interesting and amusing …

Hospitals are a dominion of streets and mapped lines. Their psychogeography filled up with each body that has passed through them. How many people have slept in this bed? A commonwealth of wards, a confederacy of the sick. Anyone who presents themself for care, cure or examination must accept the role of patient, which requires them to give up something: freedom/free will/free movement.
[Sinéad Gleeson, Constellations: Reflections From Life]

There was an old woman from Slough
Who developed a terrible cough
So she drank half a pint
Of warm honey and mint
But sadly she didn’t pull through.
[unknown]

Me: What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?
Dad: Never whistle with a mouth full of custard.
[Annie Morris on Twitter]

When I’m good I’m very, very good, but when I’m bad, I’m better.
[Mae West]

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.
[Richard Feynman]

There are two types of genius. Ordinary geniuses do great things, but they leave you room to believe that you could do the same if only you worked hard enough. Then there are magicians, and you can have no idea how they do it. Feynman was a magician.
[Hans Bethe on Richard Feynman]

First, what bothers me isn’t just that people said 5-HTTLPR [a gene, thought to have a role in depression] mattered and it didn’t. It’s that we built whole imaginary edifices, whole castles in the air on top of this idea of 5-HTTLPR mattering. We “figured out” how 5-HTTLPR exerted its effects, what parts of the brain it was active in, what sorts of things it interacted with, how its effects were enhanced or suppressed by the effects of other imaginary depression genes. This isn’t just an explorer coming back from the Orient and claiming there are unicorns there. It’s the explorer describing the life cycle of unicorns, what unicorns eat, all the different subspecies of unicorn, which cuts of unicorn meat are tastiest, and a blow-by-blow account of a wrestling match between unicorns and Bigfoot.
[Quoted by Derek Lowe at https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/05/10/there-is-no-depression-gene]

The police officer who puts their life on the line with no superpowers, no X-Ray vision, no super-strength, no ability to fly, and no invulnerability to bullets, reveals far greater virtue than Superman – who is only a mere superhero.
[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

I love this waterway [Regent’s Canal]. I’d like to have a private barge, and float down it waving to the tarts.
[X Trapnel in Anthony Powell’s, Books Do Furnish A Room]

There once was a man from Nantucket,
who, tired of life
inside a lewd limerick,

situated
just on the outskirts
of Chepstow.
[Brian Bilston]

There was a young harpist called Niamh,
who would wear her heart on her sliamh.
But then she plucked Sean
(he played the French hean).
They married before New Year’s Iamh.
[Brian Bilston]

Don’t ever let a recipe tell you how much garlic to put in. You measure that with your heart.
[unknown]

Women are angels. And when someone breaks our wings, we simply continue to fly. On a broomstick. We’re flexible like that.
[unknown]

More next month.