Category Archives: quotes

books, quotes, science, sexuality, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

It’s been an odd week, apart from the fact I’ve been ill, with not many good quotes which are short enough for here, but lots of long ones. Maybe I’ll blog the long quotes in separate posts later, meanwhile here are a handful of short ones.

James Joyce fans in Dublin spend up to 36 hours reading Ulysses aloud every year on June 16.
[Times; 29 September 2010]

When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.
[Isaac Asimov]

The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.
[Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance]

Life is change that we don’t attend to.
[Cory Silverberg at http://sexuality.about.com ]

Our experience of sexuality is inseparable from our experience of life.
[Cory Silverberg at http://sexuality.about.com ]

books, people, personal, pleasures, quotes, topographical

Tube Strike Poetry

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It’s an ill wind … at least today’s tube strike in London means Noreen is at home (albeit working) on her birthday. Mind, she is currently out taking Harry the Cat the the V E T again. And it’s wet here which is unusual for Noreen’s birthday.

On the subject of the tube strike I just have to repost this from the BBC News website. I love the Liverpool poets, especially Roger McGough.

Poet Roger McGough has written two poems in response to Sunday and Monday’s London Tube strike to mark National Poetry Day.

Millions face disruption during the 24-hour strike, which is in protest at plans to cut ticket office staffing.

The theme for Thursday’s poetry day is home, and McGough suggests his lines may help commuters see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The Liverpudlian poet presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Poetry Please.

He was also a member of The Scaffold, which topped the charts in 1968 with Lily the Pink, and was an uncredited writer of some of the humorous dialogue on the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine film.

Along with Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, McGough was one of the Mersey Poets and they published two best-selling volumes of verse during the 60s and 70s, having started out giving readings in Liverpool’s clubs and cafes.

Here are his two poems:

A Striking Soliloquy

tu be

or not

tu be

Tube strike Haiku

trains that are side-lined

idling in rusty sidings

fear the knacker’s yard

* * *

tunnels empty now

can see the light at both ends

birds risk a short cut

* * *

rails sleeping, dream of

a parallel universe

a new perspective

* * *

platforms yawn and stretch

enjoying the holiday

mice minding the gap

I must look at the Liverpool poets again; haven’t read them for ages. They’re brilliant!

beliefs, food+drink, quotes, sexuality, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

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I’ll spare everyone another picture of Rye or the Romney Marsh today and instead I offer this week’s crop of amusing and/or thought-provoking quotes.

Plan B and Arcade Fire get Q nods
[BBC News website headline]

We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation.
[Lily Tomlin]

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
[Antoine de Saint-Exupery]

Balnea, vina, Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra; sed vitam faciunt balnea, vina, Venus.
Baths, wine and sex spoil our bodies; but baths, wine and sex make up life.
[Epitaph of Tiberius Claudius Secundus]

Inside every old person is a younger person wondering what the fuck happened.
[unknown]

Come, bring hither quick a flagon of wine, that I may soak my brain and get an ingenious idea.
[Aristophanes, The Knights]

Leadership is a form of mental illness.
[Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert]

Oh and I thought I’d spare you more from the Dalai Lama on Compassion – that’s all he seems to talk about at the moment, although I do see why as that is largely, at rock bottom, what Buddhism is all about.

books, quotes

Why I like Dance

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As many of you know I’m a devotee of Anthony Powell‘s 12 volume novel sequence A Dance to the Music of Time (thanks, Jilly, for the total restructuring of my life almost 30 years ago!) and you may also recall that Audible have recently released a complete audiobook of Dance.

Recently therefore I have been listening, here and there, to the audiobooks and it was yesterday I spent some time on The Military Philosophers (book nine of the sequence) which covers the second half of WWII. As well as longer sections of beautiful prose it is full of entertaining little snippets, for example:

‘Hullo, Nicholas. I hope my dear old Finn is not still cross with me about Szymanski ?’
‘There may still be some disgruntlement, sir.’
‘Disgruntlement’, one was told, was a word that could be used of all ranks without loss of discipline.

Our billet was a VIP one, a requisitioned hotel presided over by a brisk little cock-sparrow of a captain, who evidently knew his job.
‘We had the hell of a party here the other night,’ he said. ‘A crowd of senior officers as drunk as monkeys, brigadiers rooting the palms out of the pots.’

Finn pushed back his chair. He spoke slowly.
‘Borrit told me when he was serving on the Gold Coast, one of the Africans said to him: “What is it white men write at their desks all day?”‘

‘ Look at this,’ he said.
He spoke indignantly. I leant forward to examine the exhibit, which was in Pennistone’s handwriting. Blackhead had written, in all, three and a half pages on the theory and practice of soap issues for military personnel, with especial reference to the Polish Women’s Corps. Turning from his spidery scrawl to Pennistone’s neat hand, two words only were inscribed. They stood out on the file:
Please amplify. D. Pennistone. Maj. GS.

Our billet was a VIP one, a requisitioned hotel presided over by a brisk little cock-sparrow of a captain […]
‘We had the hell of a party here the other night,’ he said. ‘A crowd of senior officers as drunk as monkeys, brigadiers rooting the palms out of the pots.’

Not long before the Victory Service […] Prasad’s Embassy gave a party on their National Day […] Gauthier de Graef, ethnically confused, had been anxious to know whether there were eunuchs in the ladies’ apartments above the rooms where we were being entertained.

‘Not all the fruits of Victory are appetising to the palate,’ said Pennistone. ‘An issue of gall and wormwood has been laid on.’

It is these small amusements, just as much as the excellent prose, which makes Powell so wonderful to read.

personal, quotes, science, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

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A rich crop of thought-provoking and amusing quotes from which to pick this week, so here’s my selection:

The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.
[Tom Bodett]

Neglect of mathematics works injury to all knowledge, since one who is ignorant of it cannot know the other sciences, or the things of this world. And what is worst, those who are thus ignorant are unable to perceive their own ignorance, and so do not seek a remedy.
[Roger Bacon]

We apprehend time only when we have marked motion … not only do we measure movement by time, but also time by movement because they define each other.
[Aristotle]

Fermentation and civilization are inseparable.
[John Ciardi, poet]

To familiarize ourselves with the virtue of patience, it is very helpful to think of adversity not so much as a threat to our peace of mind but rather as the very means by which patience is attained. From this perspective, we see that those who would harm us are, in a sense, teachers of patience. Such people teach us what we could never learn merely from hearing someone speak, be they ever so wise or holy.
[Dalai Lama]

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
[Herm Albright]

amusements, people, quotes, science

Quotes of the Week

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Not much by way of amusing or thought provoking quotes this week as we’ve been away, but here are what has passed by me…

What we’re suggesting is that something that doesn’t really interact with anything is changing something that can’t be changed.
[Dr Jere Jenkins quoted on Discover Blogs, 80Beats in trying to explain the theory that neutrinos are affecting radioactive decay half-lives]

Yet more proof I could not possibly handle even the most glorious of small children … unless they came with pause and mute buttons.
[Comment at Whoopee]

Our ham is formed from cured RSPCA Freedom Food assured pork leg
[Tea shop menu, Rye]
WTF is an “assured pork leg” and how do you cure an RSPCA?

amusements, quotes, sexuality, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

This week’s selection of the amusing and inspiring:

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.
[Robert Frost]

Take it as a compliment, absolutely! And there’s certainly nothing threatening about an erection in and of itself. It makes no demands, requires no attention – it’s the man attached to the erection who might do that, and any man worth his sodium chloride knows that his erection is his own responsibility and no one else’s.
[Emily Nagoski at ]

Generic anger, envy and despair, coated in a thick, luxurious layer of can’t be arsed.
[Emma Beddington at http://www.belgianwaffling.com/]

Good advice is something that old men give young men when they can no longer set them a bad example.
[Unknown]

history, quotes, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

The usual selection of quote that have inspired or amused me this week.

Thirty spokes unite at the hub
but the ultimate use of the wheel depends on the part where nothing exists.
Clay is molded into a vessel
but the ultimate use of the vessel depends upon the part where nothing exists.
Doors and windows are cut out of the walls of a house
but the ultimate use of the house depends upon the parts where nothing exists.
So, there is advantage in using what can be seen, what exists.
And there is also advantage in using what cannot be seen, what is non-existent.
[Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 11]

There are intelligent people and thick people. There are energetic people and lazy people. By far the most dangerous is the energetic but thick person.
[Reported as overheard by Noreen]

The Roman Catholic Church is sometimes referred to as “the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire”.
[Razib Khan in “Gene Expression Weblog” at http://blogs.discovermagazine.com]