Unfamiliar Quotations

December 3, 1993

I am not Bartlett, so the following quotations are not “familiar.” However, they are worth thinking about, in my opinion. Why not write some paragraphs of your own on a quote that “hits” you?

“The richest man in town died, and everybody was curious to know who would benefit. Agnes Thornberry, the town busybody, made a point of running into the lawyer who had handled business matters for the deceased.

“ ‘Harry,’ she said bluntly, ‘you knew Mr. Chumley better than most of us. Tell me, how much money did he leave?’

“ ‘All of it, Agnes,’ the attorney said without hesitation. 'All of it.’”

(“Laughter”, Readers Digest)

Richard Lederer collects unusual statements of junior high, high school and college students gathered from essays, quizzes and tests. A small sampling:

“One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second.”

“Part of the problem in trying to control population in the Third World is that it is against the people's religion to use preservatives.”

“Pavlov studied the salvation of dogs.”

“My aunt won't be having any more kids because her tubes are tired.”

“Extinct birds lay very few eggs.”

“The pelvis protects the gentiles.”

“I am pro-choice. Even to think that an unwanted pregnancy should last to full term is abdominable.”

“A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.” (FUNNY TIMES)

Distinguished Harvard law professor Paul Freund, who died early this year, was widely recognized as a leading scholar of the U.S. Constitution. “What he said once of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes applied equally to himself: ‘His compassion – and he did possess it profoundly – embraced the human race, because what unites us – the ultimate ground of our claim to equality – is our common ignorance of the central questions posed for us by the universe: whence, and why, and whither.’” (THE NEW YORKER)

Sydney Smith commented about the historian, Macauley: “He has occasional flashes of silence that make his conversation perfectly delightful.” (AMERICAN SCHOLAR)

“Listen, my children, and don’t be skittish. If Cornwallis had won, we would all be British.” (Wayne Johnson)

PREPARING FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, by Paul Kennedy, (Random House) is stimulating reading. A couple of tastes:

“Japanese children go to school about 220 days (including half-day Saturday) compared to 180 in U.S.A. – and because they study longer each day, a 14 year-old Japanese student has been exposed to as much teaching as an American student of 17/18 years-old.”

“China and India are the most populous countries on earth. Their respective populations, 1,135 and 853 million – now over 37% of the world's total. Projected to year 2025, each will have 1.5 billion.” (p. 163)

“The combined agricultural subsidies of the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Japan, Italy total $250 billion a year.” (p. 75)

The late Senator Claude Pepper, “Life is like riding a bicycle. You don't fall off unless you stop pedaling.”

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., in his CRISIS OF THE OLD ORDER, quotes two 20th century Presidents:

“President Hoover stood manfully by his principles. Years later he wrote, ‘Many persons left their jobs for the more profitable one of selling apples.’” (p. 241)

F.D.R. lecturing at Milton Academy in 1926 said, “Change is inevitable in any society, unrest was a healthy sign and social disorder was caused as much by those who fear change as by those who seek revolution.” (p. 396)

Schlesinger also observed (p. 466), “Those who believe that personalities make no difference to history might well ponder whether the world would have been the same in the next two decades had Guiseppe Zangara’s bullet killed Roosevelt at Miami in 1933 and had Mario Contasini’s car killed Winston Churchill in 1931 on Fifth Ave., New York City.”

But I cannot let this “Musing” end without drawing on W.S. (I have a cap with the words “Will Power”, acquired in Ashland, Oregon and Will sure has the power to turn me on.)

“If music be the food of love, play on.” (The Duke in TWELFTH NIGHT)

Also TWELFTH NIGHT, Act II, Sc. 3, Toby to Clown, “Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

In KING JOHN, Act III, sc 3, King John instructs the Bastard to plunder the monasteries. He assents, saying

“Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back
When gold and silver becks me to come on.”
(Bell, book and candle are words used in the excommunication rite).

Caesar to Calpurnia, (Act II sc. 2),

“Cowards die many times before their death;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I have yet heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.”

Cressida says, (Act I, sc 2, TROILUS AND CRESSIDA),

“Things won are done;
joy’s soul lies in the doing.”

Maybe I’ve filled this “Musing” with quotes of great appeal to me because maybe I’m running dry. Maybe 1994 will see Erato jabbing me to more curmudgeon observations and glad and sad reflections on the funny and tragic happenings on the human scene.