I'm quoting, here (no spam)

BaronTx · Post by **BaronTx** » Thu Oct 17, 2002 7:12 pm

A lot of my favorite quotes come from Thomas Jefferson, but they are too long to post here. The man definitely had some insight into the future of the USA. And some sound advice to go with it.

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Oct 18, 2002 8:43 am

Originally posted by BaronTx
A lot of my favorite quotes come from Thomas Jefferson, but they are too long to post here. The man definitely had some insight into the future of the USA. And some sound advice to go with it.

@BaronTx, I agree: Jefferson was one of the most curious and interesting "fathers of the US," a man of great visionary power, achievement, and glaring failings, both personal and cultural. Have you ever read Henry Adams' (great-grandson of John Adams) history of the four terms in office of the Jefferson and Madison administrations? Fascinating reading.

...And so as not to spam this topic devoted to great quotes, here's some more from that superb classical conductor and raconteur, Thomas Beecham:

"Brass bands are all very well in their place - outdoors and several miles away."

"I have just been all round the world and have formed a very poor opinion of it."

"The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes."

"Composers should write tunes that chauffeurs and errand boys can whistle." (I heartily agree with that sentiment. A shame Beecham never lived to see the revival of classical music as a living art form, with composers who wrote for concert audiences instead of abstruse mathematical theories.)

The sound of a harpsichord is that of two skeletons copulating on a tin roof. During a hailstorm."

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Oct 18, 2002 10:35 am

I still have my doubts about Sedgwick. Those words are simply too pat, too good for the situation. It's like a bad Hollywood screenplay joke.

Elsewhere, I've had the memoirs of the officer who supposedly heard them recounted to me--but as this is the only source for the alledged remark, I'm still not convinced. Many a memoir has been written years later by authors under a haze of romanticism, or by those making up tales to sell books.

Hell, it still happens. Frank Capra, director of films like "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "It's a Wonderful Life" (the latter has been responsible for inducing more diabetic seizures than all other films combined) wrote an autobiography in the last years of his life which has been condemned for its outright lies as well as its bitter manner. It seems Capra never realized that film archivists now have many tools for checking dates, comments, etc. So Capra's willingness to lay claim to the best work of others was immediately shown for what it was, gratuitously self-serving, while his comments attributed to others are now disregarded.

This is but one example. There are literally hundreds, many of them suffering more from faulty recollection than deliberate falsification.

Jaesha · Post by **Jaesha** » Fri Oct 18, 2002 11:06 am

Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, 'It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than to be selfish and worry about my liver.'
--Jack Handey

RandomThug · Post by **RandomThug** » Fri Oct 18, 2002 11:16 am

A few

I've met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, "Why?"
Why did I cause so much pain?

Didn't I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness?

Can't I see that we're all manifestations of love?

I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God's got this all wrong.

We are not special.

We are not crap or trash either. We just are.

We just are, and what happens just happens.

And God says, "No, that's not right."

Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything.

- Chuck Palahniuk

RandomThug · Post by **RandomThug** » Fri Oct 18, 2002 11:29 am

Ehhh yeah

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a ****ing big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of ****ing fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit- crushing game shows, stuffing ****ing junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, ****ed-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that?

- John Hodge

Chanak · Post by **Chanak** » Fri Oct 18, 2002 11:34 am

Some of my favorite quotes...

Here are some of my favorite quotes, selected from the writings of Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce.

"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
- Mark Twain, a Biography

"All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity."
- Mark Twain's Autobiography; also in Mark Twain in Eruption

A sampling from The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce:

COMMERCE, n.
A kind of transaction in which A plunders from B the goods of C, and for compensation B picks the pocket of D of money belonging to E.

CONSERVATIVE, n.
A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

DAY, n.
A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper -- the former devoted to sins of business, the latter consecrated to the other sort. These two kinds of social activity overlap.

HISTORY, n.
An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

INCOMPATIBILITY, n.
In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination. Incompatibility may, however, consist of a meek-eyed matron living just around the corner. It has even been known to wear a moustache.

LANGUAGE, n.
The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another's treasure.

MAMMON, n.
The god of the world's leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.
He swore that all other religions were gammon,
And wore out his knees in the worship of Mammon.
Jared Oopf

OCCIDENT, n.
The part of the world lying west (or east) of the Orient. It is largely inhabited by Christians, a powerful subtribe of the Hypocrites, whose principal industries are murder and cheating, which they are pleased to call "war" and "commerce." These, also, are the principal industries of the Orient.

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Oct 18, 2002 9:30 pm

Originally posted by Osiris
Not worth a lengthy argument, but I stand by my source. Foote describes the incident in some detail, and his narrative is certainly not comparable to a "hollywood memoir".

No, Foote's not writing a memoir, but on the other hand, his sources are (as he himself admits) not above rumormongering. Take that incident he relates about Grant being couped up, jumping on a horse after getting drunk and nearly killing himself in a spill. It's certainly history, because the story shows US Army attitude towards Grant at the time, but Foote neither accepts nor rejects it; and certainly the only diary accounts of the period mention "hearing" about it, rather than seeing it. Not to argue the point; such matters hang on the word of a single man who is dead, and no one else can speak convincingly to the matter.

Kameleon · Post by **Kameleon** » Sat Oct 19, 2002 6:09 am

Originally posted by fable
"The sound of a harpsichord is that of two skeletons copulating on a tin roof. During a hailstorm."

ROFLMAO

It reminds me of "How to play Jazz on a piano for Dummies": Bash at the keys

Look, honky-tonk!

fable · Post by **fable** » Sat Oct 19, 2002 8:26 am

Originally posted by mental_nomad
Fable,
With all due respect, and I mean that, I cannot fathom how you say you can't believe something because to you, it sounds too pat Yet you say he was shot twice leading a charge. Where did you read he was shot twice leading a charge?

@Mental Nomad, first off, this is getting far away from the topic of this thread: great quotes. If you really want to discuss this, please, start a new topic.

Second, is this a matter only of having a problem with my position on Sedgwick's quote? If so, it might be better to limit it to PMs.

Finally, you seem to take great exception to my expressed doubts of one man's report on another man's final words, amounting almost to a personal affront. I don't know why, but I'd rather keep any discussion involving myself up here a bit less...deathly earnest. If we cannot agree to disagree, let's at least agree to keep the discussion focused and good-natured.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sat Oct 19, 2002 8:39 am

Originally posted by Kameleon
ROFLMAO
It reminds me of "How to play Jazz on a piano for Dummies": Bash at the keys Look, honky-tonk!

Heh. Beecham arrived on the scene before the great revival of old instruments and older music. If he hated the harpsichord, imagine what he would say today about the valveless horn, the clavichord, the krumhorn, or the whole modern idea of using completely vibratoless strings to simulate a "baroque sound?"

Here are a short assortment of jokes that instrumentalists tell about one another--and frequently about themselves:

Why is a bassoon better than an oboe? The bassoon burns longer.

What's the definition of "nerd?" Someone who owns his own alto clarinet.

How many alto sax players does it take to change a lightbulb? Five. One to change the bulb and four to contemplate how David Sanborn would have done it.

What's the difference between trumpet players and government bonds? Government bonds eventually mature and earn money.

What's the definition of a quarter tone? A harpist tuning unison strings.

What is a gentleman? Somebody who knows how to play the trombone, but doesn't.

What's the difference between a violin and a viola? There is no difference. The violin just looks smaller because the violinist's head is so much bigger.

How can you make a trombone sound like a french horn? Stick your hand in the bell and play a lot of wrong notes.

What do you call someone who hangs out with musicians? A drummer.

How do you make a cello sound beautiful? Sell it and buy a violin.

What's the difference between a soprano and a pirhana? The lipstick.

What's the difference between an alto and a tenor? Tenors don't have hair on their backs.

How do you tell if a tenor is dead? The wine bottle is still full and the comics haven't been touched.

In the last act of Don Giovanni, there is always a statue which is replaced at some point by a real singer, a bass (the Commendatore). How can you tell when the switch has occurred? The "statue" starts looking a bit stiff.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun Oct 20, 2002 10:45 am

Um, guys--shrewd quotes? No spam?

I'm going to start deleting posts that don't fill the bill real soon. I mean, it's not as if we don't have at least one or two spam threads around...

der Moench · Post by **der Moench** » Sun Oct 20, 2002 12:20 pm

What is spam? -- Depends on who's posting it!

Originally posted by fable
"Life is but a game, shboom shboom, a yadda-yadda-yadda-da." -1950's song, Shboom.

Silly fable! You posted the exact same thing on page four!

Just so as not to be accused of spamming myself, I will add this quote from David Byrne. The guy is a genius!

“Many of these modern concerns [of relationships between nature and culture, people and civilizations versus animals and nature, and immortality and death] came again to the surface and were widely discussed during the Industrial Revolution in Europe and North America. It seems to me that this was a period when most of the ideas that we live with now, most of the concepts and feelings we think are so ‘modern’ - like nature being beautiful and cities ugly, like the assumption that God is part of Nature, and Man not being a part of that Nature - once again became common currency. Our ideas about the concept of progress, about work, machines, sex, love and the spirit were largely generated during the advent of machine culture. It’s strange to see that we believe most of the same things now, even though this industrial culture is on it’s way out . . .

We’ve moved on to an ‘information culture,’ a ‘software culture,’ or a ‘service culture,’ or whatever it is. But it’s not really a culture of big machines anymore. We think of them as relics. And yet we still live with the biases, assumptions and beliefs that come out of this age. We are filled up with these ideas in our schools, through our newspapers, our televisions, our music, art and literature.

One of the personal discoveries I made while working on [‘The Forest’] is that we’re a lot less ‘modern’ than we think we are. For the most part, we’re living and breathing in a new world, while thinking and feeling in an old one. We need to ‘take stock,’ to become aware of our prejudices and biases, before we can take the next step.

So my attempt at ‘taking stock’ has been to write music evocative of this period in our history. I’ve tried to write music that draws a lot from the Romantic composers. I wanted to be able to sympathize with those who feel the romance of the factory. The beauty, the power, the possibilities of the machines that would change the world.”

Brilliant!

Robnark · Post by **Robnark** » Sun Oct 20, 2002 12:54 pm

listening to the radio dramatisation of 'Flashman at the Charge' by George MacDonald Frazer earlier today, i heard the wonderful statement that God is may not be on their side, because(and i paraphrase)

'God favours the winners'

sheer class

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun Oct 20, 2002 4:18 pm

Silly fable! You posted the exact same thing on page four!

And this surprises you? First, it was more than a year ago. Second, I'm senile. Third, I reserve for myself the right to self-contradiction and sudden reversal of opinion.

On second thought, no I don't.

"Say "I love you" to those you love. The eternal silence is long enough to be silent in, and that awaits us all." -George Eliot

"Every educated person is a future enemy." -Martin Boorman

"When I was a boy I was told that anyone could become president. I'm beginning to believe it." -Clarence Darrow

"The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him." -Robert Benchley (my favorite humorist, and that won't change anytime soon)

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun Oct 20, 2002 7:16 pm

It's been pointed out to me that Mental Nomad wasn't the first one to bring up Sedgwick and the elephant gun (of late); Osiris did, and I answered him. So I shouldn't have asked MN to refrain from discussing what I'd already replied to. Be it so noted.

I'm willing to discuss the American Civil War or aspects of it, under another thread. However, I'd still like to keep this topic more or less on course, though I'm willing to allow it to wander a bit from time just a bit over hedge and field, woodland and bracken.

Maharlika · Post by **Maharlika** » Mon Oct 21, 2002 12:03 am

Now, now, fable, don't lose hope...

Originally posted by fable
Um, guys--shrewd quotes? No spam? I'm going to start deleting posts that don't fill the bill real soon. I mean, it's not as if we don't have at least one or two spam threads around...

...here's one:

"...build your character son, I tell you, it's an aphrodisiac. Women love men of character." --- from my own father.

Pe Ell · Post by **Pe Ell** » Mon Oct 21, 2002 4:04 am

"In space nobody can hear you scream unless it's the battlecry of the united states marines!"

Maharlika · Post by **Maharlika** » Mon Oct 21, 2002 10:00 pm

Mahatma Gandhi...

"There is always a gentle way to shake the world."