цитаты

[avva]

Читаю alt.quotations (ньюсгруппа, посвящённая цитатам, афоризмам, максимам итп.). Забавно они там общаются, почти исключительно цитатами. Кто-то начинает тему цитатой (например, о битве при Ватерлоо), а в ответ на это другие участники приводят другие цитаты на ту же тему (или смежные темы, или по ассоциации с чем-то) из своих коллекций или из памяти.

На самом деле цитатничество очень затягивает, на эту тему есть неплохой рассказ Веллера [ссылку искать лень].
Но в какой-то момент понимаешь бессмысленность этого занятия. Даже хорошие афоризмы теряют свой блеск в куче из тысячи ещё таких же хороших.

Всё-таки приведу здесь некоторые из понравившихся во время сегодняшнего беглого прохода.

• 3 reasons to be a teacher...
  June
  July
  August
  
  — inscription on a coffee mug
  
• о фразе "лучшее — враг хорошего" на разных языках:
  
  > A friend of mine came up with the wonderful phrase "Perfect is the enemy
  > of good" - only, neither of us can decide if it's original or not.
  > Anything similar out there?
  
  In Danish, we have 'Det gode er det bedstes værste fjende', meaning 'the good is the worst enemy of the best'.
  According to http://www.dsn.dk/nfs/1998-1.htm, it is an old proverb, found in Italian as 'Il meglio e nemico del bene' and mentioned by Voltaire in La bégueule:

  Dans ses écrits un sage Italien
  dit, que le mieux est l'ennemi du bien

  A version of the proverb is also found in Danish in the 1680s.


• What exactly is "viewer discretion"? If viewers had discretion, most television shows would not be on the air.
  

  -- George Carlin, _Brain Droppings_, 1997

  
  
• The best of all things for earthly men is not to be born and not to see the beams of the bright sun; but if born, then as quickly as possible to pass the gates of Hades, and to lie deep buried.
  

  --Theognis (fl. c. 545 BC) _Elegies_, Line 425

  
  I wish I had never been born! But who has such luck? Not one in ten thousand.
  

  -- Anon. (Yiddish)

  
  
• Trying the other day to imitate the honking of geese,
  I found myself flapping my sides with my
  elbows, as with wings, and uttering something like
  the syllables "mow-ack" with a nasal twang and twist
  in my head; and I produced their note so perfectly
  in the opinion of the hearers that I thought I might
  possibly draw a flock down.
  

  --Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
  _Journal_ [March 20, 1855]

  
  
• >> I can't shake the conviction that Saul Bellow is the next best thing
  >> to chloroform.
  >> - Philip Marchand, Toronto Star, June 14
  >
  > Reading Proust is like bathing in someone else's dirty water.
  >
  > -- Alexander Wolcott
  
• "I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it
  scattered around the beaches of the world ... Perhaps you've seen it.
  

  -- Steven Wright

  
  
• South Carolina is too small for a republic, and too large for an insane
  asylum.
  

  --James L. Petigru

  
  South Dakota: A part of hell with the fires burnt out.
  

  --George Armstrong Custer

  
  What enemy would invade Scotland, where there is nothing to be got?
  

  - Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)

  
  
• I believe that, if a triangle could speak, it would say, in like
  manner, that God is eminently triangular, while a circle would say
  that the divine nature is eminently circular. Thus each would ascribe
  to God its own attributes, would assume itself to be like God, and
  look on everything else as ill-shaped.
  

  - Baruch Spinoza, letter to Hugo Boxel
  http://members.tripod.com/~BDSweb/en/let/l56.htm

  
  
• The five most important words in engineering:
  "Pay attention to detail."
  
• 
  There was no respect for youth when I was young,
  and now that I am old there is no respect for age.
  I missed it coming and going.
  

  --J. B. Priestly (1894-1984)

  
  
• You put your left index finger on your eye and your right index finger
  on the cheese...if they sort of feel the same, the cheese is ready.
  

  --M. Taittinger, on how to test the ripeness of Camembert cheese

  
  
• Nearly every woman in England is competent to write an
  authoritative article on how not to cook cabbage.
  

  ~ Vyvyan Holland, Wine and Food (1935)

  
  England: the only country in the world where the food is more dangerous than
  the sex.
  

  ---Jackie Mason, 1990

  
  The English have an extraordinary ability for flying into a great
  calm.
  

  --Alexander Woollcott

  
  
• I had rather stand in the shock of a basilisk,
  than in the fury of a merciless pen
  

  ~Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici , pt ii sec iv (1643)

  
  
• Whenever someone annoys me, I create a file with his or her name on it
  and drag it to my Mac's trash icon. If I'm really angry, I empty the
  trash, and whoever was bugging me disappears into the void.
  

  -- Margo Kaufman

Comments

Офф-топик

[tiomkin.livejournal.com]

Анатолий, у вас где-то был пост (и дискуссия соответтвенно) про цитату про патриотизм, как последнее прибежище негодяяя. Не подскажете где именно, вопрос тут возник.

Спасибо заранее

Re: Офф-топик

[avva.livejournal.com]

С удовольствием, вот этот пост.

[(Anonymous)]

Thinking is difficult therefore let the herd pass the judgement.
-- J.B. Shaw
(a perfect quote on distributed programming)

Да, да, я всегда знал, что правильно -

[(Anonymous)]

Да, да, я всегда знал, что правильно - "хорошее - враг лучшего" :)

TLKH