Tag Archives: quotations

“I don’t repeat gossip … so listen carefully”

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“I don’t repeat gossip … so listen carefully”.

Yesterday (Sunday 23 September), I ran into an acquaintance in a local pub, and he invited me to join him at his table. I accepted gladly and enjoyed catching up as we haden’t come across one another for a while.

During the course of our chat, my acquaintance came out with the above quotation, which greatly amused me and I fell to pondering on its origin.

The quote can be found on metal plaques and mugs, but one of the few places where it’s origins are discussed is here, https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=733071. However this post gives no conclusive evidence as to the quotations origin. If any of my readers know where the above eminates from, I would be very interested to hear from you.

Kevin

Lord Salisbury Quotes

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“By a free country I mean a country where people are allowed, so long as they do not hurt their neighbours, to do as they like. I do not mean a country where six men may make five men do exactly as they like.

That is not my notion of freedom”.

“A gram of experience is worth a ton of theory”.

“The days and weeks of screwed-up smiles and laboured courtesy, the mock geniality, the hearty shake of the filthy hand, the chuckling reply that must be made to the coarse joke, the loathsome, choking compliment that must be paid to the grimy wife and sluttish daughter, the indispensable flattery of the vilest religious prejudices, the wholesale deglutition of hypocritical pledges”. (Lord Salisbury on electoral canvasing. No politician would, I feel sure venture to publicly express such views as regards the electorate of the United Kingdom today).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gascoyne-Cecil,_3rd_Marquess_of_Salisbury

“Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all”

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I am a great lover of quotations. I recently came across the below quotation by Arthur Balfour, which struck a chord with me:

“Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all”.

In his work “The Conservative Party from Peel to Churchill”, the late Lord Robert Blake writes of Balfour in the following terms:

“The new Prime Minister was a person of immense charm, great intellectual power, and much political sagacity. Like his uncle, he took it for granted that parliamentary democracy would only work—if it could work at all—as long as “the masses” continued to elect their leaders from “the classes”. Not that he was himself, any more than Salisbury, a typical member of the order to which he belonged. He was too clever, too cool and too detached to be thus categorised …”.
(“The Conservative Party from Peel to Churchill”, by Lord Robert Blake. Eyre and Spottiswoode (publishers) LTD. Chapter 5, Tory Democracy and the rule of Lord Salisbury 1881-1902).

For anyone interested in finding out more about the enigmatic Balfour, the following article may be of interest, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Balfour.

Quote Of The Day

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“If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies

on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity”.

(Middlemarch Chapter XX, http://www.victorianlondon.org/etexts/eliot/middlemarch-0020.shtml).

Quote Of The Day

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“What is the end of Fame ? ’tis but to fill

A certain portion of uncertain paper :

Some liken it to climbing up a hill,

Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour ;

For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,

And bards burn what they call their ‘midnight taper’,

To have, when the original is dust,

A name, a wretched picture and worse bust”.

(Lord Byron “Growing Old”, http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/Classic%20Poems/Byron/growing_old.htm).

The Abyss

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“Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” (F Nietzsche).

I first came across this quote while at university and it has stayed with me ever since. There is a fascinating discussion regarding it’s meaning here, http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/and-if-you-gaze-for-long-into-an-abyss-the-abyss-gazes-also-into-38060-11.html

3 Quotes Challenge Day 2

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Many thanks to masgautsen of The Thoughts and Life of Me for nominating me to participate in the 3 Quotes Challenge, (http://thethoughtsandlifeofme.com/2015/06/14/3-quotes-challenge-1st-day/).

There are three simple rules:

 

  1. Post 3 of your favourite quotes each per day for 3 recurrent days. The quotes can be of any other people or it may come straight from your own heart.

 

  1. Nominate 3 bloggers with each post to challenge them.

 

  1. Don’t forget to utter a thankful word to the person who nominated you

 

Now for my second quote which was said about one K Morris about himself:

“I am not a clubbable man, though many have wished to club me”.

 

My nominees who are, of course under no obligation whatsoever to accept. We all have busy lives so I won’t be offended if you don’t participate.

 

Anju (https://cupitonians.wordpress.com/).

Tess (https://letscutthecrap.wordpress.com/).

Waternymph88 (https://scarstearsandtrainingbras.wordpress.com/author/waternymph88/).

 

Kevin

 

 

Can Anyone Name The Novel In Which The Following Dialogue Takes Place?

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A question for you. Can anyone name the novel in which the following dialogue takes place?

“Sir, on hearing you speak I am reminded of Shakespeare”.

“Really! My conversation has the ring of Shakespeare about it!You compliment me. To which heroic character do you refer?”

“I refer sir to Macbeth and the lines voiced by him as he nears his end, namely

“a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing”.

Darkness

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From the darkness we came and to the darkness we shall return.

 

The above words came to me when I woke up today, on a gloomy UK morning. Looking them up on the web there are variations on the quote but not the precise wording given above.

 

We come from the dark womb then, sooner or later we enter, as Hamlet so eloquently puts it “The undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns”. Am I in a dark mood? Not particularly. The quote popped into my head this morning and seemed appropriate to share it.