3 quotes, 12 tweets

Here is an illustration that I stole from a handyman’s repair ad:

QUOTES

These quotes are unrelated to each other, beyond the fact that they were wrenched out of books that I happened to be reading today. The first is from a translation of Giambattista Vico’s New Science:

It is a truth of sociology that nations are naturally reluctant to embrace foreign deities, unless they are liberated by an extreme freedom of religion, which only occurs in the late stages of their decadence. It is a truth of physics that the planets appear larger than the fixed stars because of an optical illusion.

This next quote is from Ludwig Wittgenstein. I found it in a volume called Culture and Value, edited by G. H. von Wright in collaboration with Heikki Nyman, translated by Peter Winch:

If it is true that Mahler’s music is worthless, as I believe to be the case, then the question is what I think he ought to have done with his talent. For quite obviously it took a set of very rare talents to produce this bad music. Should he, say, have written his symphonies and then burnt them? Or should he have done violence to himself and not written them? Should he have written them and realized that they were worthless? But how could he have realized that? I can see it, because I can compare his music with what the great composers wrote.

Finally, here’s a quote that really makes me smile. It’s from R.G. Ingersoll, concerning his fear about the unfair makeup of a jury:

Never get tried by the other fellow’s hired hand. If you do, you will get left every time. When I die and appear before the bar of Heaven for judgment, if God will come forward Himself and listen to my story, I’ll stand a show. But if He will turn me over to one of His clerks, I’m gone.

TWEETS

I always archive the overage of my Twittering Machine here on this weblog, because . . . because . . . Honestly, I wasn’t prepared to give a reason for doing this – please just allow me to copy & paste my stuff so that I can earn the reward of a glass of decaffeinated espresso:

• An oversized ‘NO’ should be chained to every small ‘yes’.
• I see that you went from supermodels to yellow pages.
• If by some strange mistake one actually inherits any disciples, one’s only teaching should be: Wave off everything I say.
• I am going to steal a couple Nobel Prizes and give them to you.
• All I ask of menfolk everywhere is that they try their best to be sexy new moms.
• Will the inventor of chess please evaluate the series?
• Henceforth please call me Mr Pro Football Player.
• When visiting all the yoga clinics here in the West, I like to go directly into “rest pose” & then just sob for the duration of the class.
• I don’t know what yours ever accomplished, but my scientist just discovered the elusive Miami Bass Particle.
• Our friendship is almost complete: Link up your bank account to unlock all the benefits of Bryan Ray.
• Faith is the coin of the realm. Coin is the faith of the realm.
• Please step into my office – I’d simply like to examine you all over.