When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water.
“Qualunque imbecille può inventare e imporre tasse. L’abilità consiste nel ridurre le spese, dando nondimeno servizi efficienti, corrispondenti all’importo delle tasse.” (Maffeo Pantaleoni)
“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle” (Edmund Burke)
“Our movies may have looked like home movies, but then our home wasn’t like anybody else’s.” (Andy Warhol)
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. (Mark Twain)
Mio Dio, per chi stiamo suonando? Per le tre persone che sono qui. E per noi.(Carlos Kleiber, provando Der Freischutz)
The question ‘why?’ pushes itself to the foreground, and the idea that there is a distinction between right and wrong very soon gets purchase – Roger Scruton
“Supposing you got a crate of oranges that you opened, and you found all the top layer of oranges bad, you would not argue, ‘The underneath ones must be good, so as to redress the balance’; You would say, ‘Probably the whole lot is a bad consignment’.” (B.R.)
“Ah! ah! monsieur l’abbé, vous faites le plaisant!” V.
Si vous n’en convenez pas, il ne nous importe. Nous croirons toujours sans vous que deux et deux font quatre. (V.)
“Under the prevailing cultural ethos, phoniness is the new integrity.” (Louis Bayard, the Washington Post)
“Is what you should think more important than what you think?” (Pat Condell)
There was a time for each man when he was still adjusted to an environment that no longer existed. (Walter Lippmann)
“En toda tribu no hay nada tan alarmante como las violaciones del código lingüístico”. (M.V. Montalban)”
“Tutti i forni vivono di vita propria, voi conoscete il vostro come io conosco il mio.” Casalinga veneta
“Mientras usted hace eso yo ya le he pegado media docena de naturales”. Manolete
“Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister!” (J.J.)
“Il problema della decadenza è, in effetti, quello che mi ha occupato la mente con maggiore pervasività.” (F. W. Nietzsche)
Immaginare milioni di italiani che passano ore e ore a twittare, o chini sul computer per dare la caccia a chi non la pensa come loro, è una visione da voltastomaco. (G.Pansa)
“I wish to propose for the reader’s favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.” (B.R)
“Lo que ocurre es que solemos vivir como si no supiéramos que todo y todos son una mierda” (M.V.Montalban)
“Forse noi non abbiamo tenuto abbastanza conto di come la musica è percepita dall’ascoltatore” – Pierre Boulez
«Mi deprime. Lei forse vedrà più film italiani di me, ma quelli che ho visto negli ultimi tre anni sembrano tutti uguali. Non fanno che parlare di: ragazzo che cresce, ragazza che cresce, coppia in crisi, genitori, vacanze per minorati mentali. Che cosa è successo? Me lo dica lei. Ho amato così tanto il cinema italiano degli anni ’60 e ’70 e alcuni film degli Anni ’80, e ora sento che è tutto finito. Una vera tragedia». (Q.Tarantino)
“An artist can function at his best in a vital and healthy environment for the simple reason that the very act of creation is an affirmative gesture” (Aaron Copland, 1949)
“How is it possible that Emil Sauer must play in the small Salle Érard, despite his glorious past, when a Brailowsky or Uninsky can pack the Salle Pleyel?” (Dinu Lipatti)
The fact that German anti-semitism and anti-capitalism spring from the same root is of great importance for the understanding of what has happened there, but this is rarely grasped by foreign observers. (F. Hayek)
“I am for a government rigorously frugal & simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers & salaries merely to make partisans, & for increasing, by every device, the public debt, on the principle of its being a public blessing.” ―Thomas Jefferson
“Era grande el calor, la sombra poca” (Luis Cernuda)
« Aprende las reglas como un profesional para poder romperlas como un artista. » Pablo Picasso
Duae pestes gravissimae, Aristotelis fermentum, et hebraicae linguae ignorantia christianos Cristo privarunt. (Serveto)
By my rambling digressions, I perceive myself to be grown old. I used to write more methodically. But one does not dress for private company as for a public ball. Perhaps it is only negligence. (Benjamin Franklin)
Tunc quaesivi ab ahis, an etiam Erasmus Roterodamus esset cum eis. Respondit mihi quidam Kauffmannus dicens : ” Erasmus est homo pro se” (Epistolae obscurorum virorum, LIX)
Europe was united, but only negatively, in its opposition to a power felt as foreign (which is the surest indication of the absence of legitimacy). (Henry Kissinger, parlando dell’Europa napoleonica)
“Un libro feticcio, uno di quelli che il pirla milanese può esporre o regalare solo per il titolo, che poi i libri mica si leggono” (F.Facci)
the measure of [his] belief was regulated by that of his wishes – Edward Gibbon
The stout student (…)farted briefly. —I had it on my mind to say that. It did no one any harm, did it? (J.J.)
Mon capitaine ajoutait que chaque balle qui partait d’un fusil avait son billet. (Diderot)
“My dreams were therefore undisturbed by reality”. Mary Shelley
Father Conmee thought of that tyrannous incontinence, needed however for man’s race on earth, and of the ways of God which were not our ways. (J.J.)
That I am equal or superior to some of these, the effects of modesty or affectation cannot force me to dissemble. (Edward Gibbon)
“There is no talent so ardently supported, nor generously rewarded, as the ability to convince parasites they are victims.” – Thomas Sowell
“J’avais pris pour mon patron saint Thomas Didyme, qui voulait toujours mettre le doigt dessus.”(V.)
‘The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.’ – Aldous Huxley
“I’ve got nothing against God, it’s his fan club I can’t stand” -Woody Allen-
Cuando tu vas, yo ya fuí y vine dos veces
Tritissima quaeque via et celeberrima maxime decipit. Nihil ergo magis praestandum est quam ne pecorum ritu sequamur antecedentium gregem, pergentes non quo eundum est sed quo itur. (Seneca)
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. (B.R.)
erasmodue
Commenti recenti