Quote of the day

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
A few from Gertrude Stein

-I've been rich and I've been poor.
It's better to be rich.

-This is the lesson history teaches us: repetition.

-It's awfully important to know what is and what is not your business.

-We are always the same age inside.

-Remarks are not literature.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Charles Darwin

Darwin is often "misquoted" or misinterpreted by
suggesting he coined the term "survival of the fittest".

A scientist named Herbert Spencer came up with the term
which was applied to a way of thinking called social Darwinism- a misuse of Darwin's
ideas and used by many to promote inequality, racism, eugenics,
imperialism, the status quo of those in power.


An actual quote from Darwin-

-It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives,
it is the one that is most adaptable to change.

Darwin did have a social conscience-

-If the misery of the poor is caused not by the laws of nature, but
by our institutions, great is our sin.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
There is more than one way to skin a cat.

Well, we know what that means, but, well- was there a time when people skinned cats to the extent that
it was natural for that to become a saying?
And the answer is yes.
Dogs and cats were used for fur and skinned ust like the other more valuable wild animals and found
their place in the economic hierarchy of the times. Even, today, in many countries, raising dogs
and cats for fur (even for food) is very common. I had a neighbor who belonged to a "collie organization"
that would adopt collies from other countries there they were not considered pets.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Some random quotes

If oxen and lions had hands, and could paint with their hands, produce works of art
as men do, horses would paint the forms of gods like horses, ad oxen like oxen.
-Xenophanes

Government can be a kind of gangsterism and is in Russia and likely to be here
if we don't take care of ourselves pretty carefully.
-Frank Lloyd Wright

The account of the creation of the world and the story of Adam and Eve
and the Garden of Eden, seem so funny.
Wu Ting-Fang

The truth is, we are all caught in a great economic system which is heartless.
-Woodrow Wilson
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
From the Marquis de Sade

-Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain.

-To judge from the notions expounded by theologians, one
must conclude that God created most men simply with a view to crowding Hell.

-Either kill me or take me as I am, because I'll be damned if I ever change.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Random quotes

Fascism is a dictatorship from the extreme right,
or to put it a little mor closely into our local idiom,
a government which is run by a small group of Jean Cocteau
large industrialists and financial lords.
-Heywood Broun (1936)

The wicked have a solid interest that the good never seem to possess.
The good are grand for one great rally. Then they go home and work at their business.
The cohesive power of public plunder remains on the job.
-Nicholas Murray Butler

The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free.
-Jean Cocteau

We find in the history of all usurping governments, time changes anomaly
into system, and injury into right; examples beget custom, and custom ripens
into law, and the doubtful precedent of one generation becomes the
fundamental maxim of another.
Henry Hallam (1818)
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Oldie movie quotes for fun
(Match quote ot movie)


1. Round up the usual suspects. ......................................a. King Kong

2. Badges we ain't got no badges... ...................................b. Arsenic and Old Lace

3. Made it Ma. Top of the world...........................................c. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

4. Insanity runs in the family. It practically gallops....... d. It Happened one Night

5. Sanctuary, sanctuary............................................................e. Casablanca

6. It was Beauty killed the beast............................................f. The Hunchback of Note Dame

7. I'll stop a car and I won't use my thumb.......................g. White Heat

1=e, 2=c, 3=g, 4=b, 5=f, 6=a, 7=d
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Quotes- authors commenting on other authors

Robert Louis Stevenson on Walt Whitman
-A large shaggy dog just unchained scouring
the beaches of the world and baying at the moon.

D H Lawrence on Herman Melville
-Nobody is more clownish, more clumsy and
sententiously in bad taste.

Mark Twain on Jane Austen
-Every time I read Pride and Prejudice, I want to
dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

William Faulkner on Mark Twain
-A hack writer who would not have been considered fourth rate in Europe...

Dorothy Parker on Ayn Rand
-Atlas Shrugged is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force.

Truman Capote on Jack Kerouac
-That's not writing, that's typing.

Virginia Woolf on James Joyce
-Ulysses is the work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru

Golden Rule

hands 2847508 1920
A mosaic located at the entrance of the United Nations Secretariat Building in New York depicts people of different nationalities, religions, and cultures with the words: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, the so called Golden Rule, inscribed on its surface.

But what exactly is the Golden Rule? It is a unique law because “it expresses a formidable intuition that is accessible to human knowledge and conscience”[1], in that is part of all the main religions and schools of thought of the world. As a consequence it can also be described as the core of universal ethical codes. According to recent studies, it was mentioned as early as 3,000 BC in the vedic Indian tradition: “Don't do unto others what you don't want done unto you; wish for others what you wish for yourself”[2].

Among the oldest golden rule quotes we can find those from the philosopher Confucius, who lived in China between the sixth and fifth century BC.

As for Judaism, we can read the Golden Rule for the first time in the Book of Tobias, dated 200 BC, but Jesus Christ has turned it into a positive sentence: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.[3]

During the Middle Ages, the rule was included in the Rule of Saint Benedict[4] and in the Regola non bollata of Saint Francis of Assisi[5].



Golden Rule in religion and culture

We have already mentioned that one of the more interesting characteristics of the Golden rule is that it can be found inside all the main religions, schools of though, and philosophies everywhere in the world and in all time periods. We want to mention a few in alphabetical order.

Baha’ì: “Blessed is who prefers his brother to himself” (Bahà’u’llàh tablets – 19th century).

Buddhism: “Whatever is disagreeable to yourself, do not do unto others” (The Buddha, Udana-Varga 5.18 – 6th century BC).

Confucianism: “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you” (Confucius, Analects 15.23 – 5th century BC).

Christianity: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Gospel of Matthew 22, 36-40 – 1st century CE).

Judaism: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow-man. This is the entire Law, all the rest is commentary” (Talmud, Shabbat 3id – 16th century BC).

Gandhi: “To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face, one must be able to love the meanest of all creation as oneself” (translated from: Il mio credo, il mio pensiero, Newton Compton, Rome 1992, page 70 – 20th century).

Jainism: “In happiness and sorrow, in joy and in pain, we should consider every creature as we consider ourselves” (Mahavira, 24th Tirthankara – 6th century BC).

Judaism: “Never do to anyone else anything that you would not want someone to do to you” (Tobias 4, 15 – 3rd century BC).

Hinduism: “This is the sum of duty. Do not unto others that which would cause you pain if done to you” (Mahabharata 5, 1517 – 15th century BC).

Islam: “None of you will believe until you love for your brother what you love for yourself” (Hadith 13, The Forty Hadith of Imam Nawawi – 7th century).

Native Americans: “Respect for every form of life is the foundation”(The Big Law of Peace– 16th century).

Plato: “I can do to others what I’d like them to do to me” (5th century BC).
Yoruba wise saying (West Africa): “If somebody stings a bird with a sharp stick, should be first try it on himself and realise how badly it hurts”.

Seneca: “Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters” (Letter 47 11 – 1st century).

Shintoism: “Be charitable to all beings, love is the representation of God” (approximately 500 CE: Ko-ji-ki Hachiman Kasuga – 8th century BC)

Sikhism: “I am a stranger to no one, and no one is a stranger to me. Indeed, I am a friend to all” (Guru Granth Sahib, religious scripture of Sikhism, p. 1299 – 15th century).

Voltaire: “Put yourself in the other person's shoes” (Letters on the English, n.42).

Zoroastrianism: “Do not do to others what is harmful for yourself” (Shayast-na-Shayast 13, 29 – between 18 and 15 century BC).

 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
The minute you or anybody else knows what you are you are not it,
you are what you or anybody else knows you are and as everything in living is made up
of finding out what you are it is extraordinarily difficult really not to know what you are and yet to be that thing.

-Gertrude Stein
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
One of the saddest things in life, is the things one remembers. The young people think the old people are fools --
but the old people know the young people are fools. In the midst of life, we are in death.
-Agatha Christie

Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.
- Also Agatha Christie
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Some from George Sand (Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin)
  • There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved. ...
  • Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience and the last effort of genius. ...
  • Vanity is the quicksand of reason. ...
  • Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness.
 
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Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is
like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.
-Ben Hecht
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Three from Marilyn Monroe

-A girl doesn't need anyone who doesn't need her.

-I live to succeed, not to please anyone else.

-We are all stars and we deserve to twinkle.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Four by Martha Graham

“Dance is the hidden language of the soul”
― Martha Graham

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.”
― Martha Graham

“Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion.”
― Martha Graham

“What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.”
― Martha Graham
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Bagumbawalla wonders why his quotations have not been collected.
Here are a few.

1, I think, therefore I think I think.

2. The only thing we have to fear is speaking about it in public.

3. What doesn't kill me makes me tired.

4. The future belongs to the very wealthy.

5. Life is an interesting diversion.

6. To love and be loved is the movie of the week.

7. Live is really simple, but we insist on making sense.

8. The unexamined life should be examined before making an offer.

9. In three words I can sum up everything I learned about life- "Yabba dabba do".

10. When Life gives you lemons, well, that's something, isn't it?
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Some from Virginia Woolf

Why are women... so much more interesting to men than men are to women?
-VW

Books are the mirrors of the soul.
-VW

To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves
-VW
 
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