“A highbrow is a person educated beyond his intelligence.” — Brander Matthews
Quotations
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“To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.” — Bertrand Russell
“There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.” — George Bernard Shaw
“Leave something to wish for, so as not to be miserable from very happiness.” — Baltasar Gracián
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“How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality?” — Albert Einstein
“The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.” — Eugene Wigner
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“Nothing is so silly as the expression of a man who is being complimented.” — André Gide
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“The eyes have one language everywhere.” — George Herbert
Misc
- Kurt Vonnegut managed the country’s first Saab dealership.
- Max Born is Olivia Newton-John’s grandfather.
- 19683 = 1 × (9 – 6)8 × 3
- Before the advent of European settlers, it’s believed that no Native American had blood type B.
- “Good taste is the worst vice ever invented.” — Edith Sitwell
The first recorded performance of Hamlet took place at sea, aboard the East India ship Red Dragon off the coast of Africa in 1607. Capt. William Keeling’s diary entry for Sept. 5 reads: “I sent the interpreter according to his desier abord the Hector whear he brooke fast and after came abord me wher we gave the tragedie of Hamlett.”
Unquote
“I wouldn’t say when you’ve seen one western you’ve seen the lot, but when you’ve seen the lot you get the feeling you’ve seen one.” — Katharine Whitehorn
Misc
- Scranton, Pa., was formerly called Skunk’s Misery.
- Sweet’n Low was named for a Tennyson poem.
- STRAIGHT-GRAINED has 15 letters and 2 syllables.
- The average 2-year-old is already half his adult height.
- “The exit is usually where the entrance was.” — Stanislaw Lec
If a reincarnated person has no memory of her past life, then in what sense is she the same person?
Misc
- There’s no “u” in solipsism.
- Wagner said the saxophone “sounds like the word Reckankreuzungsklankewerkzeuge.”
- FDR was related by blood or marriage to 11 other presidents.
- 3909511 = 53 + 59 + 50 + 59 + 55 + 51 + 51
- “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the chicken.” — Ted Giannoulas, San Diego Chicken
(Thanks, Eric.)
Unquote
“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river.” — Will Durant, Life, Oct. 18, 1963