- Douglas Adams claimed that the funniest three-digit number is 359.
- Romeo has more lines than Juliet, Iago than Othello, and Portia than Shylock.
- Friday the 13th occurs at least once a year.
- “By nature, men love newfangledness.” — Chaucer
- John was the only apostle to die a natural death.
Quotations
Unquote
“We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.” — Aesop
Unquote
“It takes a wise man to recognize a wise man.” — Xenophanes
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“I play John Wayne in every part, regardless of the character, and I’ve been doing okay, haven’t I?” — John Wayne
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“I have noticed that nothing I never said ever did me any harm.” — Calvin Coolidge
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“It is a great nuisance that knowledge can be acquired only by hard work.” — W. Somerset Maugham
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“I can’t understand why people are afraid of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” — John Cage
Misc
- Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president born in a hospital.
- Hamlet has 1506 lines, fully 39 percent of the play.
- 736 = 7 + 36
- NOOK combines two antonyms.
- “Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.” — Plato
Unquote
“I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don’t.” — Somerset Maugham
The Brightest Heaven of Invention
Shakespeare said everything. Brain to belly; every mood and minute of a man’s season. His language is starlight and fireflies and the sun and moon. He wrote it with tears and blood and beer, and his words march like heartbeats. He speaks to everyone and we all claim him but it’s wise to remember, if we would really appreciate him, that he doesn’t properly belong to us but to another world; a florid and entirely remarkable world that smelled assertively of columbine and gun powder and printer’s ink, and was vigorously dominated by Elisabeth.
— Orson Welles, Everybody’s Shakespeare, 1934
Thornton Wilder called this “the greatest thumbnail summation of Shakespeare’s genius ever written.”