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BLAME
BLESSINGS
BLINDNESS --- BLOGGING

.
.
.

see: "ACCUSATION"
see: "FAULT"
see: "FAILURE" for other related links


Placing the blame is a bad habit, but taking
the blame is a sure builder of character.
--attributed to Orlando A. Battista (1917—1995)
Canadian-American chemist and author.

There's a man all over for you, blaming
on his boots the faults of his feet.
--Samuel Beckett (1906—1989)
Irish dramatist, novelist, and poet.
_Waiting for Godot_ [1955]

We have first raised a dust and then
complain we cannot see.
--George Berkeley (1685—1753)
Anglo-Irish philosopher.
_A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge_ [1710]

He that is without sin among you, let him
first cast a stone at her.
--Bible
"John" 8:7

Blame is for God and small children.
--variously attributed to Ralph Bunche (1904—1971), Dalton
Trumbo (1905—1976), Dustin Hoffman (b. 1937), and others.

We are all exceptional cases. We all want to appeal against
something! Each of us insists on being innocent at all cost,
even if he has to accuse the whole human race and heaven
itself.
--Albert Camus (1913—1960)
French novelist, dramatist, and essayist who won
the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature.
_The Fall_, p.81, tr. Justin O'Brien [1956]

There's not the least thing can be said or done,
but people will talk and find fault.
--Miguel de Cervantes (1547—1616)
Spanish novelist.
_Don Quixote de la Mancha_, Pt. 1, bk. 2, ch. 4 [1605]

Experience informs us that the first defence
of weak minds is to recriminate.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772—1834)
English poet, critic, and philosopher.
_Biographia Literaria_ [1817]

-

Balavignus, a Jewish physician, inhabitant of
Thonon, was arrested at Chillon, since he had
been found in the neighborhood. He was put
on the rack for a short time and when taken
down confessed after much hesitation that
about ten weeks before Rabbi Jacob of Toledo
... sent him by a Jewish boy ... a powder sewn
into a thin leather pouch accompanied
by a letter, commanding him, on pain of
excommunication, and by requiring his obedience
to the law, to throw this poison into the larger and
more frequented wells of the town of Thonon.
--Confession [15 September 1348], in the Castle
of Chillon, Savoy, southeast France, by Jews
arrested in Neustadt, in M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.}
_History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 286.
Cohan & Major explain:
The blame for the plague was thus attached to the Jews,
and Balavignuswas one of ten who confessed 'his design of
destroying and extirpating all Christians'. Later centuries
would use the word pogrom for just such violent outbreaks
of anti-Semitism.

-

Things that are done, it is needless to speak
about . . . things that are past, it is needless
to blame.
--Confucius (551—479 B.C.)
K'ung Ch'iu, Chinese philosopher.
_The Confucian Analects_ bk. 3:21

Don't argue for other people's weaknesses. Don't argue for your
own. When you make a mistake, admit it, correct it, and learn
from it — immediately.
--Stephen Covey (b. 1932)
American author.
_The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People_ [1989]

This is an old saying, Atula, it is not a saying of today.
'They blame the man who is silent, they blame the
man who speaks too much, and they blame the man
who speaks too little.' No man can escape blame in
the world.
--_The Dhammapada_,
Buddhist scripture.

If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim
me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the
world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am
a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist.
Address to the French Philosophical Society, Paris [6 April 1922].

It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for
his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun
to be instructed to lay the blame on himself; and of one
whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another
nor himself.
--Epictetus (55—135)
Greek philosopher.
_The Encheiridion_, 5, tr. George Long [1877]

Blame-all and Praise-all are two blockheads.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
_Poor Richard's Almanack_ [February 1734]

Those see nothing but faults that seek for nothing else.
--Thomas Fuller (1654—1734)
English writer and physician.
Comp., _Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs_ [1732]

It is no use to blame the looking glass
if your face is awry.
--Nikolai Gogol (1809—1852)
Russian writer.
_The Inspector-General_ [1836]

The search for someone to blame is always successful.
--Robert Half
Attributed in Bob Kelly _Worth Repeating: More Than
5,000 Classic and Contemporary Quotes_, p. 30 [2003].

-

Mister Marvin Middle Class is really in a stew
Wond'rin' what the younger generation's coming to
And the taste of his martini doesn't please his bitter tongue
Blame it on the Rolling Stones.

Blame it on the Stones; blame it on the Stones
You'll feel so much better, knowing you don't stand alone
Join the accusation; save the bleeding nation
Get it off your shoulders; blame it on the Stones

--Kris Kristofferson (b. 1936)
American country music singer and songwriter.
w/Bucky Wilkin, "Blame It On The Stones" [1970 song]

-

What is wrong then? The system. But when you've said
that you've said nothing. The system, after all, is only
the outcome of the human psyche, the human desires.
We shout and blame the machine. But who on earth
makes the machine, if we don't? And any alterations in
the system are only modifications in the machine. The
system is in us, it is not something external to us. The
machine is in us, or it would never come out of us. Well
then, there's nothing to blame but ourselves, and there's
nothing to change except inside ourselves.
--D.H. (David Herbert) Lawrence (1885—1930)
English novelist and poet.
"Education of the People" (essay) pub. in
_Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine_ [1925]

A man may fall many times but he won't be a
failure until he says someone pushed him.
--attributed to Elmer G. Leterman (1897—1982)
American insurance executive and author.

If a man makes a slip, admonish him gently and show
him his mistake. If you fail to convince him, blame
yourself, or else blame nobody.
--Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121—180)
Roman emperor [161—180] and Stoic philosopher.
_Meditations_ Book X, Number 4

The central belief of every moron is that he is
the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his
common rights and true desserts. He ascribes all
his failure to get on in the world, all of his
congenital incapacity and damfoolishness, to the
machinations of werewolves assembled in Wall
Street, or some other such den of infamy. If
these villains could be put down, he holds, he
would at once become rich, powerful and eminent.
Nine politicians out of every ten, of whatever
party, live and have their being by promising to
perform this putting down. In brief, they are
knaves who maintain themselves by preying on the
idiotic vanities and pathetic hopes of half-wits.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.
Baltimore "Evening Sun" [15 June 1936]

When a man points a finger at someone else, he should
remember that four of his fingers are pointing to himself.
--Louis Nizer (1902—1994)
English-born American lawyer.
_My Life in Court_, ch. I [1961]

One of the annoying things about believing in free
will and individual responsibility is the difficulty
of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And
when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often
his picture turns up on your driver's license.
--P.J. O'Rourke (b. 1947)
American political satirist.
"Rolling Stone" [30 November 1989]

Don't let yourself be victimized by the age you
live in. It's not the times that will bring us down,
any more than it's society. When you put blame
on the society, then you end up turning to
society for the solution. Just like those poor
neurotics at the Care Fest. There's a tendency
today to absolve individuals of moral responsibility
and tread them as victims of social circumstance.
You buy that, you pay with your soul. It's not men
who limit women, it's not straights who limit gays,
it's not whites who limit blacks. What limits people
is lack of character. What limits people is that they
don't have the f*cking nerve or imagination to star
in their own movie, let alone direct it.
--Tom Robbins (b. 1936)
American author.
_Still Life with Woodpecker_ [1980]

When you are younger you get blamed for crimes
you never committed and when you're older you
begin to get credit for virtues you never possessed.
It evens itself out.
--I.F. Stone [Isidor Feinstein] (1907—1989)
American investigative journalist.
"International Herald Tribune" [16 March 1988]; quoted in
Robert Andrews _The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations_, p. 25 [1993].

Our culture peculiarly honors the act of blaming,
which it takes as the sign of virtue and intellect.
--Lionel Trilling (1905—1975)
American critic and author.
_The Liberal Imagination_ [1950]

He slandered the world in revenge for
his complete lack of success in it.
--Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (1694—1778)
French writer and philosopher.
_Zadig_ [1747], tr. H.I. Woolf [1949]

There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves,
we feel no one else has a right to blame us.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
_The Picture of Dorian Gray_ [1891]

-

He who accuses too many, accuses himself.
--anon.

To err is human; to blame it on the
other guy is even more human.
--anon.

People in our culture have a morbid tendency to avoid blame,
because they do not wish to take the trouble to change their
conduct in any way: blame-avoidance and blame-transference
are therefore endemic amongst us. These are substitutes for
repentance and renewal.
--Behavior Research Project (Texas).
In Lewis Mumford (1895—1990)
_The Conduct of Life_, 6.3 [1951]

-----

censure [SEN-shur], noun:
The act of blaming or finding fault.

impute (verb) [im-'pyoot]
To ascribe, to attribute (especially blame or fault).





BLESSINGS

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BLESSINGS

see: "HAPPINESS" for related links


Reflect on your present blessings, of which every
man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of
which all men have some.
--Charles Dickens (1812—1870)
English novelist.
Attributed in _Indianapolis Medical Journal_, vol XXII, p. 628 [1919].

Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.
--Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907—1972)
Jewish theologian and philosopher.
"No Religion is an Island", essay in the
_Union Theological Seminary Quarterly Review_ [January 1966]

The hardest arithmetic to master is that
which enables us to count our blessings.
--Eric Hoffer (1902—1983)
American longshoreman, philosopher, and author who
received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1982.
_Reflections on the Human Condition_ [1973]

A man's best things are nearest him,
Lie close about his feet.
--Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton (1809—1885)
English Victorian poet and man of letters.
_The Men of Old_, st. 7

-

May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back,
The sun shine warm upon your face,
The rain fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.
--Irish blessing


May you be poor in misfortune,
rich in blessings,
slow to make enemies,
quick to make friends.
But rich or poor, quick or slow,
may you know nothing but happiness
from this day forward.
--Irish blessing


May you have warm words on a cold evening,
a full moon on a dark night,
and the road downhill all the way to your door.
--Irish blessing

-

An honest heart being the first blessing,
a knowing head is the second.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
Letter to Peter Carr [19 August 1785].

For of those to whom much is given, much is required.
--John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917—1963)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1961—1963].
Speech at The State House, Boston, Massachusetts [9 January 1961].

The blessings of fortune are the lowest; the next are the bodily
advantages of strength and health; but the superlative blessings,
are those of the mind.
--Sir Roger L'Estrange (1616—1704)
English journalist and pamphleteer.
Quoted in _Encyclopaedia Perthensis_ [1816 ed.].

Men understand the worth of blessings only
when they have lost them.
--Titus Maccius Plautus (254—184 BC)
Roman comic dramatist.
_The Captives_ [3rd century BC]

May you live all the days of your life.
--Jonathan Swift (1667—1745)
Anglo-Irish poet and satirist.
_A Complete Collection of Polite and Ingenious Conversation_, 2, [1738]

Like birds, whose beauties languish half concealed,
Till, mounted on the wing, their glossy plumes
Expanded, shine with azure, green and gold;
How blessings brighten as they take their flight.
--Edward Young (1683—1765)
English poet.
"Night Thoughts", II, l. 589 [1742-1745]

-

[Man talking to his psychiatrist:]
"I do count my blessings, but then I end
up counting those of others who have
more and better blessings, and that
pisses me off."
--Cartoon caption, _The New Yorker_ [26 November 2007].

-

-----

benison [BEN-uh-suhn; -zuhn], noun:
Blessing; benediction.
Ex.: In the beginning, Gibran's small estate was worth some
$50,000, benison enough for a village of ten thousand souls.
--Stefan Kanfer, "But is it not strange that elephants will
yield -- and that The Prophet is still popular?",
_New York Times_, June 25, 1972




BLINDNESS

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.

see: "EYES"
see: "SEEING"


They be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind
lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
--Bible
"Matthew" 15:14

Love is blind.
--Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343—1400)
English poet.
_The Canterbury Tales_ [c. 1387]

Who is so deafe, or so blynde, as is hee,
That wilfully will nother hear nor see?
--John Heywood (1497—1580)
English playwright.
_Dialogue of Proverbs_ [1546]

The blindness of men is the most dangerous effect of their pride;
it seems to nourish and augment it; it deprives us of knowledge
of remedies which can solace our miseries and can cure our
faults.
--Franηois de La Rochefoucauld (1613—1680)
French classical author.
_Reflections; or, Sentences and Moral Maxims_ [1678]




BLOGGING

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.

see: "COMPUTERS"
see: "INTERNET"
see: "JOURNALISM" for other related links


-

When liberal pundits began hailing the emergence of left-wing
blogging as a counterweight to conservative talk-radio ... they did
so because they hoped to find in the left blogs a substitute for the
fading dominance of the old-line liberal media.

But that was never going to happen. For conservatives, the advent
of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Fox News and the blogosphere
is all good news. But for liberals, the move from a world dominated by
three big liberal networks, two big liberal newsmagazines, and two
great liberal newspapers to a world in which bloggers can bring down
a network anchor and the Times' own executive editor is an absolute
and utter catastrophe, even if some of those bloggers happen to be
liberal themselves.

American are living now in a world of media diversity. It’s the worst
thing to happen to Democratic hopes since the Sunbelt went Republican.

--David Frum (b. 1960)
Canadian-born Conservative author.
Quoted on "Cold Fury" (blog) [28 September 2004].

-

The critics of blogs cite their lack of professionalism. Piffle.
The dirty little secret of journalism is that it isn't really a
profession. It's a craft. All you need is a telephone and a
conscience, and you're all set. You get better at it merely
by doing it — which is why fancy journalism schools are,
to my mind, such a waste of time.

--Andrew Sullivan (b. 1963)
Anglo-American journalist.
"A Blogger's Creed", _TIME_ [27 September 2004]


Take the CBS document story. The clues to the alleged forgery were
not discovered by the bloggers themselves — but by their readers.
While CBS had a handful of experts look at the dubious memos (and
failed to heed their concerns), the blogosphere enlisted hundreds
within hours. Debates ensued, with different blogs challenging
others over various abstruse points. Yes, some of this was fueled by
raw partisanship and bias. The blogosphere is not morally pure. But
the result was that the facts were flushed out more effectively and
swiftly than the old media could ever have hoped. The collective
mind also turns out to be a corrective one.
--Andrew Sullivan (b. 1963)
Anglo-American journalist.
"A Blogger's Creed", _TIME_ [27 September 2004]

-

It remains the policy of this blog to answer all correspondence
that does not recommend anatomical impossibilities.
--Terry Treachout (b.1956)
American critic.
"About Last Night" [30 November 2004]


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