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CULTURE/D --- CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
CURE --- CURIOSITY --- CURMUDGEONS ---CURSE
CURSING --- CUSTOMER (THE) --- CUSTOM/S --- CYNICS

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CULTURE/D

see: "EDUCATION"
see: "GROWING"
see: "REFINED"
see: "TASTE"
see: "THE HUMAN RACE" for other related links


When you are at Rome live in the Roman
style; when you are elsewhere live as
they live elsewhere.
--St. Ambrose (c. 339—397)
French-born bishop of Milan.
Advice to St. Augustine, in Jeremy Taylor
_Ductor Dubitantium_, 1, 1, 5 [1660]

[Culture is] to know the best that has
been said and thought in the world.
--Matthew Arnold (1822—1888)
English Victorian poet and literary and social critic.
Quoted in "The Missouri Dental Journal" [January 1881].

A man's nature, runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore
let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other.
--Francis Bacon (1561—1626)
English philosopher and essayist.
_Essays_ [1625] "Of Nature in Men"

We know that the gifts which men have do not come
from the schools. If a man is a plain, literal, factual man,
you can make a great deal more of him in his own line
by education than without education, just as you can
make a great deal more of a potato if you cultivate it
than if you do not cultivate it; but no cultivation in
this world will ever make an apple out of a potato.
--Henry Ward Beecher (1813—1887)
American Congregational minister; brother of
Harriet Beecher Stowe, son of Lyman Beecher.
_Royal Truths_ [1862]

In 1940, teachers were asked what they regarded as the
three major problems in American schools. They identified
the three major problems as: Littering, noise, and chewing
gum. Teachers last year [1992] were asked what the three
major problems in American schools were, and they defined
them as: Rape, assault, and suicide.
--William J. Bennett (b. 1943)
American poiltician and author.
Quoted in Larry F. Sternberg
_Why Jews Should Not Be Liberals_ [2006].

You don't have to burn books to destroy a
culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
--Ray Bradbury (b. 1920)
American science fiction author.
Quoted in "Reader's Digest" [1994].

I am very sure that any man of common understanding may,
by culture, care, attention and labor, make himself whatever
he pleases, except a great poet.
--Lord Chesterfield [Philip Dormer Stanhope] (1694—1773)
British writer and politician.
Letter to His Son [9 October 1746].

Music rises from the human heart. When the emotions are
touched, they are expressed in sounds, and when the sounds
take definite forms, we have music. Therefore the music of
a peaceful and prosperous country is quiet and joyous, and
the government is orderly; the music of a country in turmoil
shows dissatisfaction and anger, and the government is
chaotic; and the music of a destroyed country shows sorrow
and remembrance of the past and the people are distressed.
Thus we see music and government are directly connected
with one another.
--Confucius (551—479 B.C.)
K'ung Ch'iu, Chinese philosopher.
_On Music_

As always, the British especially shudder at the
latest American vulgarity, and then they embrace
it with enthusiasm two years later.
--Alistair Cooke [Alfred Cooke] (1908—2004)
British-born American broadcater and journalist.
_American Way_ [March 1975]

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I have said that in one respect my mind has changed during the
last twenty or thirty years. Up to the age of thirty, or beyond
it, poetry of many kinds, such as the works of Milton, Gray,
Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, gave me great
pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in
Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. I have also
said that formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music
very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure
to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare,
and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also
almost lost my taste for pictures or music. Music generally sets
me thinking too energetically on what I have been at work on,
instead of giving me pleasure. I retain some taste for fine
scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it
formerly did. On the other hand, novels which are works of the
imagination, though not of a very high order, have been for years
a wonderful relief and pleasure to me, and I often bless all
novelists. A surprising number have been read aloud to me, and
I like all if moderately good, and if they do not end unhappily —
against which a law ought to be passed. A novel, according to my
taste, does not come into the first class unless it contains some
person whom one can thoroughly love, and if a pretty woman all
the better.

This curious and lamentable loss of the higher aesthetic tastes
is all the odder, as books on history, biographies, and travels
(independently of any scientific facts which they may contain),
and essays on all sorts of subjects interest me as much as ever
they did. My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for
grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why
this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain
alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive.
A man with a mind more highly organised or better constituted
than mine, would not, I suppose, have thus suffered; and if I
had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some
poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for
perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have
been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss
of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and
more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional
part of our nature.

--Charles Darwin (1809—1882)
English naturalist.
_Autobiography_ (ed. Francis Darwin) [1887]

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The truest expression of a people is in its
dances and its music. Bodies never lie.
--Agnes de Mille (1905—1993)
American dancer and choreographer,
In _New York Times Magazine_ [11 May 1975].

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If yesterday's rock was the music of abandon, today's is that
of abandonment. The odd truth about contemporary teenage
music — the characteristic that most separates it from what
has gone before — is its compulsive insistence on the damage
wrought by broken homes, family dysfunction, checked-out
parents, and (especially) absent fathers.

[...]

To put this perhaps unexpected point more broadly, during
the same years in which progressive-minded and politically
correct adults have been excoriating Ozzie and Harriet as
an artifact of 1950s-style oppression, many millions of
American teenagers have enshrined a new generation of
music idols whose shared generational signature in song
after song is to rage about what not having had a nuclear
family has done to them. This is quite a fascinating puzzle
of the times. The self-perceived emotional damage scrawled
large across contemporary music may not be statistically
quantifiable, but it is nonetheless among the most striking
of all the unanticipated consequences of our home-alone
world.

--Mary Eberstadt
American author.
"Eminem Is Right" in _Policy Review_ [December 2004].

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'Tis wonderful how soon a piano gets into a
log hut on the frontier. You would think they
found it under a pine stump.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
_Society and Solitude_ [1870] "Civilization"

Is there a culture where there is corporal punishment
delinquency. . . where female circumcision is practiced,
where mixed marriages are forbidden and polygamy
authorized? Multi-culturalism requires that we respect
all these practices. . . In a world that has lost its
transcendental significance, cultural identity serves to
sanction those barbarous traditions which God is no
longer in a position to endorse. Fanaticism is indefensible
when it appeals to heaven, but beyond reproach when it
is grounded in antiquity and cultural distinctiveness.
--Alain Finkielkraut (b. 1949)
French philosopher and essayist.
_The Undoing of Thought_ [1988]

No society can survive, no civilization can survive,
with 12-year-olds having babies, with 15-year-olds
killing each other, with 17-year-olds dying of AIDS,
with 18-year-olds getting diplomas they can't read.
--Newt Gingrich (b. 1943)
American politician.
Speech in Washington, D.C. [5 December 1994].

There is no effectual way of improving the
institutions of any people but by enlightening
their understandings.
--William Godwin (1756—1836)
English social philosopher and political journalist.
_An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its
Influence on General Virtue and Happiness_ [1793]

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read
a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible,
to speak a few reasonable words.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright.
_Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre_
(Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship), bk. 5, ch. I [1795—1796]

I don't despair about the cultural scene
in Australia because there isn't one to
despair about.
--Sir Robert Helpmann (1909—1986)
Australian ballet dancer.
Quoted in Jonathan Aitken
_Land of Fortune : A Study of the New Australia_, p. 189 [1971].

When I hear the word 'culture' . . . I
release the safety-catch of my Browning!
--Hanns Johst (1890—1978)
German playwright.
_Schlageter_, I, i [1933]

All of us confront limits of body, talent, temperament.
But that is not all. We are, all of us, also constrained
by our time, our place, our civilization. We are bound
by the culture we have in common, the culture which
distinquishes us from other people in other times and
places. Cultural constraints condition and limit our
choices, shaping our characters with their imperatives.
--Jeane Kirkpatrick (1926—2006)
American Conservative political scientist, professor, author, and the first
woman to serve as the American Ambassador to the United Nations.
In a commencement address at Georgetown University [24 May 1981].

When Abraham Lincoln was murdered
The one thing that interested Matthew Arnold
Was that the assassin
Shouted in Latin
As he lept on the stage.
This convinced Matthew
That there was still hope for America.
--Christopher Morley (1890—1957)
American journalist, novelist, and poet.
_Points of View_, l. I [1923]

[Upon being challenged to use the word 'horticulture' in a sentence:]
You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think.
--Dorothy Parker (1893—1967)
American critic and humorist.
Quoted in _The Algonquin Wits_ (ed.) Robert E. Drennan [1968].

To be completely candid, I think most movies nowadays
are trash, and many strike me as unhealthy. The explicit
sex, pointless violence, and crude language appeal only
to our lowest instincts. They have taken away our idealism,
our sense of fun and joy. It's chic to be cynical and tear
our heroes down. What has happened to us? And what
are we doing to our young people?
--Nancy Reagan nθe Davis (b. 1923)
Wife of President Ronald Reagan.
_Nancy_ [1980]

As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be
productive without culture, so the mind, without
cultivation, can never produce good fruit.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.— 65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
Hugh Moore _A Dictionary of Quotations from Various
Authors in Ancient and Modern Languages_, p. 428 [1831].

The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a
whole and separately, in each country, each government,
each political party and of course in the United Nations.
Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among
the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an
impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Of
course there are many courageous individuals but they
have no determining influence on public life.
--Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918—2008)
Russian novelist.
"The Exhausted West," commencement address at Harvard University [8 June 1978].

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare,
terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo,
Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they
had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy
and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
--Orson Welles (1915—1985)
American motion-picture actor, director, producer, and writer.
"The Third Man" [1949 film]
(Words added by Welles to Graham Geene's script - ODTQ.)

-

From Tom Wolfe _Hooking Up_ [2000] :

. . . Did any of the America-at-century's-end
network TV specials strike the exuberant note that
Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee struck in 1897?
All I remember are voice-overs saying that for
better or worse. . . hmm, hmm . . . McCarthyism,
racism, Vietnam, right-wing militias, Oklahoma
City, Heaven's Gate, Dr. Death. . . on balance,
hmm, we're not entirely sure. . . for better or
worse, America had won the cold war. . . hmm,
hmm, hmm, . . . [Wolfe's ellipsis]

My impression was that one American century rolled
into another with all the pomp and circumstance of
a mouse pad. America's great triumph inspired all
the patriotism and pride (or, if you'd rather,
chauvinism), all the yearning for glory and empire
(or, if you'd rather, the spirit of Manifest Destiny),
all the martial jubilee of a mouse click.

Such was my impression; but it was only that,
my impression. So I drew upon the University
of Michigan's fabled public-opinion survey
resources. They sent me the results of four
studies, each approaching the matter from
a different angle. Chauvinism? The spirit of
Manifest Destiny? According to one survey,
74 percent of Americans don't want the
United States to intervene abroad unless
in cooperation with other nations, presumably
so that we won't get all the blame. Excitement?
Americans have no strong feelings about their
country's supremacy one way or the other.
They are lacking in affect, as the clinical
psychologists say.

There were seers who saw this coming even at the
unabashedly pompous peak (June 22) of England's
1897 Jubilee. One of them was Rudyard Kipling, the
empire's de facto poet laureate, who wrote a poem for
the Jubilee, "Recessional," warning: "Lo, all our pomp
of yesterday/Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!" He and
many others had the uneasy feeling that the foundations
of European civilization were already shifting beneath
their feet, a feeling indicated by the much used
adjectival compound fin-de-siecle. Literally, of course,
it meant nothing more than "end-of-the-century," but
it connoted something modern, baffling, and troubling
in Europe. Both Nietzsche and Marx did their greatest
work seeking to explain the mystery. Both used the
term "decadence."

But if there was decadence, what was decaying? Religious
faith and moral codes that had been in place since time
was, said Nietzsche, who in 1882 made the most famous
statement in modern philosophy— "God is dead" — and
three startlingly accurate predictions for the twentieth
century. He even estimated when they would begin to
come true: about 1915. (1) The faith men formerly
invested in God they would now invest in barbaric
'brotherhoods with the aim of the robbery and
exploitation of the non-brothers.' Their names turned out,
in due course, to be the German Nazis and the Russian
Communists. (2) There would be 'wars such as been
never waged on earth.' Their names turned out to be
World War I and World War II. (3) There no longer
would be Truth but, rather, "truth" in quotation marks,
depending upon which concoction of eternal verities the
modern barbarian found most useful at any given moment.
The result would be universal skepticism, cynicism, irony,
and contempt. World War I began in 1914 and ended
in 1918. On cue, as if Nietzsche were still alive to direct
the drama, an entirely new figure, with an entirely new
name, arose in Europe: that embodiment of skepticism,
cynacism, irony, and contempt, the Intellectual.

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autochthonous [aw-TOK-thuh-nuhs], adjective:
1. Aboriginal; indigenous; native.
2. Formed or originating in the place where found.

cosmopolite (noun) [kahz-'mah-pκ-lIt]
A citizen of the world, a person endowed in many cultures;
(Ecology) a species found in many parts of the world.

desuetude [DES-wih-tood, -tyood], noun:
The cessation of use; discontinuance of
practice or custom; disuse.
Ex.: Probably only one in a hundred girls who give birth
clandestinely even knows that an edict of King Henry II,
now fallen into desuetude, once made their action
punishable by death.
--Nina Rattner Gelbart,
_The King's Midwife_

pandemic (adj.) [pζn-'de-mik]
Widespread; occurring throughout all or almost all of a population.

zeitgeist (noun) ['tsahyt-gahyst]
The spirit of the time, trend of an era.




Click picture to ZOOM
CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

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see: "THE HUMAN RACE" for related links


It is good to know something of the customs of different peoples
in order to judge more sanely of our own, and not to think that
everything of a fashion not ours is absurd and contrary to reason,
as do those who have seen nothing.
--Renι Descartes (1596—1650)
French philosopher and mathematician.
_Discours de la mιthode_ [1637] (Discourse on Method), pt. 1

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Three hundred thousand people welcomed us to Adelaide. It was
like a heroes' welcome. . . We came in from the airport — it was
the same in Liverpool for the premiere of A Hard Day's Night, with
the whole city center full of people — and the crowds were lining
the route and we were giving them the thumbs up.

And then we went to the Adelaide town hall with the Lord Mayor
there, and gave the thumbs up again. In Liverpool it was OK,
because everyone understands the thumbs up — but in Australia
it's a dirty sign.

--Paul McCartney (b. 1942)
English pop singer and songwriter.
In _The Beatles Anthology_ [2000], "Australia".

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The condition of women affords in all countries the
best criterion by which to judge the character of
men.
--Frances Wright [Fanny Wright] (1795—1852)
Scottish-born American social reformer.
_Views of Society and Manners in America_ [1821]

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syncretic [sin-KRET-ik; sing-], adjective:
Uniting and blending together different systems, as of
philosophy, morals, or religion.




CURE

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.

see: "HEALTH" for related links


An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
--"The American Remembrancer" [1795]

Music exalts each joy, allays each grief,
Expels diseases, softens every pain,
Subdues the rage of poison, and the plague.
--Dr. John Armstrong (1709—1779)
Scottish poet.
_The Art of Preserving Health_, bk. IV "The Passions" [1744]

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The remedy is worse than the disease.
--Francis Bacon (1561—1626)
English philosopher and essayist.
_Essays_ "Of Seditions and Troubles" [1625]


Cure the disease and kill the patient.
--Francis Bacon (1561—1626)
English philosopher and essayist.
_Essays_ "Of Friendship" [1625]

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The only cure for vanity is laughter, and
the only fault that's laughable is vanity.
--attributed to Henri Bergson (1859—1941)
French philosopher.

One ov the best temporary cures for pride and
affektashun that i have ever seen tried iz sea
sickness; a man who wants tew vomit never
puts on airs.
--Josh Billings [Henry Wheeler Shaw] (1818—1885)
American humorist.
_Josh Billings' Wit and Humor_ [1874] "Ods and Ens"

The best of remedies is a beefsteak
Against sea-sickness; try it, sir, before
You sneer, and I assure you this is true;
For I have found it answer--so may you.
--Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (1788—1824)
English Romantic poet and satirist.
_Don Juan_, canto II, st. xiii [1819]

Absence, that common cure of love.
--Miguel de Cervantes (1547—1616)
Spanish novelist.
"Don Quixote de la Mancha" pt I, bk. 3, ch. 10 [1605]

[Mr. Bernstein (Everett Sloan) speaking:]
Old age. It's the only disease . . . that you
don't look forward to being cured of.
--"Citizen Kane" [1941]
Screenplay by Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles.

Drugs are not always necessary, but belief in recovery always is.
--attributed to Norman Cousins (1915—1990)
American publisher.

To cure jealousy is to see it for what
it is, a dissatisfaction with self.
--Joan Didion (b. 1934)
American journalist and novelist.
"Jealousy: Is It a Curable Illness?", _Vogue_ [June 1961].

A good laugh and a long sleep are
the best cures in the doctor's book.
--Irish proverb

Some remedies are worse than the disease itself.
--Publilius Syrus (85—43 B.C.)
Latin writer of mimes who was originally a slave.
_Maxims_, # 301

[On feeling the edge of the axe prior to his execution:]
'Tis a sharp remedy, but a sure one for all ills.
--Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1552—1618)
English explorer and courtier.
In D. Hume _History of Great Britain_ [1754].

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It is part of the cure to wish to be cured.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC—65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
"Hippolytus"


Time often heals what reason cannot.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC—65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
"Agamemnon"

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For the mind disturbed, the still beauty of dawn is nature's finest balm.
--Edwin Way Teale (1899—1980)
American naturalist, writer, and photographer.
_Circle of the Seasons_ [1953]

Our society is afflicted with the scourge of AIDS and other
diseases that owe their origin to promiscuity. Yet the cry
is not, "How can we stop promiscuity?" but rather, "How
can we cure AIDS?"
--Terry Virgo (b. 1940)
English bible teacher and author.
_Men Of Destiny_ [1987] "Blessed Are Those Who Mourn"

It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
--cartoon caption by Bill_Watterson (b. 1958)
American cartoonist, creator of "Calvin and Hobbes."

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The physician will carefully prepare
a mixture of crocodile dung, lizard
flesh, bat's blood and camel's spit ...
--From a papyrus listing 811 prescriptions
used by the Egyptians in 1550 B.C..

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A skeptical anthropologist was cataloging South American
folk remedies with the assistance of a tribal brujo who
indicated that the leaves of a frond fern were a sure cure
for any case of constipation. When the anthropologist
expressed his doubts, the brujo looked him in the eye and
said, 'Let me tell you, with fronds like these, who needs
enemas?'

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ameliorate [uh-MEEL-yuh-rayt], transitive verb:
To make better; to improve.

anodyne [AN-uh-dyn], adjective:
1. Serving to relieve pain; soothing.
2. Not likely to offend; bland; innocuous.
noun:
1. A medicine that relieves pain.
2. Anything that calms, comforts, or soothes disturbed feelings.

panacea (noun) [pζ-nκ-'see-κ]
A remedy for everything, for all problems or
difficulties; a cure-all, a catholicon.
The adjective is "panacean," as a panacean remedy
or a panacean effect.
Etymology: From Latin "panacea," a herb Romans
believed could cure all diseases. The word was
borrowed from Greek panakeia "universal cure.."





CURIOSITY

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see: "BUSYBODIES"
see: "DISCOVERY"
see: "MINDING OWN BUSINESS"
see: "QUESTIONS"
see: "KNOWLEDGE" for other related links


The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.
--Samuel Adams (1722—1803)
American revolutionary leader.
Letter to James Warren [4 November 1775].

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Pleasure pursues beautiful objects — what is
agreeable to look at, to hear, to smell, to taste,
to touch. But curiosity pursues the contraries of
these delights with the motive of seeing what the
experiences are like, not with a wish to undergo
discomfort, but out of a lust for experimenting
and knowing.

What pleasure is to be found in looking at a
mangled corpse, an experience which evokes
revulsion? Yet wherever one is lying, people
crowd around to be made sad and to turn pale.

--Augustine, St. of Hippo (354—430)
Christian theologian and bishop of Hippo in
Roman Africa [396-430].
_Confessiones_ c. 400 (The Confessions), bk. X, # 35

-

He that questioneth much shall learn much
and content much; but especially if he apply
his questions to the skill of the persons whom
he asketh. For he shall give them occasion to
please themselves in speaking, and himself
shall continually gather knowledge. But let
his questions not be troublesome, for that is
fit for a poser; and let him be sure to leave
other men their turn to speak.
--Francis Bacon (1561—1626)
English philosopher and essayist.
_Essays_ [1625] "Of Discourse"

Every man ought to be inquisitive through every hour
of his great adventure down to the day when he shall
no longer cast a shadow in the sun. For if he dies
without a question in his heart, what excuse is there
for his continuance?
--Frank Moore Colby (1865—1925)
American essayist and professor.
_The Colby Essays_, vol. I [1926]

Your curiosity
Runs open-mouth'd, ravenous as winter wolf.
I dare not stand in its way.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772—1834)
English poet, critic, and philosopher.
_Osorio_, act 3 [1797]

There is philosophy in the remark that every man
has in his own life follies enough, in the performance
of his duty deficiencies enough, in his own mind
trouble enough, without being curious after the
affairs of others.
--Charles Dibdin (1745—1814)
British actor and dramatist.
Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Treasury of Thought_, p. 184 [10th ed. 1884].

The sun shines and warms and lights us
and we have no curiosity to know why
this is so; but we ask the reason of all
evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes
and silly people.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
"Journal" [18 August 1830]

The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the
natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying
it afterwards.
--Anatole France [Jacques Anatole Thibault] (1844—1924)
French novelist, man of letters, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921.
_Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard_ (The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard) [1881]

Willie saw some dynamite,
Couldn't understand it quite;
Curiosity never pays.
It rained Willie seven days.
--Harry Graham (1874—1936)
British writer and journalist.
_Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes_ [1899]

A penny for your thought.
--John Heywood (1497—1580)
English playwright.
_Proverbs_ [1546]

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Shun the inquisitive person, for he is also a talker.
--Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65—8 BC)
Roman poet.
_Epistles_ I, 18, 69

& note:

Avoid him who from mere curiosity asks three questions
running about a thing that cannot interest him.
--Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741—1801)
Swiss writer, Protestant pastor, and founder of physiognomics.
Attributed in
John Timbs _Laconics: Or, The Best Words of the Best Authors_, p. 326 [1829].

-

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain
characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
"Rambler" #103 (English twice-weekly journal 1750-1752)

There are various sorts of curiosity; one is from interest,
which makes us desire to know what may be useful to us;
another is from pride, and arises from a desire of knowing
what others are ignorant of.
--Franηois de La Rochefoucauld (1613—1680)
French classical author.
_Maxims_ [1665]

Curiosity killed the cat.
--"L.A. Times" [22 August 1901]

The search for truth is more precious than its possession.
--Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729—1781)
German dramatist.
Attributed in _Proceedings of the American
Catholic Philosophical Association_, vols. 46-47 [1907].

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
--attributed to both Ellen Parr & Dorothy Parker.

One who is too wise an observer of the business of others,
like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees,
will often be stung for his curiosity.
--Alexander Pope (1688—1744)
English poet.
Attributed in Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 53 [1908 ed.].

Curiosity is as much the parent of
attention, as attention is of memory.
--Richard Whately (1787—1863)
English philosopher and theologian.
"On the Acquisition of Knowledge" [May 1814]

-

A father and son went fishing one day. After a couple hours
in the boat, the boy suddenly became curious about the world
around him.

He asked his father, "How does this boat float?" The father
thought for a moment, then replied, "Don't rightly know, son."

The boy returned to his contemplation, then turned back to his
father, "How do fish breathe underwater?" Once again the father
replied, "Don't rightly know, son."

A little later the boy asked his father, "Why is the sky blue?"
Again, the father replied. "Don't rightly know, son."

Worried he was going to annoy his father, he says, "Dad, do
you mind my asking you all of these questions?"

"Of course not, son. If you don't ask questions, you'll never
learn anything!"

-

-----

quidnunc [KWID-nuhngk], noun:
One who is curious to know everything that passes; one who
knows or pretends to know all that is going on; a gossip; a
busybody.




CURMUDGEONS

.
.


^

Fred Allen (1894—1956),
American comedian, writer, and radio star.

If somebody caught him in an act of kindness,
he ducked behind a screen of cynicism. A
friend was walking with him when a truck
bore down on a newsboy in front of them.
Allen dashed out and snatched the boy to
safety, then snarled at him, 'What's the matter,
kid? Don't you want to grow up and have
troubles?''

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

[Patrick Garland, of his friend Rex Harrison]:

I often received wonderfully abusive postcards.
There was one from Australia, where he was
on tour with a Freddie Lonsdale comedy, with
pictures of curious Antipodean marsupials,
koalas, wombats, kangaroos, platypi, all
looking extremely odd. 'You think these
are peculiar,' he had scrawled, 'wait until
you see the people.'

--in _The Best After-Dinner Stories_
Selected and introduced by Tim Heald [2003].

^

^

Samuel Goldwyn (1882-1974)
American film producer.

Goldwyn was not given to flights of (uncalculated)
sentiment. He and some colleagues, visiting him
at his home, were once engaged in a bitter dispute
over a script. One of them walked over to the window
looking out on Goldwyn's luxurious lawn. He stood
there for a moment, then called out to the others,
'Come look. Here we are fighting, and this marvelous,
peaceful event is taking place in nature right under
our noses. We should be ashamed of ourselves.' The
others, Goldwyn last, trooped over. Parading across
the lawn were a mother quail and her five little
chicks. They stood there for a short time; then the
silence was broken by the unappeasable Goldwyn:
'They don't belong here.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

There is entirely too much charm around
and something must be done to stop it.
--Dorothy Parker (1893—1967)
American critic and humorist.
'These Much Too Charming People' in _The New Yorker_ [1928].

Practically everyone but myself is
a pusillanimous son of a bitch.
--George S. Patton, Jr. (1885—1945)
American general.
Letter to Lt. Col. Charles R. Codman [18 October 1945].

I am sorry to have to introduce the subject of
Christmas in these articles. It is an indecent
subject; a cruel, gluttonous subject; a drunken,
disorderly subject; a wasteful, disastrous subject;
a wicked, cadging, lying, filthy, blasphemous, and
demoralising subject. Christmas is forced on a
reluctant and disgusted nation by the shopkeepers
and the press: on its own merits it would wither
and shrivel in the fiery breath of universal hatred;
and anyone who looked back to it would be turned
into a pillar of greasy sausages.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish dramatist and critic.
In a review of the play "The Babes in the Wood" [27 December 1897].

-----

smellfungus (noun) ['smel-fκng-κs]
A curmudgeon who finds fault in everything;
someone who loves misery.
Smellfungi (pl.) are generally bitter people
addicted to themselves.




CURSE/S

.
.

see: "SUPERNATURAL", "SUPERSTITION"


May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits.
--Arab curse

May the grass wither from thy feet; the woods
Deny thee shelter! earth a home! the dust
A grave! the sun his light! and heaven her God!
--Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (1788—1824)
English Romantic poet and satirist.
_Cain_, III, i [1821]

May those who love us love us.
And those that don't love us,
May God turn their hearts,
And if He doesn't turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles,
So we'll know them by their limping.
--Irish curse

-

May you inherit a hotel with 1,000 rooms-
and may you drop dead in each of them.
--Jewish curse

May all your teeth fall out, save one; and
may it have a permanent tooth ache.
--Jewish curse

May you have a million dollars and spend it all on doctors!
--Jewish curse

May you grow like an onion with your head in the ground.
--Jewish curse

May all your troubles be little ones,
and may they never stop growing.
--Jewish curse

-

May your soul be forever tormented by fire and your
bones be dug up by dogs and dragged through the
streets of Minneapolis.
--Garrison Keillor (b. 1942)
American writer and radio host.
Quoted in Robert Byrne _1911 Best Things Anybody Ever Said_ [1988].

Oh! I will curse thee till thy frighted soul
Runs mad with horror.
--Nathaniel Lee (c.1653—1692)
English dramatist.
_Caesar Borgia_ [1680]

. . . For decades, the Cubs have labored to erase the curse
of the Billy Goat. According to legend, the curse was placed
on the team after a fan was refused entry to a 1945 World
Series game at Wrigley Field because he tried to bring his
goat along with him.
--Ron Lieber
"How One Man Went From Regular Fan To a Cubs Legend"
_The Wall Street Journal_ [16 October 2003]

I shall curse you with book and bell and candle.
--Sir Thomas Malory (c. 1420—1471)
English writer.
_Le Morte d'Arthur_ [1469=1470]
(The reference is to the cere-mony of excommunication,
performed since the eighth century with bell, book, and candle.)

Curses, foiled again.
--"Moon Mullins' (comic strip) in _Chicago Daily Tribune_ [9 January 1930].

May your balls turn square and fester at the corners!
--Scottish curse

-

May never glorious sun reflex his beams
Upon the country where you make abode!
But darkness and the gloomy shade of death
Environ you, till mischief and despair
Drive you to break your necks, or hang yourselves.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_King Henry VI_, pt. 1, V, iv [1592]


A plague o' both your houses.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Romeo and Juliet_, III, i [1595]


The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon!
Where gott'st thou that goose look?
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Macbeth_, V, iii [1606]


A pox o' your throat! You bawling, blasphemous,
incharitable dog!
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_The Tempest_, I, i [1611—1612]

-

Wisdom is a curse when wisdom does
nothing for the man who has it.
--Sophocles (496?—406 B.C.)
Greek dramatist.
_Oedipus the King_ [c. 429 B.C.]

-

For him that stealeth a book from this library, let it
change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let
him be struck by palsy and all his members blasted.
Let him languish in pain, crying aloud for mercy,
and let there be no surcease for his agony until he
sinks into dissolution. Let book-worms gnaw his
entrails in token of the worm that dieth not, and
when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let
the flames of hell consume him for ever and aye.
--Warning displayed in the library of the Popish Monestary of San
Pedro, Barcelona, Spain. Quoted in _Old Librarians Almanack_ [1773].

-----

anathema [uh-NATH-uh-muh], noun:
1. A ban or curse pronounced with religious solemnity by
ecclesiastical authority, and accompanied by excommunication.
Hence: Denunciation of anything as accursed.
2. An imprecation; a curse; a malediction.
3. Any person or thing anathematized, or cursed by
ecclesiastical authority.
4. Any person or thing that is intensely disliked.

imprecation [im-prih-KAY-shuhn], noun:
1. The act of imprecating, or invoking evil upon someone.
2. A curse.

malediction [mal-uh-DIK-shun], noun:
A curse or execration.




CURSING

.
.

see: "OBSCENITY"
see: "PROFANITY"
see: "SWEARING"
see: "COMMUNICATION" for related links


The day of the jewelled epigram is passed and,
whether one likes it or not, one is moving into
the stern puritanical era of the four-letter word.
--Noλl Annan (1916—2000)
English historian and writer.
In the House of Lords [1966]; quoted in
George Greenfield _Scribblers for Bread_ [1989].

Gentlemen, there comes a tide in the affairs
of bastards when no amount of cursing will
suffice. Let us merely observe a moment of
silence, like a deaf-mute who has just hit
his fingers with a hammer.
--John Barrymore [John Sidney Blythe] (1882—1942)
Shakespearean actor.
Quoted in Gene Fowler,
_Good Night, Sweet Prince_ [1943]

I've labored long and hard for bread
For honor and for riches
But on my corns too long you've tred,
You fine-haired sons of bitches.
--Charles E. Bolton [Charles Earl Bolles, aka Black Bart] (1829—1917?)
American outlaw.
In a note he left after robbing a Wells Fargo stagecoach;
first three lines quoted in Marshall Cushing _The Story of our Post Office_ [1893].

Bullshit!
--Mel Brooks (b. 1926)
American actor, writer, and director.
Reply to Playboy interviewer who commented
"You have been accused of vulgarity," in Maurice
Yacowar _The Comic Art of Mel Brooks_ [1981].

Today words and phrases are encountered everywhere — on the
screen, in the theaters, in the comic papers, in the newspapers,
on the floors of Congress, and even at the domestic hearth —
that were reserved for use in saloons and bagnios a generation
ago.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.
_The American Language_ [pub. 1919; from 1960 ed.]

--

^

A grandfather, always made a special effort with his grandchildren.
Many Sunday mornings he would take his 7-year old granddaughter
out for a drive in the car for some bonding time.

One particular Sunday however, he had a bad cold and he really
didn't feel like being up at all. Luckily, grandma came to the rescue
and said that she would take the grandchild out. When they returned,
the little girl anxiously ran upstairs to see Pop Pop.

'Well,' the grandfather asked, 'did you enjoy your ride with Nana? '
'Oh yes, Pop Pop' the girl replied, 'and do you know what? We didn't
see a single dumb bastard or lousy shit head!'

^

-----

tarnation (interjection)
Damnation: used to express anger
and annoyance (regional)
[Late 18th century. Alteration of darnation
(formed from darn) or damnation.]




CUSTOMER (THE)

.
.

see: "CAPITALISM" for related links


[On the Model T Ford, 1909:]
Any customer can have a car painted any
color that he wants so long as it is black.
--Henry Ford (1863—1947)
American car manufacturer.
_My Life and Work_ ch. 2 [1922]

Rule 1: The customer is always right.
Rule 2: If the customer is ever wrong, reread rule 1.
--Stew Leonard
American merchant.
Policy of Stew Leonard's dairy stores.

Motivate them, train them, care about them and
make winners out of them. ... If we treat our
employees correctly, they'll treat the customers
right. And if the customers are treated right,
they'll come back.
--attributed to J. W. Marriott, Jr., (b. 1932)
Chairman, Marriott Corp.

There is only one boss: the customer, and he
can fire everybody in the company, from the
chairman on down, simply by spending his
money somewhere else.
--Sam Walton (1918—1992)
Founder of Wal-Mart Stores.
Quoted in Jim Meisenheimer _47 Ways to Sell Smarter_ [1994].

-----

lagniappe (noun) [lahn-'yahp]
A gratuity given by a merchant to a customer beyond
the value of a purchase; a bonus or additional benefit
of any sort.




CUSTOM/S

.
.

see: "CONFORMITY"
see: "HABIT"
see: "TRADITION"


There is no tyrant like custom, and no
freedom where its edicts are not resisted.
--Christian Nestell Bovee (1820—1904)
American writer.
Quoted in Maturin M. Ballou _Treasury of Thought_, p. 110 [10th ed. 1884].

[O tempora! O mores!]
Oh, the times! Oh, the customs!
--Marcus Tullius Cicero (106—43 BC)
Roman orator and statesman.
_In Catilinam_, Speech I, ch. I [63 BC]

To follow foolish precedents, and wink
With both our eyes is easier than to think.
--William Cowper (1731—1800)
English poet and hymnodist.
"Tirocinium" [1784]

The custom and fashion of to-day will be the
awkwardness and outrage of to-morrow. So
arbitrary are these transient laws.
--Alexandre Dumas (1802—1870)
French novelist and dramatist.
Attributed in James Comper Gray
_The Biblical Museum: Old Testament_, vol. 3 of 8 [1878 ed.].

The despotism of custom is everywhere the
standing hindrance to human advancement.
--John Stuart Mill (1806—1873)
English philosopher and social reformer.
_On Liberty_, ch. III [1859]

The laws of conscience, which we pretend to
be derived from nature, proceed from custom.
--Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592)
French moralist and essayist.
_Essais_ (Essays) [pub. 1580—1588] "Of Custom and Law"




CYNICS

.
.

see: "MISANTHROPY"
see: "PESSIMISM"
see: "EMOTIONS & FEELINGS" for other related links


The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man,
and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl,
vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin,
and never seeing noble game. The cynic puts all human
actions into two classes — openly bad and secretly bad.
All virtue and generosity and disinterestedness are merely
the appearance of good; but selfish at the bottom. He holds
that no man does a good thing except for profit. The effect
of his conversation upon your feelings is to chill and sear
them; to send you away sour and morose. His criticisms
and hints fall indiscriminately upon every lovely thing, like
frost upon flowers.
--Henry Ward Beecher (1813—1887)
American Congregational minister;
[brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, son of Lyman Beecher].
_Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit_ [1870]

Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees
things as they are, not as they ought to be.
--Ambrose Bierce (1842—1914)
American newspaperman, wit, and satirist.
_The Cynic's Word Book_ [1906]
(Retitled in 1911 as _The Devil's Dictionary_.)

Inside every cynical person, there
is a disappointed idealist.
--attributed to George Carlin (1937—2008)
American stand-up comedian and author.

We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and
disillusion just as effectively as by bombs.
--Kenneth Clark (1903—1983)
British author, museum director,
broadcaster, and art historian.
_Civilisation: A Personal View_ [1970]

A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
_Society and Solitude_ [1870] "Success"

Only the stoical and the cynical can preserve a measure
of stability; yet stoicism is the wisdom of madness and
cynicism the madness of wisdom. So none escapes.
--Bergen Evans (1904—1978)
American lexicographer and educator.
_The Natural History of Nonsense_ [1945]

Watch what people are cynical about, and
one can often discover what they lack.
--Harry Emerson Fosdick (1879—1969)
Baptist minister and Pastor of Riverside
Church in NYC.
_On Being a Real Person_ [1943]

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity
is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty,
the ocean does not become dirty.
--Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869—1948)
Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic
movement against British rule.
Letter to Amrit Kaur [29 August 1947].

Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle
the belief that as a people we can live above the
level of moral squalor. We need that belief, for a
cynical community is a corrupt community.
--John W. Gardner (1912—2002)
American administrator.
"Can We Count on More Dedicated People?"
in _LIFE_ (mag.) [13 June 1960].

The cynic, a parasite of civilization, lives by denying it,
for the very reason that he is convinced that it will not
fail.
--Josι Ortega y Gasset (1883—1955)
Spanish philosopher.
Attributed in "Forbes", vol. 142 [1988].

It takes a clever man to turn cynic and
a wise man to be clever enough not to.
--Fannie Hurst (1889—1968)
American novelist and dramatist.
_ A President Is Born_ [1928]

We must not indulge in unfavourable views of
mankind, since by doing it we make bad men
believe that they are no worse than others, and
we teach the good that they are good in vain.
--Walter Savage Landor (1775—1864)
English poet.
_Imaginary Conversations_ [1824—1853] "Barrow and Newton"

Cynicism - the intellectual cripple's substitute for intelligence.
--Russell Lynes (1910—1991)
American art critic.
Attributed in Robert I. Fitzhenry (ed.)
_The Harper Book of Quotations_, [3rd ed., 1993].

Cynics are only happy in making the world
as barren for others as they have made it for
themselves.
--George Meredith (1828—1909)
English novelist and poet.
Attributed in Sidney Greenberg _A Treasury of the Art of Living_ [1963].

Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic
and kind of cowardly because it means you don't
have to try.
--Peggy Noonan (b. 1950)
Speechwriter for U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Quoted in Jon Winokur _The Big Curmudgeon_ [2007].

To doubt everything or to believe everything are
two equally convenient solutions; both dispense
with the necessity of reflection.
--Jules Henri Poincarι (1854—1912)
French mathematician and philosopher of science.
_Science and Hypothsis_ [1903], author's preface

Blessed is the man who expects nothing,
for he shall never be disappointed.
--Alexander Pope (1688—1744)
English poet.
_Letter to Fortescue_ [23 September 1725]

There are moments when everything goes
well; don't be frightened, it won't last.
--Jules Renard (1864—1910)
French novelist and dramatist.
Attributed in "Defense Management Journal", vol. 10, issue 5 [1974]

... that power of accurate observation which
is commonly called cynicism by those who
have not got it.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish dramatist and critic.
In Hesketh Pearson _George Bernard Shaw: His Life and Personality_ [1942].

A cynic, a man who knows the price of
everything and the value of nothing.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
_Lady Windermere's Fan_, act III [1892]

-----

jaundice (noun)
[1. The illness]
2. cynical state of mind: an attitude that is characterized
by cynical hostility, resentment, or suspicion.


end page





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