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FAMILIARITY
FAMILY --- FAMINE
FANATICS --- FANTASY

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FAMILIARITY


Admiration is a very short-lived passion, that
immediately decays upon growing familiar
with its object.
--Joseph Addison (1672—1719)
English essayist, poet, and dramatist.
"The Spectator", # 256 [24 December 1711]

-

Familiarity breeds contempt.
--Thomas Fuller (1608—1661)
English churchman and historian.
_Comment on Ruth_ [1654]

& see:

Bernard Law Montgomery: They say familiarity
breeds contempt.

Churchill: I would like to remind you that without
a degree of familiarity we could not breed anything.

--Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and
Prime Minister [1940—1945, 1951—1955].
In _Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
ed. by Clifton Fadiman & Andrι Bernard [rev. ed. 2000].

& see:

Though familiarity may not breed contempt,
it takes off the edge of admiration.
--William Hazlitt (1778—1830)
English essayist.
_Characteristics in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims_ [1823]

& see:

Familiarity breeds contempt — and children.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
"2 February 1894" _Mark Twain's Notebook_ [1935]

-

Nothing is wonderful when you get used to it.
--Edgar Watson Howe (1854—1937)
American journalist and author.
_Country Town Sayings_ [1911]

I've grown accustomed to the trace
Of something in the air;
Accustomed to her face.
--Alan Jay Lerner (1918—1986)
American playwright and lyricist.
"I've Grown Accustomed to her Face"
[1956 song from _My Fair Lady_.]

Familiarity is the root of the closest friendships,
as well as the intensest hatreds.
--Antoine de Rivarol (1753—1801)
French man of letters.
In Evan Esar _20,000 quips & quotes_ p. 295 [1995].

Old friends are best. King James used to call
for his old shoes; they were easier for his feet.
--John Selden (1584—1654)
English historian.
_Table Talk_ [1689] "Friends"

Better the devil you know than
the devil you don't know.
--Anthony Trollope (1815—1882)
English novelist [son of Frances Trollope.]
_Barchester Towers_ [1857]



FAMILY

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see: "ANCESTORS"
see: "GENEALOGY"
see: "HOME & FAMILY" for other related links
see: "THE HUMAN RACE" for other related links


As is the mother, so is her daughter.
--Bible
"Ezekiel" 16:44

^

Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British statesman and prime minister.

Churchill's actress daughter Sarah was married
for a time to the music-hall entertainer Vic
Oliver. Churchill did not particularly like him.
Out walking one day, Oliver asked his father-
in-law whom he had admired in the war.
'Mussolini,' growled Churchill surprisingly,
adding, 'He had the courage to have his
son-in-law shot.'

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

^

The apple does not fall far from the tree.
--"Daily Gleaner" (Kingston, Jamaica) [1 June 1911]

I have good looking kids; thank god my wife cheats on me.
--attributed to Rodney Dangerfield [Jacob Cohen] (1921—2004)
American comedian.

Accidents will occur in the best-regulated families.
--Charles Dickens (1812—1870)
English novelist.
_David Copperfield_, ch. 28 [1850]

-

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].

-

It is my conviction that the family is God's basic
unit in society. God's most important unit in
society. No wonder then . . . we are in a holy
war for the survival of the family. Before a
nation collapses the families of that nation
must go down first. What is a local church?
Nothing but a congregation of families.
--Jerry Falwell (1933—2007)
American evangelist and political activist.
Speaking at a morning service [2 December 1979].

Happiness in the ordinary sense is not what one needs in life,
though one is right to aim at it. The true satisfaction is to come
through and see those whom one loves come through.
--E.M. [Edward Morgan] Forster (1879—1970)
English novelist.
1922 letter in Mary Lago & Philip Nicholas Furbank (eds.)
_Selected Letters of E.M. Forster: 1921-1970 , Vol. II (1921-1970)_ [1985].

An undutiful Daughter will prove an unmanageable Wife.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
_Poor Richard's Almanack_ [August 1752]

The truth is that it is not the sins of the fathers
that descend unto the third generation, but the
sorrows of the mothers.
--Marilyn French (1929—2009)
American writer.
_Her Mother's Daughter_ [1987]

Better one's House be too little one
day than too big all the Year after.
--Thomas Fuller (1654—1734)
English writer and physician.
Comp., _Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs_, #919 [1732]

It is easier to be a "humanitarian" than to render your own
country its proper due; it is easier to be a "patriot" than to
make your community a better place to live in; it is easier
to be a "civic leader" than to treat your own family with
loving understanding; for the smaller the focus of attention,
the harder the task.
--Sydney J. Harris (1917—1986)
American journalist.
Quoted in "Reader's Digest", vol. 117 [1980].

Not to be deficient in this particular, the author has
provided himself with a moral; — the truth, namely,
that the wrong-doing of one generation lives into
the successive ones.
--Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804—1864)
American novelist and short-story writer.
_The House of the Seven Gables_, preface [1851]

It is better, in some respects, to be admired by those
with whom you live than to be loved by them. And
this, not on account of any gratification of vanity,
but because admiration is so much more tolerant
than love.
--Sir Arthur Helps (1813—1875)
English writer and clerk of the Privy Council.
_Brevia: Short Essays and Aphorisms_ [1871]

A chain is no stronger than its weakest link.
--George W. Henry
_Tell Tale Rag_ [1861]

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

It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his
children feel that home was the happiest place in the world,
and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest
gifts a parent could bestow.
--Washington Irving (1783—1859)
American author, essayist, and travel book writer.
_The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent_ [1819—1820]

The great advantage of living in a large family
is that early lesson of life's essential unfairness.
--Nancy Mitford (1904—1973)
English writer.
_The Pursuit of Love_, ch. I [1945]

Modern social practices have done four things to the household. First, by
converting the village into a city, they have replaced the personalized village
neighborhood by an agglomeration of human beings, most of whose relations
are as impersonal as those between passers-by on a busy street or fellow
passengers in a bus or subway car. Second, they have stripped the household
of many of its old-time tasks: the barnyard, the woodpile, food preservation,
cooking, the workshop, construction, the making of implements and utensils,
the making of cloth and clothing, laundering, and transferred these and other
activities to factories and stores. Third, they have taken adults out of the
household into factories, stores, and offices and children into schools and
playgrounds. Fourth, through organizing an extensive amusement industry,
they have induced both adult and juvenile members of the household to
spend a great deal of their spare time away from home. Such changes have
gone a long way toward destroying the villages of households and have
done much to break up the family.
Helen Knothe Nearing & Scott Nearing
_The Maple Sugar Book_ [1972], ch 11 "The Money in Maple"

A family is but too often a commonwealth of malignants.
--Alexander Pope (1688—1744)
English poet.
_Thoughts on Various Subjects_ [1727]

I suppose three important things certainly come to my
mind that we want to say thank you. The first would be
our family. Your family, my family — which is composed
of an immediate family of a wife and three children, a
larger family with grandparents and aunts and uncles.
We all have our family, whichever they may be.
--Dan Quayle (b. 1947)
Vice-President of the United States [1989—1993].
Quoted in the "Des Moines Register" [23 November 1988].

-

Blood's thicker than water.
--Allan Ramsay (1686—1758)
Scottish poet, playwright, and publisher.
_A Collection of Scots Proverbs_ [1737]

&

Blood is thicker than water.
--John Ray (1627—1705)
English naturalist and botanist.
_A Collection of English Proverbs_ [1678]

-

The family is one of nature's masterpieces.
--George Santayana (1863—1952)
Spanish-born philosopher and critic.
_The Life of Reason_ [1905]

He that by harshness of nature rules his family with
an iron hand is as truly a tyrant as he who misgoverns
a nation.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.—65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
Attributed in _Sunday School Helper_, vol. XX, no. 8 [August 1889].

The best school of discipline is home. Family life is God's
own method of training the young, and homes are very
much as women make them.
--Samuel Smiles (1812—1904)
Scottish author.
_Duty_ [1880]

We are always too busy for our children; we never give
them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts
upon them; but the most precious gift — our personal
association, which means so much to them — we give
grudgingly.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
Quoted in Albert Bigelow Paine
_Mark Twain: A Biography_ [1912].

The foundation of all free government and of
all social order must be laid in families and in
the discipline of youth.
--Noah Webster (1758—1843)
American lexicographer.
Letter to David McClure [25 October 1836].

-

A married couple goes to see a rabbi. 'What can
I do for you,' the rabbi says. 'We're having a
terrible problem, Rabbi,' the couple says. 'We
have five children and we all live in a one-room
house and we're driving each other crazy.' The
rabbi says, 'Move in a sheep.' So they move a
sheep into the house. A week later they go see
the rabbi and tell him that things are worse than
ever, plus there's a sheep. 'Move in a cow,' the
rabbi says. The next week they go to complain
once again, there's a cow. 'Move in a horse,' the
rabbi says. The next week the couple goes to see
the rabbi to tell him that things are the worst
they've ever been. 'You're ready for the solution,'
the rabbi says. 'Move the animals out.'

-

-----

consanguineous [kon-san(g)-GWIN-ee-us], adjective:
Of the same blood; related by birth; descended
from the same parent or ancestor.

materteral (adj.) [mκ-'te(r)-tκr-κl]
Pertaining to, or in the manner of, an aunt.

primogeniture [pry-moh-JEN-ih-choor] noun:
1. The state of being the firstborn of the same
parents; seniority by birth among children of
the same family.
2. (Law) An exclusive right of inheritance that
belongs to the eldest son.




FAMINE

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see: "POVERTY"


The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s the
world will undergo famines . . . hundreds of millions
of people (including Americans) are going to starve
to death.
--Paul R. Ehrlich (b. 1932)
American entomologist and author.
Prologue _The Population Bomb_ [1968].

-

In the terrible spring of 1933 I saw people dying
from hunger. I saw women and children with
distended bellies, turning blue, still breathing but
with vacant, lifeless eyes. And corpses — corpses
in ragged sheepskin coats and cheap felt boots;
corpses in peasant huts, in the melting snow of
the old Vologda, under the bridges of Kharkov
... I saw all this and did not go out of my mind
or commit suicide.
--Lev Kopelev (1912—1997)
Soviet author and Party activist.
_The Education of a True Believer_, p. 12 [1977]

& see

The 'famine' is mostly bunk.
--Walter Duranty to H.R. Knickerbocker [27 June 1933];
S. J. Taylor _Stalin's Apologist_, p. 210 [1990], as quoted in
M.J. Cohan and John Major (eds.) _History in Quotations_, p. 738 [2004].
Cohan & Major explain:
Duranty was Moscow correspondent of the New
York Times and an uncritical admirer of Stalin.

-

Educate peasants to eat less, and have more thin gruel.
The State should try its hardest . . . to prevent peasants
eating too much.
--Mao Zedong (1893—1976)
Chinese Marxist theorist, soldier and statesman
who led his nation's communist revolution.
(During the 1950s famine, quoted in Jung Chang and Jon
Halliday, _Mao: The Unknown Story_, 2005.)

Worrying about starving future generations
won't feed them. Food biotechnology will.
--Advertisement by the Monsanto corporation;
in M.J. Cohan and John Major (eds.)
_History in Quotations_, p. 951 [2004].
Cohan & Major add:
The company has developed genetically modified strains of food crops,
which, it claims, will produce much higher yields than traditional varieties
and avoid the use of insecticides and chemical fertilizers. Public concern
about the long-term effects on existing plant life and human health has
caused serious resistance to Monsanto, including a five-year ban on its
commercial imports into the European Union. In Feb. 2003 Representative
Bill Thomas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, declared
that if the EU did not lift the ban there would be strong support in Congress
for the US to leave the WTO in 2005.

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has
famously argued that no functioning democracy has ever
suffered a famine, because democratic governments "have
to win elections and face public criticism, and have strong
incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other
catastrophes." Like Pol Pot's Cambodia and Mao's China,
Mugabe's Zimbabwe shows what can happen when political
elites operate with no fear of being taken to task.
--Samantha Power
"How To Kill A Country"
in _Atlantic Monthly_ [December 2003].

How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in
his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of
his children? You can't scare him — he has known a fear
beyond every other.
--John Ernst Steinbeck (1902—1968)
American novelist.
_The Grapes of Wrath_ [1939]



FANATICS/FANATICISM

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see: "INTOLERANCE"
see: "TERRORISM"
see: "ZEAL"
see: "BELIEF" for other related links


Men love their ideas more than their lives. And
the more preposterous the idea, the more eager
they are to die for it. And to kill for it.
--Edward Abbey (1927—1989)
American author.
_A Voice Crying in the Wilderness_ [1989], ch. 3, "Government and Politics"

Nothing is more dangerous than an
idea, when you have only one idea.
--Alain (1868—1951) [pseudonym of Ιmile-Auguste Chartier]
French poet and philosopher.
_Propos sur le Religion_, no. 74 [1938]

Nobody talks so constantly about God
as those who insist there is no God.
--Heywood Broun (1888—1939)
American journalist & father of Heywood Hale Broun.
Attributed in Lloyd Cory _Quote Unquote_, p. 23 [1977].

A fanatic is one who can't change his
mind and won't change the subject.
--Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and
Prime Minister [1940—1945, 1951—1955].
In _New York Times_ [5 July 1954].

Fanaticism is ... overcompensation for doubt.
--Robertson Davies (1913—1995)
Canadian author and playwright.
_The Manticore_ [1972]

-

The most dangerous madmen are those created by religion,
and . . . people whose aim is to disrupt society know how
to make good use of them on occasion.
--Denis Diderot (1713—1784)
French writer and philosopher.
_Conversations with a Christian Lady_ [1777]


From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
--Denis Diderot (1713—1784)
French writer and philosopher.
_Essai sur le Mιrite de la Vertu_[1745]

-

There is nothing in art, in philosophy, or in politics
to match the fervor of mutual cooperation among
discordant bands of fanatics.
--Alan Dean Foster (b. 1946)
American author.
_Diuturnity's Dawn_ [2002]

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty
is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in
the pursuit of justice is no virtue!
--Barry Goldwater (1909—1998)
American conservative politician.
Accepting the Republican presidential nomination [16 July 1964].

The blind fanaticism of one foolish honest
man may cause more evil than the united
efforts of twenty rogues.
--Baron Friedrich von Grimm, Friedrich Melchior (1723—1807)
French author.
In Maturin M. Ballou _Treasury of Thought_ p. 171 [15th ed. 1894].

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the
fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares
not whether there is a god or not.
--Eric Hoffer (1902—1983)
American longshoreman, philosopher, and author who
received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1982.
_The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass
Movements _ [1951], pt. 3, "United Action and Self-Sacrifice"

Single-mindedness is all very well in cows or
baboons; in an animal claiming to belong to
the same species as Shakespeare it is simply
disgraceful.
--Aldous Huxley (1894—1963)
English novelist {grandson of T.H. Huxley}.
_Do What You Will, Essays_, p. 303 [1930]

-

As any action or posture long continued will distort and
disfigure the limbs; so the mind likewise is crippled and
contracted by perpetual application to the same set of
ideas.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
_The Rambler_ (English twice-weekly journal 1750—1752), #173


That fellow seems to me to possess but
one idea, and that is a wrong one.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
On a 'dull, tiresome' acquaintance, quoted by Rev. Dr. Maxwell
[1770] in James Boswell _The Life of Samuel Johnson_ [1791].


I wish there were some cure, like the lover's leap, for all heads
of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and
irregular possession.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
In James Boswell _The Life of Samuel Johnson_ [1791].

-

What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about
extremists is not that they are extreme, but that
they are intolerant. The evil is not what they
say about their cause, but what they say about
their opponents.
--Robert F. Kennedy (1925—1968)
American Democratic politician.
_The Pursuit of Justice_, pt. 3 "Extremism, Left and Right" [1964]

If you see one cold and vehement at the
same time, set him down for a fanatic.
--Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741—1801)
Swiss writer, Protestant pastor, and founder of physiognomics.
_Aphorisms on Man_ # 282 [1788]

It is the absolutist, whether of left or right, that
Democracy has to fear. This is the man who thinks
that he alone possesses wisdom, patriotism and
virtue, who recognizes no obligation to accept
community decisions with which he disagrees,
who regards any means as justified by the end,
who views the political process as a power
struggle to impose conformity rather than a
means of reconciling differences.
--Stanley Marcus (1905—2002)
American retailer.
Quoting from an editorial in the St. Louis "Post-Dispatch",
in an interview with "Life" (mag.), [31 January 1964].

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully
as when they do it from religious conviction.
--Blaise Pascal (1623—1662)
French mathematician, physicist, and moralist.
_Pensees_ [1670], # 894

You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence
in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow.
They *know* it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically
devoted to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or
goals, its always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.
--Robert M. Persig (b. 1928)
American writer and philosopher.
_Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, pt. 2, ch. 13 [1974]

Fanaticism consists of redoubling your
effort when you have forgotten your aim.
--George Santayana (1863—1952)
Spanish-born philosopher and critic.
_The Life of Reason_, vol. I "Introduction" [1905]

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
--William Butler Yeats (1865—1939)
Irish poet and dramatist who received the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.
"The Second Coming" [1921]

-----

jihad (noun)
1. A holy war against enemies of Islam,
undertaken by Muslims as a duty.
2. Any fanatical crusade for an ideal
or principle.

monomania [mon-uh-MAY-nee-uh; -nyuh], noun:
Pathological obsession with a single
subject or idea.



Click picture to ZOOM
FANTASY

.
.

see: "IMAGINATION"
see: "THE MIND"
see: "SUPERNATURAL"


Fantasy deals with things that are not and
cannot be. Science fiction deals with things
that can be, that some day may be.
--Frederic Brown (1906—1972)
American science fiction and mystery writer.
_Angels and Spaceships_ [1955]

We need metaphors of magic and monsters
in order to understand the human condition.
--Stephen Donaldson (b. 1947)
American writer.
In Stan Nicholls (ed.) _Wordsmiths of Wonder_ [1993].

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come
to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to
me than my for absorbing positive knowledge.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist.
Quoted in Ronald W. Clark _Einstein: The Life and Times_ [1971].

Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a
way of looking at life through the wrong end of
a telescope and that enables you to laugh at
life's realities.
--attributed to Theodor Seuss Geisel [Dr. Seuss] (1904—1991)
American writer and illustrator of children's books.

-----

reverie [REV-uh-ree], noun:
1. A state of dreamy meditation or fanciful musing.
2. A daydream.
3. A fantastic, visionary, or impractical idea.


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| FACE - FAME | FAILURE | FAMILIARITY - FANTASY | FARMING - FATHERS | FAULT/FAULTS - FEELINGS | FEMINISTS - FIFTIES (THE) | FIFTY - FLAG | FLATTERY - FOLLOWERS | FOOD & DRINK - PAGE 1 (A-O) | FOOD & DRINK - PAGE 2 (P-Z) | FOOLS / FOOLISH | FOOTBALL - FORESIGHT | FOREST - FRAUDS | FREE - FREEDOM OF THOUGHT | FREEDOM | FREUD - FRIENDS | FRUGAL - FUTURE |
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