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MINNESOTA
MINORITY -- MIRACLES
MIRRORS --- MISANTHROPY --- MISERY

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see: "PLACES" for related links


Minnesotans are just different, that's all. On the
day of which I speak, with the wind-chill factor
hovering at fifty-seven below, hundreds of them
could be perceived through the slits in my ski
mask out ice fishing on the frozen lake. It was
cold out there, bitter, biting, cutting, piercing,
hyperborean, marmoreal cold, and there were
all these Minnesotans running around outdoors,
happy as lambs in the spring.
--Charles Kuralt (1934—1997)
American journalist and broadcaster.
_Dateline America_ [1979]

^

From the Blue Earth (Minn.) Faribault County Register.

About 18,000 deer in the state will take part in a
postcard survey asking them to report information
about wild turkey sightings while hunting.
--_New Yorker_ (magazine) [24 December 2007]

^




MINORITY/MINORITIES

.
.

see: "MAJORITY"
see: "INDIVIDUALITY" for other related links


The most certain test by which we judge whether a country
is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
--Lord Acton (1834—1902)
British historian.
"The History of Freedom in Antiquity" [1877],
address to the Members of the Bridgnorth Institute [26 February 1877].

Every effort for progress, for enlightenment, for science,
for religious, political, and economic liberty, emanates
from the minority, and not from the mass.
--Emma Goldman (1869—1940)
Lithuanian-born international anarchist who conducted leftist
activities in the United States from 1890 to 1917.
"Minorities Versus Majorities" [1917 essay]

Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did
not make you mad. There was truth and there was
untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against
the whole world, you were not mad.
--George Orwell [Eric Blair] (1903—1950)
English novelist.
_Nineteen Eighty-Four_ [1949]

Governments exist to protect the rights of minorities.
The loved and the rich need no protection, — they
have many friends and few enemies.
--Wendell Phillips (1811—1884)
American abolitionist and reformer.
In a speech in Boston, Massachusetts [21 December 1860].

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote;
a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a
minority; the political function of rights is precisely
to protect minorities from oppression by majorities.
--Ayn Rand (1905—1982)
Russian-born American writer.
_The Virtue of Selfishness_ [1964]

How a minority,
Reaching majority,
Seizing authority,
Hates a minority!
--Leonard H. Robbins (1877—1947)
American author.
"Minorities"

-

"Well, there were sixty-eight people there, and sixty-two of
them had no more desire to throw a stone than you had."

"Satan!"

"Oh, it's true. I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is
governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It
suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful
that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy handful is
right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the crowd follows it.
The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized,
are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but
in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they
don't dare to assert themselves. Think of it! One kind-hearted
creature spies upon another, and sees to it that he loyally
helps in iniquities which revolt both of them. Speaking as
an expert, I know that ninety-nine out of a hundred of your
race were strongly against the killing of witches when that
foolishness was first agitated by a handful of pious lunatics
in the long ago. And I know that even to-day, after ages of
transmitted prejudice and silly teaching, only one person in
twenty puts any real heart into the harrying of a witch. And
yet apparently everybody hates witches and wants them
killed. Some day a handful will rise up on the other side
and make the most noise — perhaps even a single daring
man with a big voice and a determined front will do it —
and in a week all the sheep will wheel and follow him, and
witch-hunting will come to a sudden end."

--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
_The Mysterious Stranger_, ch. 9 [1916]

-

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything,
but I can do something. And that which I can do,
by the grace of God, I will do.
--anon.
Quoted in Dwight Lyman Moody
_One Thousand and One Thoughts from My Library_ [1898].

-----

arcane [ar-KAYN], adjective:
Understood or known by only a few.




MIRACLES

.
.

see: "FAITH"
see: "MAGIC"
see: "MYSTERY"
see: "SUPERNATURAL", "SUPERSTITION"


As any honest magician knows, true magic inheres in the
ordinary, the commonplace, the everyday, the mystery of
the obvious. Only petty minds and trivial souls yearn for
supernatural events, incapable of perceiving that everything
—everything!—within and around them is pure miracle.
--Edward Abbey (1927—1989)
American author.
_Abbey's Road_ [1979]

The most serious doubt that has been thrown on
the authenticity of the biblical miracles is the fact
that most of the witnesses in regard to them were
fishermen.
--Arthur Binstead (1861—1914)
British journalist.
_Pitcher's Proverbs_ [1909]

The world presents enough problems if you believe it to be
a world of law and order; do not add to them by believing
it to be a world of miracles.
--attributed to Louis Brandeis (1856—1941)
American lawyer and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court [1916-39].

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as
though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though
everything is a miracle.
--attributed to Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist who developed the
special and general theories of relativity.

Fairy tales can come true,
It can happen to you
If you're young at heart.
--Carolyn Leigh (1926—1983)
American songwriter.
"Young at Heart" [1954 song] w/music by Johnny Richards.

To live at all is miracle enough.
--Mervyn Peake (1911—1968)
British novelist, poet, and artist.
_The Glassblower_ [1950]

-----

numinous [NOO-min-nus, NYOO-min-nus], adjective:
Indicating or suggesting the presence of a god— spiritual,
divine; inspiring awe and reverence— holy.

thaumaturgy [THAW-muh-tuhr-jee], noun:
The performance of miracles or magic.





MIRRORS

.
.

see: "THE BODY"


It's indecent and inhuman to put full length mirrors
in bathroom doors. They cause narcissism in the
young and unhappiness in the old.
--Frederic Brown (1906—1972)
American science fiction and mystery writer.
_The Lights In the Sky Are Stars_ [1953]

A man's manners are a mirror in
which he shows his portrait.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright.
_Proverbs in Prose_ [1819]

It is now eleven years since I have seen my figure
in a glass, and the last reflection I saw there was
so disagreeable, that I resolved to spare myself
the mortification in the future.
--Lady Mary Wortley Montagu [nιe Pierrepont] (1689—1762)
English writer.
Letter to Countess of Bute [c. 1758].

Just tonight I stood before the tavern,
Nothing seemed the way it used to be;
In the glass I saw a strange reflection,
Was that lonely woman really me?
--Gene Raskin (1909—2004)
American musician and playwright.
"Those Were The Days" [1968 song]
The tune was an old Russian song and it was sung by Mary Hopkin.




MISANTHROPY

.
.

see: "CYNICS"
see: "MEN v. WOMEN"
see: "PESSIMISM"
see: "SNEER"
see: "EVIL" for other related links


I like long walks, especially when they
are taken by people who annoy me.
--Fred Allen [John Florence Sullivan] (1894—1956)
American humorist.
Attributed in "Reader's Digest", vol. 55 [1949].

The opinions of the misanthropical rest upon this very partial
basis, that they adopt the bad faith of a few as evidence of the
worthlessness of all.
--Christian Nestell Bovee (1820—1904)
American writer.
_Intuitions and Summaries of Thought_, p. 54 [1862]

Though no man hates himself, the coldest among us
having too much self-love for that, yet most men
unconsciously judge the world from themselves,
and it will be very generally found that those who
sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to
despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant
samples.
--Charles Dickens (1812—1870)
English novelist.
_Nicholas Nickleby_, ch. 44 [1839]

-

I detest my fellow-beings and do not
feel that I am their fellow at all.
--Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880)
French novelist.
Attributed in Robert Lynd _Books and Writers_ [1952].


I hate the crowd, the herd. It seems to
me always atrociously stupid or vile.
--Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880)
French novelist.
Quoted in Enid Starkie _Flaubert: The Making of the Master_ [1967].

-

He who undertakes to guide men must never lose sight
of the fact that they are malicious monkeys ... The folly
of the revolution was in aiming to establish virtue on the
earth. When you want to make men good and wise, free,
moderate, generous, you are led inevitably to the desire
of killing them all.
--Anatole France [Jacques Anatole Thibault] (1844—1924)
French novelist, man of letters, and winner of the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1921.
Quoted in Barry Cerf
_Anatole France, the Degeneration of a Great Artist_ [1926].

O woman, woman, when to ill they mind
Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend.
--"Agamemnon" in Homer (c. 850? B.C.)
Greek epic poet, _The Odyssey_, c. 800 B.C.

-

The Cornish people still attract me. They have become
detestable, I think, and yet they *aren't* detestable.
They are of course, strictly anti-social and un-Christian...
But curse them they are entirely mindless, and yet they
are living purely for social advancement. They ought to
be living in the darkness and warmth and passionateness
of the blood, sudden, incalculable. Whereas they are
like insects gone cold, living only for money, for *dirt*.
They are foul in this. They ought all to die.

Not that I've seen very much of them.

--D.H. (David Herbert) Lawrence (1885—1930)
English novelist and poet.
Letter to J.D. Beresford [1 February 1916].

-

-

The American people, taken one with another, constitute the
most timorous, sniveling, poltroonish, ignominious mob of
serfs and goose-steppers ever gathered under one flag in
Christendom since the end of the middle ages.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.
"On Being an American" [1922]


It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone —
that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than
any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized.
This assumption is quite erroneous. The men of the educated
minority, no doubt, know more than their predecessors, and of
some of them, perhaps, it may be said that they are more civilized
— though I should not like to be put to giving names — but the
great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely
where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant,
they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They
know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not
the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase
their knowledge.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.
Quoted in S.T. Joshi (ed.) _H.L. Mencken on Religion_ [2002].


A misogynist is a man who hates women
as much as women hate each other.
--attributed to H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.

-

It's silly to go on pretending that under the skin we
are all brothers. The truth is more likely that under
the skin we are all cannibals, assassins, traitors,
liars, hypocrites, poltroons.
--Henry Miller (1891—1980)
American novelist and essayist.
_New York Tiimes_ [7 September 1974]

Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds
yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked
up with plants.
--attributed to Dorothy Parker (1893—1967)
American critic and humorist.

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

Women are one and all a set of vultures.
--Gaius Petronius Arbiter (?—AD 66)
Roman writer and senator.
_Satyricon_, 1st century AD

I wish I loved the Human Race;
I wish I loved its silly face;
I wish I liked the way it walks;
I wish I liked the way it talks;
And when I'm introduced to one,
I wish I thought 'What Jolly Fun!'
--Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh (1861—1922)
Scottish scholar, poet and author.
"Wishes of an Elderly Man" [1923]

[Of W.C. Fields, and often attributed to him:]
Any man who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad.
--Leo Rosten (1908—1997)
Polish-born American writer and social scientist.

[On his commission to paint murals for the Four Seasons restaurant:]
I hope to paint something that will ruin the appetite
of every son of a bitch who eats in that room.
--Mark Rothko [Marcus Rothkowitz] (1903—1970)
Russian-born American painter.

I love mankind — it's PEOPLE I can't stand!
--Charles Schulz (1922—2000)
American cartoonist.
_You're a Winner, Charlie Brown_ [1960]

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].

-

Woman is as hard to know as a melon.
--Spanish proverb


From the sea, much salt; from women, much evil.
--Spanish proverb

-

I hate and detest the animal called man, although
I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas., and so forth.
--Jonathan Swift (1667—1745)
Anglo-Irish poet and satirist.
Letter to Alexander Pope [29 September 1925].

There are times when one would like to hang
the whole human race, and finish the farce.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
_A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_, ch. XXXI [1889]

-----

misanthropy (noun)
Distrust or hatred of human beings.




MISERY

.
.

see: "UNHAPPINESS" for related links


There will always be a lost dog somewhere
that will prevent me from being happy.
--Jean [-Marie-Lucien-Pierre] Anouilh (1910—1987)
French playwright.
_La Sauvage_ [1938]

Happiness, n. An agreeable sensation arising
from contemplating the misery of others.
--Ambrose Bierce (1842—1914)
American newspaperman, wit, and satirist.
_The Cynic's Word Book_ [1906]
(Retitled in 1911 as _The Devil's Dictionary_.)

-

In every kind of adversity, the bitterest part of a man's
affliction is to remember that he once was happy.
--Boethius [Anicius Manlius Severinus] (480?—524)
Roman scholar and Christian philosopher.
_The Consolation of Philosophy_ [c. 524, written in prison while awaiting execution.]

& see:

There is no greater pain than to recall the happy time in misery.
--Dante Alighieri (1265—1321)
Italian poet, literary theorist, and moral philosopher.
_La Divina Commedia_ (The Divine Comedy) canto 5, l. 121 [c. 1310-21]

-

It is a general error to imagine the loudest complainers
for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
--Edmund Burke (1729—1797)
Irish-born Whig politician and man of letters.
_Observations on a publication entitled
'The Present State of the Nation'_ [1769]

It is not what a man outwardly has or wants that constitutes
the happiness or misery of him. Nakedness, hunger, distress
of all kinds, death itself have been cheerfully suffered, when
the heart was right. It is the feeling of injustice that is
insupportable to all men.
--Thomas Carlyle (1795—1881)
Scottish historian and political philosopher.
_Chartism_, ch. 3 [1839]

If the misery of others leaves you indifferent
and with no feeling of sorrow, then you
cannot be called a human being.
--Jimmy Carter (b. 1924)
American Democratic statesman, President [1977-81].
_Keeping Faith_ [1982]

We either make ourselves miserable, or we
make ourselves strong. The amount of work
is the same.
--Carlos Castaneda (1925—1998)
Peruvian-born American author.
"don Juan" speaking in _Journey to Ixtlan_, ch. 15 [1972].

'Tis the only comfort of the miserable
to have partners in their woes.
--Miguel de Cervantes (1547—1616)
Spanish novelist.
_Don Quixote de la Mancha_, pt. I, bk. 3 [1605]

-

Misery loves company.
--"A Collection of Papers, Lately Printed in the Daily Advertiser" [1740]

& see:

If misery loves company, misery has company enough.
--Henry David Thoreau (1817—1862)
American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher.
_Journal_" [1906] "1 September 1851"

-

I read big fat "Les Miserables" for weeks while I took the IRT
subway for my Wednesday allergy shots. I needed to know
Jean Valjean lived a more miserable life than I did.
--E.L. (Edgar Lawrence) Doctorow (b. 1931)
American writer.
_Lives of the Poets_ [1984]

[The] great part of the miseries of mankind are brought
upon them by the false estimates they have made of the
value of things, and by their *giving too much for their
whistles.*
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
(Referring to the time when at age 7 he was charmed by
another boy's whistle which he bought with all the money
he had; letter to Madame Brillion [10 November 1779] - Q.)

Lonely people talking to each other
can make each other lonelier.
--Lillian Hellman (1905—1984)
American dramatist.
_The Autumn Garden_, act I [1951]

You wallow in the guilt; you wallow in the pain
You wave it like a flag, you wear it like a crown
Got your mind in the gutter, bringin' everybody down
Complain about the present and blame it on the past
I'd like to find your inner child and kick its little ass.
Get over it.
--Don Henley (b. 1947)
American rock musician.
"Get Over It" from the Eagles' album _Hell Freezes Over_ [1994].

Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this, to know
so much and to have control over nothing.
--attributed to Herodotus (484—c.425 B.C.)
Greek author of the first great narrative history produced in the ancient world.

At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity,
human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice
and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on
behalf of religous or political idols.
--Aldous Huxley (1894—1963)
English novelist (Grandson of T.H. Huxley.)
_Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Other Essays_ [1956]

-

The misery of man proceeds not from
any single crush of overwhelming evil,
but from small vexations continually
repeated.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
_Lives of the English Poets_ [1781] "Pope"


Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there
is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for
where there is nothing but pure misery there never is
any recourse to the mention of it.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
In James Boswell _The Life of Samuel Johnson_ [1791]

-

Most men make use of the first part of their
life to render the last part miserable.
--Jean de La Bruyθre (1645—1696)
French essayist and moralist.
_Les Caractθres_ [1688] "De l'Homme"

We ought never to scoff at the wretched, for
who can be sure of continued happiness?
--Jean de La Fontaine (1621—1695)
French poet.
_Fables_, V, 17 [1668-79]

Few things are needed to make a wise man happy;
nothing can make a fool content; that is why most
men are miserable.
--Franηois de La Rochefoucauld (1613—1680)
French classical author.
_Pensιes de La Rochefoucauld_ (ed. Claude Barbin) [1693]
"Third Supplement" Maxim LXXX

He who walks through a great city to find
subjects for weeping, may, God knows,
find plenty at every corner to wring his
heart; but let such a man walk on his
course, and enjoy his grief alone — we
are not of those who would accompany
him. The miseries of us poor earthdwellers
gain no alleviation from the sympathy of
those who merely hunt them out to be
pathetic over them. The weeping
philosopher too often impairs his eyesight
by his woe, and becomes unable from
his tears to see the remedies for the evils
which he deplores. Thus it will often be
found that the man of no tears is the
truest philanthropist, as he is the best
physician who wears a cheerful face,
even in the worst of cases.
--Charles Mackay (1814—1889)
Scottish poet and newspaperman.
_Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds_ [1841]

Is it worthwhile that we jostle a brother,
Bearing his load on the rough road of life?
Is it worthwhile that we jeer at each other,
In blackness of heart—that we war to the knife?
God pity us all in our pitiful strife.
--Joaquin Miller [Cincinnatus Hiner Miller] (1837—1913)
American poet and journalist.
_Is it Worthwhile?_

Since trifles make the sum of human things,
And half our mis'ry from our foibles springs.
--Hannah More (1745—1833)
English religious writer.
"Sensibility: an Epistle to the Honorable Mrs. Boscawen", l. 293 [1782]

It is a consolation to the wretched
to have companions in misery.
--Publilius Syrus (85—43 B.C.)
Latin writer of mimes who was originally a slave.
"Maxim" #995

It is solace to haue companie in peyne.
--Richard de Hampole Rolle (c. 1300—1349)
English solitary and writer.
_Meditations on Passion_ [1349]

There are two means of refuge from
the misery of life: music and cats.
--attributed to Albert Schweitzer (1875—1965)
Franco-German theologian, philosopher, and mission doctor.

The secret of being miserable is to have leisure
to bother about whether you are happy or not.
The cure for it is occupation.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist
propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.]
_Treatise on Parents and Children_ [1914] "Children's Happiness"

Remember that in all miseries lamenting
becomes fools, and action, wise folk.
--Sir Philip Sidney (1554—1586)
English soldier, poet, and courtier.
Quoted in Jane Porter (ed.) _Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney_ [1807].

Life is such unutterable hell, solely because it is
sometimes beautiful. If we could only be miserable
all the time, if there could be no such thing as love
or beauty or faith or hope, if I could be absolutely
certain that my love would never be returned: how
much more simple life would be. One could plod to
the Siberian salt mines of existence without being
bothered about happiness. Unfortunately the
happiness is there. There is always the chance that
another heart will come to mine. I can't help hoping
and keeping faith, and loving beauty. Quite frequently
I am not so miserable as it would be wise to be.
--T. H. [Terence Hanbury] White (1906—1964)
English novelist.
_The Troll_ [1935]

-

I would not anticipate the relish of any happiness, nor feel
the weight of any misery, before it actually arrives.
--unattributed author _Spectator_ (no. 7),
English periodical [1711—1712].


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| MACARTHUR (DOUGLAS) - MALICE | MAN - MARINES | MARRIAGE | MARTYRS - MAUGHAM (WILLIAM SOMERSET) | McCARTHY - MEANNESS | MEDIA (THE) | MEDICINE - MEMORIAL DAY | MEMORIES - MEMORY | MEN - MEN v. WOMEN | MENTAL ILLNESS - MILK | MIND (THE) - MINDING OWN BUSINESS | MINNESOTA - MISERY | MISFORTUNE - MISSOURI | MISTAKES | MISTAKEN IDENTITY - MODESTY | MONEY | MONROE - MOON | MORAL ASSASINATION - MORALITY | MORNING - MOUNTAINS | MOVIE DIALOGUE - MUSHROOMS | MUSIC - MYTHOLOGY |
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