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;void(0)) . . . see: "RELIGION" for related links A very old Aboriginal man was showing us around Uluru (Ayers Rock) It was the first time he had visited the rock since his childhood [he had lived in a cave], as he dislikes the idea of *tourists* there. He couldn't speak English but my work-mate Neil was translating. It is a culturally sensitive site, well managed by the traditional owners and we came across a sign which stated in several languages Please Do Not Photograph Here Sacred Site. I watched as a group of (German) tourists got themselves into also sorts of positions to furiously snap this *site* with as much discretion as they could muster and I felt a little sad that there was so little respect being shown. It was then that I noticed the old man cackling away and whispering something in Pitjantjatjara to Neil who joined in the mirth. The translation relayed to me was... "That isn't a sacred site at all ..it's right behind us..no sign no nothing." A smart bit of tourist *psychology* I thought! It wasn't even given an idle glance. --"Aussie Ladies", alt. quotations - ----- hallow [HAL-oh], verb: To make holy; sanctify; consecrate. sacrosanct [SAK-roh-sankt], adjective: Sacred; inviolable. sanctum [SANK-tum], noun: 1. A sacred place. 2. A place of retreat where one is free from intrusion.  . . see: "HEROES" see: "LOVE" see: "MARTYRS" see: "MEMORIAL DAY" see: "SELF-SACRIFICE" see: "CHARACTER" for other related links see: "KINDNESS" for other related links see: "RELIGION" for other related links I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. --John Adams (17351826) First VP and second President of the United States. _Letters to his Wife: Vol. II_, Letter #78 [1780] Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. --Bible "John" 15:13 - When they sacrifice a wretched Indian they saw open the chest with stone knives and hasten to tear out the palpitating heart and blood and offer it to their idols in whose name the sacrifice is made. Then they cut off the thighs, arms and head and eat the former at feasts and banquets, and the head they hang up on some beams; the body of the man is not eaten but given to their fierce animals. --Bernal Diaz del Castillo (c. 1498c. 1568) Spanish historian. _The Conquest of New Spain_ [c. 1560], vol. 2 [1910 ed.] & see: And when he [the priest] had laid him [the captive] upon it [the sacrificial stone on the pyramid's temple], four men stretched him out, [grasping] his arms and legs. And already in the hand of the fire priest lay the [sacrificial knife] ... and then, when he has split open the breast, he at once seized his heart. And he whose breast he laid open was quite alive. and when [the priest] had seized his heart, he dedicated it to the sun. --Bernardino de Sahagun (c. 15001590) Franciscan missionary. In M.J. Cohan and John Major (eds.) _History in Quotations_ [2004]. - [Of veterans of the D-Day invasion:] They may walk with a little less spring in their step, and the ranks are growing thinner, but let us never forget, when they were young, these men saved the world. --Bill (William Jefferson) Clinton (b. 1946) American Democratic statesman and president [1993-2001]. Speech on the 50th anniversary of D-Day, Colleville-sur-Mer, France [6 June 1994]. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have every known. (Syndey Carton's thoughts on the steps of the guillotine, taking the place of Charles Darnay whom he had smuggled out of prison.) --Charles Dickens (18121870) English novelist. Final words of _A Tale of Two Cities_ [1859]. There are no laurels for the lazy [...] If by bad luck I am ever captured I command you and you will answer for it with your head that in my absence you will disregard my orders, that you will advise my brother, and that the state will stoop to no unworthy act to achieve my liberation. On the contrary, in such an event I order that even greater energy shall be displayed. --Frederick II [Frederick the Great] (17121786) King of Prussia [1740-86]. (To Podewils [7 March 1741]). Even if I died in the service of the nation, I would be proud of it. Every drop of my blood [...] will invigorate India and strengthen it. --Indira Gandhi (19171984) Prime Minister of India [1966-77] and [1980-84]. Speech at Bhubaneshwar on 30 October 1984. She was assassinated by Sikh militants the following day. Come and tell me who and what are you. Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert. --Kahlil Gibran (18831931) Lebanese poet. _The New Frontier_ [1925 article] (See Holmes, below.) I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice. [...] I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except bury it. There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. --Ernest Hemingway (18891961) American novelist. _A Farewell to Arms_ [1929] It is thus necessary that the individual should finally come to realize that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of his nation; that the position of the individual ego is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole [...] that above all the unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual. [...] The greater the readiness to subordinate purely personal interests, the higher rises the ability to establish comprehensive communities [...] This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture [...] we understand only the individual's capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow man. --Adolf Hitler (18891945) German dictator. Speech [7 October 1933]. We pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return. --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (18411935) Justice of the United States Supreme Court, legal historian, and philosopher. "Memorial Day Address" Keene, N.H. [30 May 1884]. (See Gibran, above.) These heroes are dead. They died for liberty they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, and the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the windowless palace of rest. Earth may run red with other wars they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. I have one sentiment for soldiers living and dead cheers for the living and tears for the dead. --Robert Green Ingersoll (18331899) American politician and orator known as "The Great Agnostic." From an Address Delivered at the Soldiers' Reunion at Indianapolis, 21 September 1876. - Executive Mansion, Washington, November 21, 1864 Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts DEAR MADAM: I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have lain so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. Yours very sincerely and respectfully, Abraham Lincoln - To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else. --Bernadette Devlin McAliskey (b. 1947) Norhern Irish politician. Preface to _The Price of My Soul_ [1969] It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master. But if you ever hear a man telling you that you must be happy, that it's your natural right, that your first duty is to yourself that will be the man who's not after your soul. --Ellsworth Monkton Toohey, a villain in Ayn Rand (19051982) _The Fountainhead_ [1943], pt. 4, ch. 14 Actually there are only two philosophies of life: one is first the feast and then the headache; the other is first the fast and then the feast. Deferred joys purchased by sacrifice are always the sweetest. --Fulton John Sheen (18951979) Roman Catholic bishop; the first popular preacher to appear on television. _Life of Christ_ [1958] When a person stands ready to offer his life for another, he obviously knows what he's doing. I wouldn't have believed you capable of such a sacrifice, but you never know what a human being is capable of. Not that those who make the sacrifices are always saints. People sacrificed themselves for Stalin, for Petlura, for Machno, for every pogromist. Millions of fools will give their empty heads for Hitler. At times I think men go around with a candle looking for an opportunity to sacrifice themselves. --Isaac Bashevis Singer (19041991) Polish-American novelist who won the 1978 Nobel Prize for Literature. _Shosha_ [1978] Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die. --Alfred, Lord Tennyson (18091892) English poet. "The Charge of the Light Brigade" [1854], st. 2 I have already given two cousins to the [Civil] war, and I stand ready to sacrifice my wife's brother. --Artemus Ward [Charles Farrar Browne] (18341867) American humorist and writer. Quoted in Charles Dickens (ed.) _Household Words_ [24 January 1885]. - Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. --Song of Songs 8:7, epitaph (engraved on memorial in a Bronx cemetary) for Isidor and Ida Straus who died on the Titanic. Ida (63) twice had the opportunity to take a place on a lifeboat but chose to stay with her husband instead. She insisted that her maid take her place on the lifeboat and handed the young woman her fur coat saying, "I won't need this anymore." ----- immolate [IM-uh-layt], transitive verb: 1. To sacrifice; to offer in sacrifice. 2. To kill or destroy, often by fire. . . see: "UNHAPPINESS" for related links see: "EMOTIONS & FEELINGS" for related links Be ignorance thy choice, where knowledge leads to woe. --James Beattie (17351803) Scottish poet and essayist. _The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius_, bk II, st. 30 [1771-72] The world either breaks or hardens the heart. --Sιbastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort (17411794) French playwright and conversationalist. Attributed in _A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness_ [1880], collected and translated by J. De Finod. Some people habitually wear sadness like a garment and think it a becoming grace. --Edwin Hubbel Chapin (18141880) American clergyman and author. Attributed in Maurice Switzer _Making the Grade_, p. 39 [1922]. I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more the feeling that I could last forever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grow cold, grows small and expires and expires, too soon, too soon before life itself. --Joseph Conrad [Teodor Jσzef Konrad Nalecz-Korzeniowski] (18571924) Polish-born English novelist. "Youth" [1898 autobiographical short story] Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth. --Fyodor Dostoyevsky (18211881), Russian novelist, journalist, and short story writer. _Crime and Punishment_, ch. V, pt. III [1866] The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don't mind some people dying all the time or maybe only starving some of the time which isn't half so bad if it isn't you. --Lawrence Ferlinghetti (b. 1919) American Beat poet and publisher. _Pictures of the Gone World_ [1955] The worst things: To be in bed and sleep not, To want for one who comes not, To try to please and please not. --F. Scott Fitzgerald (18961940) American novelist. "Egyptian Proverb," in _The Crack-up_ [essays, 1945], ed. by Edmund Wilson. Man can only endure a certain degree of unhappiness; what is beyond that either annihilates him or passes by him and leaves him apathetic. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (17491832) German poet, novelist, and playwright. _Elective Affinities_ [1809] There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would even lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. --Carl Gustav Jung (18751961) Swiss psychologist. Qupoted in "Newsweek" [1960]. Believe me, every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and oftentimes we call a man cold when he is only sad. --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (18071882) American poet. _Hyperion_ [1839] Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change. --Malcolm X (19251965) American civil rights campaigner. _Malcolm X Speaks_ [1965], ch. IX, "With Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer" Women suffer more from disappointment than men, because they have more of faith and are naturally more credulous. --Marguerite de Valois (15531615) Queen of France and Navarre. Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Edge-Tools of Speech_, p. 108 [1886]. If in this troubled world of ours I still must linger on, My only friend shall be the moon, Which on my sadness shone, When other friends were gone. --Emperor Sanjo (9761017) The 67th emperor of Japan. Poem, after 1016; William N. Porter (trans.) _A Hundred Verses from Old Japan_, p. 68 [1979]. The tragedy of man is what dies inside himself while he still lives. --Albert Schweitzer (18751965) Franco-German theologian, philosopher, and mission doctor. _The Philosophy of Civilization_ [1923] Gaiety is the soul's health; sadness is its poison. --Stanislaw I [Stanislaw Leszczynski] (16771766) King of Poland [1704-09 & 1733-36]. Quoted in James Wood (ed.) _Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources_, p. 118 [1899]. It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart: the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Following the Equator_ [1897] "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar", ch. XLV The best thing for being sad [...] is to learn something. --T. H. [Terence Hanbury] White (19061964) English novelist. _The Sword in the Stone_ [1938] For of all the sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been.' --John Greenleaf Whittier (18071892) American poet. "Maud Miller" [1854], stanza 53 The world is sad enough without your woe. --Ella Wheeler Wilcox (18501919) American author and poet. "Speech" in _Poems of Power_ [1901]. - The tide recedes, but leaves behind bright seashells on the sand. The sun goes down, but gentle warmth still lingers on the land. The music stops, yet echoes on in sweet, soulful refrains. For every joy that passes, something beautiful remains. --anon. ----- anhedonia (noun) [ζn-hee-don-i-yκ] The lack of a capacity to enjoy pleasure. chagrin [shuh-GRIN], noun: 1. Acute vexation, annoyance, or embarrassment, arising from disappointment or failure. 2. To unsettle or vex by disappointment or humiliation; to mortify. forlorn [fur-LORN; for-], adjective: 1. Sad and lonely because deserted, abandoned, or lost. 2. Bereft; forsaken. 3. Wretched or pitiful in appearance or condition. 4. Almost hopeless; desperate. lachrymose (adj.) 1. Crying or tending to cry easily and often. 2. So sad as to make people cry. maudlin (mαwdlin) Sentimental: overly or tearfully sentimental, especially because affected by alcohol. plaintive [PLAYN-tiv], adjective: Expressive of sorrow or melancholy; mournful; sad. plangent [PLAN-juhnt], adjective: 1. Beating with a loud or deep sound, as, "the plangent wave." 2. Expressing sadness; plaintive. repine (verb) 1. To feel or express dejection. 2. To long for something. threnody (noun) A poem or song of mourning or lamentation. Synonyms: coronach, dirge, requiem, lament. . . see: "CAREFUL" see: "PRUDENCE" see: "SECURITY" Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members. --Pearl S. Buck (18921973) American author noted for her novels of life in China; winner of the 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature. _My Several Worlds_ [1954] Oh, the comfort the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. --Dinah Mulock Craik (18261887) English writer and poet. _A Life for a Life_, ch. 16 [1859] Better a live sparrow than a stuffed eagle. --Edward Fitzgerald (18091883) English scholar and poet. Letter to Professor E.B. Cowell [27 April 1859]. Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. --Benjamin Franklin (17061790) American politician, inventor, and scientist. "Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor" [11 November 1755] in _The Papers of Benjamin Franklin_, ed. Leonard E. Labaree, vol. 6, p. 242 [1963]. Do not ride in cars: they are responsible for 20% of all fatal accidents. Do not stay at home: 17% of all accidents occur in the home. Do not walk on the streets or pavements: 14% of all accidents occur to pedestrians. Do not travel by air, rail, or water: 16% of accidents happen on these. Only .001% of all deaths occur in worship services in church, and these are usually related to previous physical disorders. Hence the safest place for you to be at any time is at church! --attributed to Mark Leslie Unless you are previously certain of her respectability, have little to say to a woman who is travelling without a companion, and whose face is painted, who wears a profusion of long curls about her neck, who has a meretricious expression of eye, and who is over-dressed. It is safest to avoid her. --Miss Leslie, "Miss Leslie's Behaviour Book" [1859] [Is it] better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved. --Niccolς Machiavelli (14691527) Florentine statesman and political philosopher. _The Prince_ [written 1513, published 1532] You will be safest in the middle. --Ovid [Publius Ovidius Naso] (43 B.C.18 A.D.) Roman poet. "Metamorphoses" Anyone who thinks there's safety in numbers hasn't looked at the stock market pages. --Irene Peter (b. 1945) American writer. Attributed in Laurence J. Peter _Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time_ [1993 ed.]. He is free from danger who, even when safe, is on his guard. --Publilius Syrus (8543 B.C.) Latin writer of mimes who was originally a slave. Quoted in J. K. Hoyt & Anna L. Ward (eds.) _The Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations_, p. 558 [4th ed., 1882]. Be wary then; best safety lies in fear. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _Hamlet_, I, iii [1601] A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. --John A. Shedd (fl. 1928) American author. _Salt from My Attic_ [1928] There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else. --James Thurber (18941961) American humorist and cartoonist. "The Fairly Intelligent Fly" in _Fables for Our Time..._ [1940]. - People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs. --anon. ----- palladium [puh-LEY-dee-uhm], noun: 1. Anything believed to provide protection or safety; safeguard. 2. A statue of Athena, especially one on the citadel of Troy on which the safety of the city was supposed to depend. 3. A rare metallic element of the platinum group, silver-white, ductile and malleable, harder and fusing more readily than platinum; used chiefly as a catalyst and in dental and other alloys. ;void(0)) SALT LAKE CITY . . see: "PLACES" for related links Salt Lake City was healthy an extremely healthy city. They declared that there was only one physician in the place and he was arrested every week regularly and held to answer under the vagrant act for having 'no visible means of support.' --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Roughing It_ [1872] ;void(0)) SAND . . see: "OCEAN" see: "SUMMER" see: "TRAVEL" see: "NATURE" for other related links - Among the many thousands of things that I have never been able to understand, one in particular stands out. That is the question of who was the first person who stood by a pile of sand and said, 'You know, I bet if we took some of this and mixed it with a little potash and heated it, we could make a material that would be solid and yet transparent. We could call it glass.' Call me obtuse, but you could stand me on a beach till the end of time and never would it occur to me to try to make it into windows. Much as I admire sand's miraculous ability to be transformed into useful objects like glass and concrete, I am not a great fan of it in its natural state. To me, it is primarily a hostile barrier that stands between a car park and water. It blows in your face, gets in your sandwiches, swallows vital objects like car keys and coins. In hot countries, it burns your feet and makes you go 'Ooh! Ah!' and hop to the water in a fashion that people with better bodies find amusing. When you are wet, it adheres to you like stucco, and cannot be shifted with a fireman's hose. But and here's the strange thing the moment you step on a beach towel, climb into a car or walk across a recently vacuumed carpet it falls off. For days afterwards, you tip astounding, mysteriously undiminishing piles of it onto the floor every time you take off your shoes, and spray the vicinity with quantities more when you peel off your socks. Sand stays with you for longer than many contagious diseases. And dogs use it for a lavatory. No, you may keep sand as far as I am concerned. --Bill Bryson (b. 1951) American writer of humorous travel books. _Notes From a Small Island_ [1996] - Honolulu it's got everything. Sand for the children, sun for the wife, sharks for the wife's mother. --Ken Dodd (b. 1927) English comedian and singer songwriter. Quoted in Jon Winokur _The Traveling Curmudgeon_, p. 28 [2003]. - kap informs USENET in 2000: One year we took a trip to Florida (Disneyworld, etc) and ended up at Daytona Beach. We drove down to the water's edge, got out, and started strolling along the beach. We didn't give a thought to whether it was high or low tide. Naturally, the tide started coming in and we got stuck in the sand. Entrepreneurs being what they are, a fellow came along in a truck and said for $15 he would pull us out. And me, being the stubborn person that I can be, said no thank you. Well, my two kids and wife (Margaret) thought there was a good possibility of the car sinking and being taken to the Bahamas, or perhaps Europe. So after I analyzed the situation I deftly resolved to take the next offer of assistance. For $20 I had the car pulled out.  SAN FRANCISCO . . see: "CALIFORNIA" see: "PLACES" for other related links The wonderful thing about this city is when you get tired you can always lean against it. --Warner Anderson (19111976) American actor. Quoted in "Washington Post" [25 January 1959]. I left my heart in San Francisco High on the hill it calls to me. To be where little cables cars Climb halfaway to the stars, The morning fog may chill the air I don't care. --Douglas Cross and George Cory "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" [1954 song] I have seen purer liquors, better segars, finer tobacco, truer guns and pistols, larger dirks and bowie knives, and prettier courtezans, here in San Francisco, than in any other place I have ever visited; and it my unbiased opinion that California can and does furnish the best bad things that are obtainable in America. --Hinton R. Helper (18291909) American writer. _Land of Gold: Reality Versus Fiction_ [1855] I went to San Francisco. I saw the bridges high, Spun across the water Like cobwebs in the sky. --Langston Hughes (19021967) American writer and poet. "Trip: San Francisco" [1958 poem] in _The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes_, ed. Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel [1994]. San Francisco has only one drawback. 'Tis hard to leave. --Rudyard Kipling (18651936) English writer and poet. _American Notes_ [1891] - I have compiled the following almanac expressly for the latitude of San Francisco: Oct. 17 Weather hazy; atmosphere murky and dense. An expression of profound melancholy will be observable upon most countenances. Oct. 18 Slight earthquake. Countenances grow more melancholy. [...] Oct. 23 Mild, balmy earthquakes. Oct. 24 Shaky. Oct. 25 Occasional shakes, followed by light showers of bricks and plastering. N.B. Stand from under! Oct. 26 Considerable phenomenal atmospheric foolishness. About this time expect more earth- quakes; but do not look for them, on account of the bricks. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. "A Page from a California Almanac" [1865] Twain on San Francisco's weather: During eight months of the year, straight along, the skies are bright and cloudless, and never a drop of rain falls. But when the other four months come along, you will need to go and steal an umbrella. Because you will require it. Not just one day, but one hundred and twenty days in hardly varying succession [...] And along in the summer, when you have suffered about four months of lustrous, pitiless sunshine, you are ready to go down on your knees and plead for rain hail snow thunder and lightning anything to break the monotony you will take an earthquake, if you cannot do any better. And the chances are that you'll get it, too. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Roughing It_, Vol. II, Chapter XV, "Glorious Climate Of California" [1871] The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. --attributed to Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. - - [After the plane landed, the flight] attendant said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to welcome you to San Francisco. Unfortunately, this is Las Vegas.' --anon. As reported by Dwayne Chestnut, in Herb Caen column in "San Francisco Chronicle" [11 August 1993]. ;void(0)) SANTA CLAUS . . see: "CHRISTMAS" see: "GIFTS" see: "HOME & FAMILY" for other related links I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph. --Shirley Temple Black (b. 1928) American child-actress and ambassador to the United Nations. Quoted in Leslie Halliwell _Halliwell's Filmgoer's Companion_ [1984]. - Eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York's Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history's most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps. "Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence." (See the entire editorial above.) --Francis Pharcellus Church (18391906) American journalist. Editorial in New York "Sun" [21 September 1897]. - Dispel not, the happy delusions of children. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (17491832) German poet, novelist, and playwright. Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Edge-Tools of Speech_, p. 69 [1886]. I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark. --Dick Gregory (b. 1932) American comedian and social activist. Quoted in Robert Byrne _1911 Best Things Anybody Ever Said_ [1988]. If you ever have to steal money from your kid, and later on he discovers it's gone, I think a good thing to do is to blame it on Santa Claus. --Jack Handey (b. 1949) American comedian and comedy writer. Attributed, on "Saturday Night Live". [Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho Marx):] That's that's in every contract. That's that's what they call a sanity claus. [Fiorello (Chico Marx):] You can't fool me. There ain't no Sanity Claus. --"A Night at the Opera" [1935 film] Screenplay by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. - One of the things we all remember, don't we, is the day we found out. Someone told us; we overheard; we suddenly realized. We did our best not to show disappointment, of course we might even have pretended for a while that we didn't know, for the sake of the younger siblings, or even to keep our parents happy. This was growing up; we had to take it "like a man," show that we were not really surprised, that we didn't especially care. And this is, of course, why he's there: set up for children to see through, when they are ready. He is an ingenious initiation device, whose vanishing means that the line between innocence and "the age of reason" has been crossed. In this rite of passage there is no revelation, only demystification. No guide is provided for the initiate either; she is left to find out the truth, *for herself*. All of a sudden she learns many things: that parents are *not* always what they seem, that she should greet information with caution at all times, and never again expect kindness just because she exists. --Margaret Visser (b. 1940) South-African born Canadian professor, writer, and broadcaster. "No, Virginia," from _The Way We Are_, a 1994 collection of her columns that originally appeared in the Canadian magazine "Saturday Night." - Calvin: Well. I've decided I *do* believe in Santa Claus, no matter how preposterous he sounds. Hobbes: What convinced you? Calvin: A simple risk analysis. I want presents. *Lots* of presents. Why risk not getting them over a matter of belief? Heck, I'll believe anything they want. Hobbes: How cynically enterprising of you. Calvin: It's the spirit of Christmas. --Bill Waterson II (b. 1958) American cartoonist. "Calvin and Hobbes" - [When asked by a department-store Santa if he had been a good boy this year:] Well, let's just say I've been better than last year. --anon. - end page | SACRED PLACES - SANTA CLAUS | SARCASM - SCHOOL | SCIENCE - SCULPTURE | SEA (THE) - SEEING | SELF - SELF-ESTEEM | SELF-EXAMINATION - SELLING OUT | SENATE (THE U.S.) - SERIOUSNESS | SEX | SEX SYMBOLS - SHEEP | SHIPS - SHYNESS | SICKNESS - SILENCE | SILLINESS - SINGING | SINGLE-MINDEDNESS - SKY | SLANDER - SLAVERY | SLEEP - SMILES | SMOKING - SOCIETY | SOLDIERS - SOPHISTICATION | SORROW - SOUTH SEA | SPACE - SPAM | SPEECH | SPEECHES - SPENDTHRIFTS | SPIDERS - SPY | SPORTS & SPORTSMANSHIP | STAGE (THE) - STERILIZATION | STOCK MARKET - STRANGERS | STRENGTH - SUBURBS | SUCCESS | SUFFERING - SUMMER | SUN - SUPREME COURT | SURPRISE - SYSTEM (THE) | | R | S | T | U - END | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
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