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SEX SYMBOLS
SHAKESPEARE --- SHALLOW
SHAME --- SHARING --- SHAW (G.B.) --- SHEEP

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SEX SYMBOLS

see: "ACTORS" for related links

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Blonde hair and breasts, that's how I got started. I couldn't act.
All I had was my blonde hair and a body men liked. The reason
I got ahead is that I was lucky and met the right men.

They would tell me that I was beautiful, wonderful, you name it.
They all acted the same way. I didn't have to say a word. Just
take my dress off.

They just took their pleasure and ran. I didn't care. I was used
to it.

--Marilyn Monroe [Norma Jean Mortenson] (1926—1962)
American actress.


I don't mind being burdened with being glamorous and sexual.
But what goes with it can be a burden . . . people take a lot for
granted and expect an awful lot for very little. A sex symbol
becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing.
--Marilyn Monroe [Norma Jean Mortenson] (1926—1962)
American actress.
Interview in "Life" [July 1962].

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Click picture to ZOOM
SHAKESPEARE (WILLIAM)

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see: "AUTHORS"
see: "STAGE"
see: "THEATER"
see: "WRITING"
see: "PEOPLE" for other related links


Entirely incidentally, a little-known fact about Shakespeare is
that his father moved to Stratford-upon-Avon from a nearby
village shortly before his son's birth. Had he not done so, the
Bard of Avon would instead be known as the rather less
ringing Bard of Snitterfield.
--Bill Bryson (1951— )
American writer of humorous travel books.

Shakespeare's name, you may depend on it,
stands absolutely too high and will go down.
--Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (1788—1824)
English Romantic poet and satirist.
Letter to James Hogg [March 1814].

He was not of an age, but for all time!
--Ben Jonson (c.1573—1637)
English dramatist and poet.
"To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author, Mr William Shakespeare" [1623]

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me",
you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than
sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you
are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger, if your
wish is father to the thought, if your lost property has vanished into thin
air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an
inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and
loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or
in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity,
insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced
attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches,
had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have
seen better days or lived in a fool's paradise — why, be that as it may,
the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good
luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days
and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that
is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that
truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low
till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your
teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then —
to give the devil his due — if the truth were known (for surely you have
a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid
me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I were dead as a
door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil
incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot,
then — by Jove! O Lord! Tut, tut! for goodness' sake! what the dickens!
but me no buts — it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.
--Bernard Levin, adapted from Robert McCrum, William Cran
and Robert MacNeil _The Story of English_ [Viking, 1986].

After all, all he did was string together
a lot of old, well-known quotations.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.
(On Shakespeare.)

People take England on trust, and repeat that Shakespeare
is the greatest of all authors. I have read him: there is nothing
that compares Racine or Corneille: his plays are unreadable,
pitiful.
--Napoleon I (1769—1821)
Emperor of France [1804—1815].
_The Corsican: A Diary of Napoleon's Life in
His Own Words_ (ed. R. M. Johnston) [1910]

Saw 'Romeo & Juliet,' a play of itself the worst that
I ever heard in my life —'Midsummer Night's Dream,'
which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again,
for it is the most insipid, ridiculous play that ever
I saw in my life — 'Twelth Night,' acted well, though
it be but a silly play.
--Samuel Pepys (1633—1703)
English diarist and naval administrator.
_Diary_ [29 September 1662]

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The girls today in society
Go for classical poetry,
So to win their hearts,
You must quote with ease
Aeschylus and Euripides;
But the poet of them all,
Who will start them simply ravin'
Is the poet people call
The bard of Stratford-on-Avon!

Brush... up... your Shakespeare,
Start... quoting him now!
Brush... up... your Shakespeare,
And the women you will wow!

Just declaim a few lines from Othello
And she'll think you're a hell of a fellow;
If your blonde won't respond when you flatter her,
Tell her what Tony told Cleopaterer
If she fights when her clothes you are mussing
What are clothes? much ado About nussing!
Brush... up... your Shakespeare,
And they'll all kowtow!

--Cole Porter (1892—1964)
American songwriter.
"Brush Up Your Shakespeare" [1948 song from the show _Kiss Me Kate_ ]

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With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even
Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare
when I measure my mind against his.... But I am bound to add that I pity
the man who cannot enjoy Shakespeare. He has outlasted thousands of
abler thinkers, and will outlast a thousand more.
--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.]
_The Saturday Review_ [22 September 1896]


The Devil can quote Shakespeare for his own purpose.
--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.]
Quoted in Ashton Applewhite, Tripp Evans, & Andrew Frothingham
_And I Quote: The Definitive Collection..._, p. xv [1992].

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[Attributed 1901 remark to Anton Chekhov after seeing Uncle Vanya:]
You know I can't stand Shakespeare's
plays, but yours are even worse.
--Leo Tolstoy (1828—1910)
Russian novelist.

Shakespeare, Madam, is obscene, and thank God,
we are sufficiently advanced to have found it out!
--Frances Trollope (1780—1863)
English author [mother of Anthony Trollope.]
Quoting a remark made to her by an American in:
_Domestic Manners of the Americans_ [1832].

Englishmen believe in ghosts no more than the Romans did,
yet they take pleasure in the tragedy of "Hamlet", in which
the ghost of a king appears on the stage. Far be it from
me to justify everything in that tragedy; it is a vulgar and
barbarous drama, which would not be tolerated by the vilest
populace of France, or Italy. Hamlet becomes crazy in the
second act, and his mistress becomes crazy in the third; the
prince slays the father of the mistress under the pretence
of killing a rat, and the heroine throws herself into the river.
[...] One would imagine this piece to be the work of a drunken
savage.
--Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (1694—1778)
French writer and philosopher.
_Thιβtre Complet_ [1768], in H.H. Furness (ed.)
_A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare_ [1877].

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[Of Shakespeare:]
A great man! Why, I doubt if there are
six his equal in the whole of Boston.
--said to William Gladstone by an unnamed Bostonian.





SHALLOW

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see: "CHARACTER" for related links


If you can go past those awful idiot faces on the bleachers
outside the theater [on Oscar night] without a sense of the
collapse of the human intelligence; if you can stand the
hailstorm of flash bulbs popping at the poor patient actors
who, like kings and queens, have never the right to look
bored; if you can glance out over this gathered assemblage
of what is supposed to be the elite of Hollywood and say to
yourself without a sinking feeling, 'In these hands lie the
destinies of the only original art the modern world has
conceived'; if you can laugh, and you probably will, at the
cast-off jokes from the comedians on the stage, stuff that
wasn't good enough to use on their radio shows; if you can
stand the fake sentimentality and the platitudes of the
officials and the mincing elocution of the glamour queens
(you ought to hear them with four martinis down the hatch);
if you can do all these things with grace and pleasure, and
not have a wild and forsaken horror at the thought that most
of these people actually take this shoddy performance
seriously; and if you can then go out into the night to see
half the police force of Los Angeles gathered to protect the
golden ones from the mob in the free seats but not from that
awful moaning sound they give out, like destiny whistling
through a hollow shell; if you can do all these things and
still feel next morning that the picture business is worth
the attention of one single intelligent, artistic mind, then
in the picture business you certainly belong.
--Raymond Chandler (1888—1959)
American writer of detective fiction.
_The Atlantic_ [1946]

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For many years, after one of my pictures opened, a
very intelligent letter would arrive from a woman
living in Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace.
The letters were well written, in a beautiful feminine
hand in lavender ink, each a favorable critique of
the movie. Intrigued, I answered.

A correspondence sprang up which became warmer and
friendlier over the years. I wondered what she looked
like. I pictured someone like Louise Livingston, tall
and dark, walking along the banks of the Avon, composing
verses. One day, a book of verse did arrive. _Poems for
K_, each poem inspired by a scene from one of my movies.

The tempo of our correspondence increased. We both fell
in love — with me. Now, more than ever, I was anxious
to meet her, face to face, "breath to breath, where
hushed awakenings are dear."

I rented a lovely flat in Belgravia, with a little garden.
When I got settled in, I called her on the phone, lowered
my voice. "Hello, Kirk here."

"Yes, of course, that same voice." And she sounded just
the way I thought she would. I invited her to my flat
for tea. That seemed the proper invitation. I would send
my car and driver. "Five o'clock," she said. "That would
be fine." My voice got lower.

It was a typical London day, drizzling. The butler lit a
fire in the fireplace. I wore a velvet lounging jacket
with an ascot. I wanted our first meeting to be perfect.
The doorbell rang. "I'll get it," I told the butler.

I slowly walked to the door and opened it. I wasn't
quite prepared. She was extremely short, ugly, and
leaned on a cane, looking up at me through very thick
glasses. I tried to conceal my shock. "Please, come
in."

She hobbled past me into the room. That's when I noticed
the hump on her back. I tried to cover my hysteria by being
overly polite and solicitous, pouring tea and offering
sandwiches. She had the same musical voice I had heard
on the telephone, but she didn't say much, because I did
most of the talking, hastily, perspiration on my hands
and forehead in spite of the cold London afternoon.

She didn't stay long and politely bade me good-bye. I
never heard from her again. Maybe she was disappointed
in finding something ugly in me that could not see
something beautiful in her. I've often wondered.

--Kirk Douglas [Issur Danielovitch] (1916— )
American film actor and producer.
_The Ragman's Son_ [1988], Ch. 24

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You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you
hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.
--attributed to Erica Jong (b. 1942)
American novelist.

Do not assume that because I am frivolous I am shallow;
I don't assume that because you are grave you are profound.
--attributed to Sydney Smith (1771—1845)
English clergyman and essayist.

Only the Shallow know themselves.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.

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flibbertigibbet [FLIB-ur-tee-jib-it], noun:
A silly, flighty, or scatterbrained person, especially
a pert young woman with such qualities.




SHAME

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see: "BLUSHING"
see: "CONSCIENCE"
see: "GUILT"
see: "MODESTY"
see: "EMOTIONS & FEELINGS" for other related links


One improper word or act will neutralize the effect of many
good ones; and one base deed, after years of noble service,
will cover them all with shame.
--James H. Aughey (1828—1911)
American clergyman.

The awakenings of remorse, virtuous shame and indignation,
the glow of moral approbation if they do not lead to action,
grow less and less vivid every time they occur, till at length
the mind grows absolutely callous.
--Mrs. Anna Letitia Barbauld [nιe Aikin] (1743—1825)
English poet.
"An Inquiry into those Kinds of Distress which Excite Agreeable Sensations"
in Lucy Aikin (ed.) _The Works of Anna Lζtitia Barbauld_ [2 vol., 1825].

The way to avoid the imputation of impudence is not to
be ashamed of what we do, but never to do what we
ought to be ashamed of.
--Marcus Tullius Cicero (106—43 BC)
Roman orator and statesman.
Quoted in "The Spectator" [28 May 1712].

If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy
furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and
shoddy philosophies.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist.
Attributed in _Presbyterian Outlook_, vol 143, issue 4 [1961].

Take this remark from *Richard* poor and lame,
Whate'er's begun in anger ends in shame.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
_Poor Richard's Almanack_ [1734]

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;
It is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.
--Sydney J. Harris (1917—1986)
American journalist.
_Strictly Personal_, p. 220 [1953]

There is a good reason the words 'shameful'
and 'shameless' define the same conduct. You
know you've behaved shamefully if you have
exposed other people to needless annoyance
or embarrassment. You don't know you've
behaved shamelessly if you don't get this
point.
--Christopher Hitchens (1949— )
British journalist, author, and literary critic.
"The Death of Shame" in _Vanity Fair_ [March 1996]

No one can disgrace us but ourselves.
--Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819—1881)
American novelist, poet, and editor of "Scribner’s Magazine."

[Professor Wagstaff, (Groucho Marx) :]
You're a disgrace to our family name
of Wagstaff, if such a thing is possible.
--"Horse Feathers" [1932 movie]
Screenplay by Will B. Johnstone, Bert Kalmar, S.J. Perelman, and Harry Ruby.

When I look back upon the more than sixty years that
I have spent on this entrancing earth, and when I am
asked which of all the changes that I have witnessed
appears to me to be the most significant, I am inclined
to answer that it is the loss of a sense of shame.
--Harold Nicolson (1886—1968)
English diplomat, politician, and writer.
Quoted in Sidney Greenberg _A Treasury of the Art of Living_, p. 143 [1963].

Remember when what is now called publicity
was called public shame and humiliation?
--P.J. O'Rourke (b. 1947)
American political satirist.
Writing in "The American Spectator".

Shame is like everything else; live with it for long
enough and it becomes part of the furniture.
--Sir Salman Rushdie (1947— )
Indian-born British novelist.
_Shame_ [1983]

What! canst thou say all this and never blush?
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Titus Andronicus_, V, I [early 1590s]

If you destroy delicacy and a sense of shame
in a young girl, you deprave her very fast.
--Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811—1896)
American writer and philanthropist.
[Sister of Henry Ward Beecher, daughter of Lyman Beecher.]
_Uncle Tom's Cabin_, ch. XXIX [1852]

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often
wonder to see them not ashamed.
--Jonathan Swift (1667—1745)
Anglo-Irish poet and satirist.
_Thoughts on Various Subjects_ [1711]

The bold defiance of a woman is the certain sign of
her shame — when she has once ceased to blush, it
is because she has too much to blush for.
--Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Pιrigord (1754—1838)
French statesman.
Quoted in _Reminiscences of Prince Talleyrand; Edited from the Papers of
the Late M. Colmache, Private Secretary to the Prince_, vol. 2 [2 vol. 1848].

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brazen [BREY-zuhn], adjective:
1. Shameless or impudent.
2. Made of brass.

inglorious (adj.) [in-'glo-ri-yκs]
Lacking in glory or pride, hence shameful or dishonorable.

odium (noun) ['o-dee-κm]
The stain of deepest dishonor, such as disgrace from
evil behavior; hatred or repulsion elicited by degenerate
acts. This word is stronger than hatefulness.





SHARING

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Why are not more gems from our great authors scattered
over the country? Great books are not in everybody's reach;
and though it is better to know them thoroughly, than to
know them only here and there; yet it is a good work to
give a little to those who have neither time nor means to
get more. Let every bookworm, when in any fragrant,
scarce old tome he discovers a sentence, a story, an
illustration, that does his heart good, hasten to give it.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772—1834)
English poet, critic, and philosopher.
Attributed in Catherine Sinclair
_The Kaleidoscope of Anecdotes and Aphorisms_ [1851].

I am but a gatherer, and a disposer of
other men's stuff. If the world like it
not, so much the worse for them.
--William Cowper (1731—1800)
English poet and hymnodist.

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If wisdom were offered me with the proviso
that I should keep it shut up and refrain
from declaring it, I should refuse. There's
no delight in owning anything unshared.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC—65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
_Moral Letters to Lucilius_ tr. Richard M. Gummere [1918]


No good thing is pleasant to possess
without friends to share it.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC—65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
"On Sharing Knowledge" in
_Moral Letters to Lucilius_ tr. Richard M. Gummere [1918]


Let us possess things in common; for birth is ours in common.
Our relations with one another are like a stone arch, which
would collapse if the stones did not mutually support each
other.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC—65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
"On the Usefulness of Basic Principles" in
_Moral Letters to Lucilius_ tr. Richard M. Gummere [1918]

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Talent is always conscious of its own abundance,
and does not object to sharing.
--Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918—2008)
Russian novelist.
_The First Circle_, p. 3 [1968]




SHAW (GEORGE BERNARD)

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see: "PEOPLE" for related links


Oh dear me — it's too late to do anything but *accept*
you and *love* you — but when you were quite a little
boy somebody ought to have said 'hush' just once.
--Mrs. Patrick Campbell [Beatrice Stella Tanner] (1865—1940)
British stage actress.
Letter to GBS [1 November 1912].

A strange lady giving an address in Zurich wrote him
a proposal thus: 'You have the greatest brain in the
world, and I have the most beautiful body; so we ought
to produce the most perfect child.' Shaw asked: "What
if the child inherits my body and your brains?"
--Hesketh Pearson (1887—1964)
English actor and biographer.
_George Bernard Shaw: His Life and Personality_ [1963]

I remember coming across him at the Grand Canyon and
finding him peevish and refusing to admire it or even
look at it properly. He was jealous of it.
--J.B. [John Boynton] Priestley (1894—1984)
English novelist, playwright and critic.
_Thoughts in the Wilderness_ [1957]

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In 1934 he [Shaw] excused Hitler's violence and brutality.
In 1935 he demanded that his friends give him the fascist
salute, and he ended articles in defense of Nazism with a
"Heil Hitler." …When Nazi battalions attacked Poland in
September [1939], Shaw was ready to announce to the
BBC that "Mr. Hitler did not begin this war; we did"; and he
maintained elsewhere that "we are not the terrified victims
of Mr. Hitler's aggression: quite the reverse." After
Britain had entered the war, Shaw still eulogized the
German dictator for "moral courage" and "diplomatic
sagacity." …"I have no prejudice against him personally:
much that he has written and spoken echoes what I myself
have written and said." Shaw admired Mussolini even more
than Hitler…Shaw defends both Mussolini's torturing of
political prisoners with overdoses of castor oil and the
bombings in 1935 of defenseless Abyssinians. In Italy's
African war, he [Shaw] favored "the necessary intimidation"
of the Abyssinian natives to the point of necessary
"extermination."
--Arnold Silver,
_Bernard Shaw: The Darker Side_, Stanford, 1982, pp. 38-39.

and note:

When Mussolini invaded Abyssinia and made it possible for
a stranger to travel there without being killed by the native
Danakils he was rendering the same service to the world as we
had in rendering by the same methods (including poison gas)
in the north west provinces of India, and had already completed
in Australia, New Zealand, and the Scottish highlands. It was
not for us to throw stones at Musso, and childishly refuse to
call his puppet king Emperor. But we did throw stones, and
made no protest when his star was eclipsed and he was
scandalously lynched in Milan.
--GBS, Preface (1945) to _Geneva_ (1938),
in _Complete Plays with Prefaces_, Vol. V, [1963], p. 642.

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Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere.
Come and bring a friend — if you have one.
(Telegram inviting Winston Churchill to opening night
of Pygmalion. Churchill wired back, "Impossible to be
present for the first performance. Will attend the
second — if there is one.")
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish dramatist and critic.
Quoted in William Manchester
_The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932_ [1983].

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[Of George Bernard Shaw:]
He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by all his friends.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
Quoted by W.B. Yeats in his 1891 review of Wilde's
_Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories_.

You invite Shaw down to your place because you think he
will entertain your friends with brilliant conversation.
But before you know where you are he has chosen a school
for your son, made your will for you, regulated your diet
and assumed all the privileges of your family solicitor,
your housekeeper, your clergyman, your doctor and your
dressmaker. When he has finished with everyone else he
incites the children to rebellion. And when he can find
nothing more to do he goes away and forgets all about
you.
--anonymous hostess, quoted in Bennett Cerf (1898-1971)
American author, humorist, and publisher,
_Shake Well Before Using_ [1948]




Click picture to ZOOM
SHEEP

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see: "ANIMALS"
see: "FOLLOWERS"
see: "INDIVIDUALITY"
see: "OPINION"


You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on
its hind-legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in
that position you can make a crowd of men.
--Sir Max Beerbohm (1872—1956)
English satirist and caricaturist.
_Zuleika Dobson_ [1911]

[Describing Clement Attlee:]
A sheep in sheep's clothing.
--Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and
Prime Minister [1940—1945, 1951—1955].
Quoted in Geoffrey Willans and Charles Roetter _The Wit of Winston Churchill_ [1954].

In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of
sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist who developed the
special and general theories of relativity.

[On the 'woolly-bearded poet' Sturge Moore:]
A sheep in sheep's clothing.
--Edmund Gosse (1849—1928)
English translator and literary historian.
Quoted in Ferris Greenslet _Under the Bridge_ [1943].

We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little black sheep who have gone astray,
Baa - aa - aa!
Gentlemen rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Baa!
--Rudyard Kipling (1865—1936)
English writer and poet.
_Gentlemen Rankers_, (also known as_The Whiffenpoof Song_)

It is better to live one day as a tiger
than a thousand years as a sheep.
--Benito Mussolini (1883—1945)
Italian Fascist dictator.
In Denis Mack-Smith
_Mussolini's Roman Empire_ [1967].

The mountain sheep are sweeter,
But the valley sheep are fatter.
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
--Thomas Love Peacock (1785—1866)
English satirist and author.
"The Misfortune of Elphin—The War-Song of Dinas Vawr"

On applause: They named it Ovation from the Latin "ovis," a sheep.
--Plutarch (A.D. 46?—119?)
Greek philosopher and biographer.
_Parallel Lives_, Dryden edition [1693]

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We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the
drove is going, and then go with the drove.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
Quoted in Harriet Elinor Smith _Autobiography of Mark Twain_ [2010].


"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_ [1916], ch. 9

-

It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep may be.
--Virgil (70—19 B.C.)
Roman poet.
Attributed in Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 324 [1908 ed.].

We hear of a silent generation, more concerned
with security than integrity, with conforming
than performing, with imitating than creating.
--Thomas J. Watson, Sr. (1874—1956)
American industrialist and founder of IBM.

-

A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by,
One after one ...
I have thought of all by turns and yet do lie
Sleepless!
--William Wordsworth (1770—1850)
English poet.
_To Sleep_ II "A Flock of Sheep"

& see:

Wordsworth ... was a silly old sheep.
--Ezra Pound (1885—1972)
American expatriate poet and critic.
Quoted in K. L. Goodwin _The Influence of Ezra Pound_ [1966].

-

--

Australia: Where men are men
and sheep are nervous.

There was an old man of Khartoum
Who kept a tame sheep in his room,
"To remind me," he said,
"Of someone who's dead,
But I never can recollect whom."
--anon.

Some people count sheep, using numbers
To hasten and lengthen their slumbers,
But my nostrum entails
Just curvaceous females,
For I prefer figures to numbers.
--anon.

-----

lackey (noun)
A servile follower.
Synonyms: toady, crawler, sycophant


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