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. . . SILLINESS see: "ABSURDITIES" see: "NONSENSE" He who writes nothing silly writes nothing great. --Anton Chekhov (18601904) Russian dramatist and short-story writer. No man is exempt from saying silly things; the mischief is to say them deliberately. --Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (15331592) French moralist and essayist. _Essais_ (Essays) [pub. 15801588] - A man walks into a shoe store and tries on a pair of shoes. "How do they feel?" asks the sales clerk. "Well, ... they feel a bit tight," replies the man. The assistant promptly bends down and has a look at the shoes and the mans feet. "Try pulling the tongue out," offers the clerk. "Nath theyth sthill feelth a bith tighth," he says. ----- flibbertigibbet [FLIB-ur-tee-jib-it], noun: A silly, flighty, or scatterbrained person, especially a pert young woman with such qualities. hebephrenic A condition of adolescent silliness. ![]() ![]() SIMPLICITY . . see: "APPEARANCE" see: "BREVITY" see: "INNOCENCE" see: "SINCERITY" see: "HAPPINESS" for other related links To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; ... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest, or over a wildflower in spring these are some of the rewards of the simple life. --John Burroughs (18371921) American naturalist and writer. "An Outlook upon Life", III in _The Writings of John Burroughs_, Vol. 15 "Leaf and Tendril" [1908]. All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope. --Winston Churchill (18741965) British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [19401945, 19511955]. A refined simplicity is the characteristic of all high bred deportment, in every country. --James Fenimore Cooper (17891851) American novelist. _The American Democrat_ [1838] 'Excellent,' I cried. 'Elementary,' said he. --Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (18591930) Scottish-born writer of detective fiction. _The Adventures of the Crooked Man_ [1893] If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist. In "Reader's Digest" [October 1977], as quoted in Larry Chang _Wisdom for the Soul ..._ p. 653 [2006]. Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. "Literary Ethics" Speech at Dartmouth College [24 July 1838]. The greatest truths are the simplest: and so are the greatest men. --Augustus William Hare (17921834) English biographer and compiler of travel books. _Guesses at Truth_ [1827] (Co-written with brother Julius) I have always revered not crude verbosity but holy simplicity. --Saint Jerome (c.340420?) Translator of the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into Latin. Letter 57. What is easy is seldom excellent. --Samuel Johnson (17091784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. . . . All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart. --Nikos Kazantzakis (18831957) Cretan civil servant and foreign correspondent. _Zorba the Greek_, ch. 7 [1946] Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. --Leonardo da Vinci (14521519) Florentine painter, sculptor, musician, and scientist. In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity. --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (18071882) American poet. _Kavanagh: A Tale_ [1849] Keep it simple, stupid. --"N.Y. Times" [22 October 1959] Like many intellectuals, he was incapable of saying a simple thing in a simple way. --Marcel Proust (18711922) French novelist. _Remembrance of Things Past_, vol. 2 "Within a Budding Grove" [1919] Less is more. --Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) German-born architect and designer, in Philip Johnson _Mies van der Rohe_ [1947]. An honest tale speeds best being plainly told. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _King Richard III_, IV, iv [1591] The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means and the exercise of ordinary qualities. --Samuel Smiles (18121904) Scottish author. _Self-Help_ [1859] Our life is frittered away by detail. . . . Simplify, simplify. --Henry David Thoreau (18171862) American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher. _Walden_ "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For" [1854] There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth. --Leo Tolstoy (18281910) Russian novelist. _War and Peace_, pt. 14, ch. 18 [1869] Seek simplicity and distrust it. --Alfred North Whitehead (18611947) British philosopher and mathematician. _The Concept of Nature_, ch. 7 [1920] The truth is rarely pure, and never simple. --Oscar Wilde (18541900) Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet. _The Importance of Being Earnest_, act 1 [1895] ----- facile [FAS-uhl], adjective: 1. Easily done or performed; not difficult. 2. Arrived at without due care or effort; lacking depth; as, "too facile a solution for so complex a problem." 3. Ready; quick; expert; as, "he wields a facile pen." Ex.: Today, the nuclear projects in Iran, Iraq, and North Korea forbid the facile conclusion that the atomic weapons age is conclusively ended. --Abba Eban, _Diplomacy for the Next Century_ pablum [PAB-luhm], noun: 1. Something (as writing or speech) that is trite, insipid, or simplistic. 2. (capitalized) A trademark used for a bland soft cereal for infants. ![]() . . see: "HUMOR" for related links Maybe for once, someone will call me "Sir" without adding, "you're causing a scene." --Homer Marge, don't discourage the boy! Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals! Except the weasel. --Homer You tried your hardest and you failed miserably. The lesson here is: "Never Try!" --Homer Simpson Lisa, if you don't like your job you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way. --Homer Solitude never hurt anyone. Emily Dickinson lived alone, and she wrote some of the most beautiful poetry the world has ever known.....then she went as crazy as a loon. --Lisa Simpson of "The Simpsons" MARGE: Homer, sitting that close to the TV can't be good for you. HOMER: Talklng while the TV's on can't be good for you. --Julie Thacker, dialogue "Last Tap Dance in Springfield," _The Simpsons_ Fox TV [2000] The answer to life's problems is not at the bottom of a bottle, they're on TV. --Homer J. Simpson But if I pay attention to you, I have to stop watching T.V. You can see the bind I'm in. --Homer J. Simpson Cable. It's more wonderful than I dared hope. --Homer J. Simpson It's just hard not to listen to TV: it's spent so much more time raising us than you have. --Bart Simpson ![]() . . see: "IMMORALITY" - He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. --Bible "New Testament, John" 8:7 Be sure your sin will find you out. --Bible "Numbers" 32:23 - Most people repent of their sins by thanking God they ain't so wicked as their neighbor. --Josh Billings [Henry Wheeler Shaw] (1818-1885) American humorist. A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those that are worth committing. --Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, essayist, and critic. _The Note-Books of Samuel Butler_, ed. Henry Festing Jones [1907] "Life" ^ Calvin Coolidge (18721933), 30th President of the United States [19231929]. On returning from church one day, Coolidge was asked on what topic the minister had preached. After a moment's thought he replied, 'Sin.' 'And what did he say about sin?' 'He was against it.' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ No sin to cheat the devil. --Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) English novelist and journalist. _History of the Devil_, pt. II, ch. 10. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellencies, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations. --Renι Descartes (1596-1650) French philosopher and mathematician. _Discourse on Method and the Meditations_ [1637] I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, 'If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?' 'No,' said the priest, 'not if you did not know.' 'Then why,' asked the Eskimo earnestly, 'did you tell me?' --Annie Dillard (1945 ) American author and winner of Pulitzer Prize. _Pilgrim at Tinker Creek_, ch. 7 [1974] The gods Visit the sins of the fathers upon the children. --Euripides (485?-406 B.C.) Greek dramatist. _Phrixus_, fragment 970 It is easier to declaim like an orator against a thousand sins in others than to mortify one sin in ourselves; to be more industrious in our pulpits than in our closets; to preach twenty sermons to our people than one to our own hearts. --John Flavel (16271691) English Presbyterian clergyman. Attributed in _Hogg's Weekly Instructor_ [7 November 1846]. 1. Politics without Principle. 2. Wealth without Work. 3. Pleasure without Conscience. 4. Knowledge without Character. 5. Commerce without Morality. 6. Science without Humanity. 7. Worship without Sacrifice. --Mohandas K. Gandhii (1869-1948) Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic movement against British rule. "Seven Sins" Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality. --Kahlil Gibran (18831931) Lebanese poet. _Sand and Foam_ [1926] Not to be deficient in this particular, the author has provided himself with a moral--the truth, namely, that the wrongdoing of one generation lives into the successive ones. --Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American novelist and short-story writer. _The House of the Seven Gables_ [1851] Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other 'sins' are invented nonsense. --Robert Heinlein (19071988) American science-fiction writer. _Time Enough for Love_ [1973] Fashions in sin change. --Lillian Hellman (1905-1984) American dramatist. "Watch on the Rhine" [1941] Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all. --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (18091894) American physician, poet, and essayist. _The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_, ch. 6 [1858] - The only sure-enough sinner is the man who congratulates himself that he is without sin. --Elbert Hubbard (18591915) American editor, publisher, and author who died in the sinking of the "Lusitania." _The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams_ [1923] We are not punished for our sins, but by them. --Elbert Hubbard (18591915) American editor, publisher, and author who died in the sinking of the "Lusitania." _The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams_ [1923] - The biggest sin is sitting on your ass. --Florynce R. Kennedy (19162001) American lawyer, feminist, and author Quoted in "Florynce R. Kennedy, Esq." by Gloria Steinem in _Ms._ _March 1973]. God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won't. --attributed to Alfred Korzybski (18791950) Polish-American philosopher and scientist. A worn-out sinner is sometimes found to make the best declaimer against sin. --Charles Lamb (1775-1834) English essayist. _The Works of Charles Lamb_, p. 528 [1852] The sins of youth are paid for in old age. --Latin proverb Sin is a queer thing. It isn't the breaking of divine commandments. It is the breaking of one's own integrity. --D.H. (David Herbert) Lawrence (18851930) English novelist and poet. _Studies In Classic American Literature_, ch. 8 [1923] If the devil take a less hateful shape to us than to our fathers, he is as busy with us as with them. --James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) American poet, critic, essayist, and diplomat. A man does not sin by commission only, but often by omission. --Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180) Roman emperor [161-180] and Stoic philosopher. _Meditations_, Book IX, Number 5 I count religion but a childish toy, And hold there is no sin but ignorance. --Christopher Marlowe (15641593) English dramatist and poet. "The Jew of Malta" prologue [c. 1592] His face was filled with broken commandments. --John Masefield (1878-1967) English novelist, poet, and playwright. In Robert Andrews _The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations_, P. 74 [1989]. Many are saved from sin by being so inept at it. --Mignon McLaughlin (19131983) American journalist and author. _The Neurotic's Notebook_ [1960] It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _A Little Book in C Major_ [1916] Home is heaven and orgies are vile But you need an orgy, once in a while. --Ogden Nash (19021971) American writer of humorous poetry. "Home, 99 44/100% Sweet Home" _The Primrose Path_ [1935] Accustom a people to believe that priests, or any other class of men, can forgive sins, and you will have sins in abundance. --Thomas Paine [spelled Pane prior to 1774] (17371809) English-American writer and political pamphleteer. _A Letter To Camille Jordan_ [1797] - It is not the sins but with the sinners that most men are angry. --Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.- 65 A.D.) Roman philosopher and poet. "On Anger" in _Moral Essays_ tr. John W. Basore [1928] Who, when he may, forbids not sin, commands it. --Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.- 65 A.D.) Roman philosopher and poet. _Troades_ tr. Frank Justus Miller [1917] Other men's sins are before our eyes; our own behind our backs. --Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.65 A.D.) Roman philosopher and poet. "On Anger", II, 28 - The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity. --George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. _The Devil's Disciple_ [1897], act II Well, there's a Book that says we're all sinners and I at least chose a sin that's made quite a few people happier than they were before they met me. --Sally Stanford (1903-1982) American Madam, politician, and author. I's wicked, I is. --Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American writer and philanthropist. _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ [1852] I'm against sin. I'll kick it as long as I've got a foot. I'll fight it as long as I've got a fist. I'll butt it as long as I've got a head. I'll bite it as long as I've got a tooth. And when I'm old, fistless, footless, and toothless, I'll gum it till I go home to glory and it goes home to perdition! --Billy Sunday [William Ashley Sunday] (18621935) American evangelist. Quoted in Lee Thomas _The Billy Sunday Story_ [1961]. - [Lady Lou, played by Mae West, speaking:] When women go wrong, men go right after them. --Mae West (18931980) American stage and film actress. "She Done Him Wrong" [1933 film] I used to be Snow White . . . but I drifted. --Mae West (18931980) American stage and film actress. In Joseph Weintraub (ed.) _The Wit and Wisdom of Mae West_ [1967] - To sin by silence, when we should protest, Makes cowards out of men. --Ella Wheeler Wilcox (18501919) American author and poet. "Protest", l. 1 [1914] All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening. --Alexander Woollcott (1887-1943) American dramatic and literary critic. In Robert F. Drennan _The Algonquin Wits_ [1968]. - Pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth are the seven capital sins. --A Catechism of Christian Doctrine for General Use [1866] - God's plan made a hopeful beginning, But man spoiled his chances by sinning. We hope that the story Will end in God's glory, But at present the other side's winning. --anon. ----- peccable (adj.) ['pek-κ-bκl] Sinful, capable of sin or wrong-doing. ![]() ![]() SINATRA (FRANK) . . see: "MUSIC" for related links see: "PEOPLE" for related links - Anne and I joined Frank Sinatra at Jimmy's, a nightclub. I knew Frank for fifty years. He was a charismatic character, a heavy drinker and a heavy smoker. But it never seemed to affect that glorious voice. [. . . ] Did he remember the girls screaming his name outside of the Paramount Theater sixty years ago? I remember I was trying to work my way through the crowd to get to the Forty-second Street subway station. Here now was Frank, in his cocoon. He never came out of it. It was hard to imagine someone overflowing with vitality and talent rendered so helpless. --Kirk Douglas [Issur Danielovitch] (1916 ) American film actor and producer. _My Stroke of Luck_ [2002], "Death Takes a Holiday" - It is rare, if it has ever happened before, that the industry of a single man can tell us so much about our hopes and aspirations; the dreams we dreamed, the things we wished for. . . and the stuff out there that often eluded our grasp. All in the guise of a song. Sinatra remains the patron saint of every popular singer who has opened his mouth since he first opened his. He is the chairman of the board and disenfranchised of all ages. --Rod McKuen (1933 ) American poet, composer, and singer. [In 1990.] My favorite story involved the song "I Wanna Be Around To Pick Up the Pieces When Somebody Breaks Your Heart." A lady in Ohio named Sadie Zimmerstedt sent an angry letter to famous songwriter Johnny Mercer. She was mad at Frank Sinatra for divorcing his first wife, Nancy, and wrote a note on lined calendar paper asking Mercer to write a song which should be entitled: "I Wanna Be Around to Pick Up the Pieces When Somebody Breaks Your Heart." The rest is, of course, pop music history. Mercer wrote the song and put her name on it along with his, Tony Bennett made it famous and Sadie got a $50,000 royalty check. Whether or not it bothered Sinatra, surely Sadie was smiling all the way to the bank. --Tony Stein in "The Chesapeake Clipper" Norfolk, Virginia [July 2001] - Ben Gross, the radio editor of the New York "Daily News" once wrote that he didn't consider Frank SInatra to be the best singer in the world. Fans of the singer weren't pleased. One wrote: "You should burn in oil, pegs should be driven into your body and you should be hung by your thumbs." Said another: "I'd love to take you to Africa, tie you to the ground, pour honey on you and let the ants bite you to pieces." ![]() . . see: "CANDOR" see: "HONESTY" see: "TRUTH" No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous. --Henry Brooks Adams (18381918) American historian & man of letters. You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a fruit fly, and still have room enough for three caraway seeds and a producer's heart. --Fred Allen [John Florence Sullivan] (18941956) American humorist. Quoted in J.R. Colombo _Wit and Wisdom of the Moviemakers_ [1979]. We ought to see far enough into a hypocrite to see even his sincerity. --G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton (18741936) English essayist, novelist, and poet. _Heretics_ [1905] I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions. --Dorothy Day (18971980) American journalist, reformer, and co-founder of the "Catholic Worker." _The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of ... Dorothy Day _ [1952] Never apologize for showing feeling. My friend, remember that when you do so you apologize for truth --Benjamin Disraeli (18041881) British Tory statesman, novelist, and Prime Minister [1868, 18741880]. _Contarini Fleming_ [1832] Candor is the brightest gem of criticism. --Isaac D'Israeli (17661848) English author and the father of Benjamin Disraeli. Quoted in _The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine_ [December 1833]. Bolsheviks are sincere. Fascists are sincere. Lunatics are sincere. People who believe the earth is flat are sincere. They can't all be right. Better make certain first you've got something to be sincere about and with. --Tom Driberg [William Hickey, pen name] (19051976) British journalist and politician. In "Daily Express" [1937]. I can promise to be upright, but not to be without bias. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (17491832) German poet, novelist, and playwright. _Maxims and Reflections_ [1819] A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. --Oscar Wilde (18541900) Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet. "The Critic as Artist", pt. II, in _Intentions_ [1891]. There are few mortals so insensible that their affections cannot be gained by mildness, their confidence by sincerity, their hatred by scorn or neglect. --Johann Georg Zimmermann (17281795) Swiss philosophical writer and physician. _Aphorisms and Reflections on Men, Morals and Things_ [1800] ![]() . . see: "MUSIC" for related links - But without question the highlight came when the entire crowd not just us older folks in our 50s, but also the young people in their late 40s joined together to sing "Barbara Ann," all of us united for the moment by our inability to remember that one verse that goes something like: Tried Betty Sue Did the boogaloo Went to the zoo And I saw a tiger poo --Dave Barry (1947 ) American humorist. - What the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin. --Henry Ward Beecher (18131887) American Congregational minister; [brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, son of Lyman Beecher.] _Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit_ [1887] A bird does not sing because it has an answer...it sings because it has a song. --Chinese Proverb Swans sing before they die; 'twere no bad thing Should certain persons die before they sing. --Samuel Taylor Coleridge (17721834) English poet, critic, and philosopher. "On a Bad Singer" He was an average guy who could carry a tune. (Crosby's own suggestion for his epitaph.) --Bing Crosby (19031977) American singer and film actor. In "Newsweek" [24 October 1977]. A good lyric should be rhymed conversation. --Ira Gershwin (18961983) American songwriter. In Philip Furia _Ira Gershwin_ [1966]. Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought. --E.Y. "Yip" Harburg (18961981) American songwriter. [Lecture given at a New York City YMCA in 1970.] A few can touch the magic string, And noisy Fame is proud to win them; Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them! --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (18091894) American physician, poet, and essayist. _The Voiceless_ [1858] Her singing was mutiny on the high Cs. --attributed to Hedda Hopper [Elde Furry] (18901966) American actress and gossip columnist. Dance as if no one were watching, Sing as if no one were listening, And live each day As if there were no tomorrow. --Irish proverb There is delight in singing, though none hear beside the singer. --Walter Savage Landor (17751864) English poet, essayist, and critic. "To Robert Browning" [1846] Today one hardly ever hears a really beautiful and technically correct trill; very rarely a perfect mordent; very rarely a rounded coluratura, a genuine unaffected soul-moving portamento, a complete equalization of the registers, a steady intonation through all the varying nuances of crescendo and diminuendo. --Richard Wagner (18131883) German composer. I can't sing. As a singist I am not a success. I am saddest when I sing. So are those who hear me. They are sadder even than I am. --Artemus Ward [Charles Farrar Browne] (18341867) American humorist and writer. _Artemus Ward's Lecture_ [1866] end page | SACRED PLACES - SANTA CLAUS | SARCASM - SCHOOL | SCIENCE - SCULPTURE | SEA (THE) - SEEING | SELF - SELF-ESTEEM | SELF-EXAMINATION - SEMANTICS | 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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