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;void(0)) . . . STRENGTH see: "BRAVERY" see: "COURAGE" see: "ENERGY" see: "FORCE" see: "POWER" see "CHARACTER" for other related links A thick skin is a gift from God. --Konrad Adenauer (18761967) German statesman. In "N.Y. Times" [30 December 1959]. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same. --Carlos Castaneda (19251998) Peruvian-born American author. The mind which does not wholly sink under misfortune rises above it more lofty than before, and is strengthened by affliction. --Richard Chenevix (17741830) Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent. --Winston Churchill (18741965) British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [19401945, 19511955]. Quoted in Robert Rhodes James (ed.) _Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches 18971963_ [1974, 8 vol.]. Basically, women have to prove they are strong at all times. And then when they go on the attack, they have to not appear mean because those women often get the label of being catty. --Julie Nixon Eisenhower (1948 ) Daughter of Richard and Pat Nixon and author. "Charm" which means the power to effect work without employing brute force is indispensable to women. Charm is a woman's strength just as strength is a man's charm. --Havelock Ellis (18591939) English essayist and psychologist. _The Task of Social Hygiene_, p. 81 [1912]. England, an old and exhausted island, must one day be contented, like other parents, to be strong only in her children. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882) American philosopher and poet. Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. --Mohandas K. Gandhi (18691948) Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic movement against British rule. _Young India_ (weekly journal published 19191932) [11 August 1920] Enjoy what you can, endure what you must. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (17491832) German poet, novelist, and playwright. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link. --George W. Henry _Tell Tale Rag_ [1861] The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It's the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun. --Napoleon Hill (18831970) American journalist, lawyer, and author of self-help books. The thing is, you see, that the strongest man in the world is the man who stands most alone. --Henrik Ibsen (18281906) Norwegian playwright. _An Enemy of the People_ [1882] Delicacy in woman is strength. --Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (17421799) German scientist and drama critic. Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised. --Niccolς Machiavelli (14691527) Florentine statesman and political philosopher. _The Prince_ [written 1513] ch. 14 What does not destroy me makes me stronger. --Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (18441900) German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture. _Twilight of the Idols_ "Maxims and Arrows", sec. 8 [1889] He conquers who endures. --Persius [Aulus Persius Flaccus] (3464 A.D.) Stoic poet. Within most human beings lies a great resource normally untapped, but there, waiting to be summoned up in moments of stress. Call it strength, courage whatever it is, it pulls us through against the longest odds. --Ruth Roman (19221999) American actress. (After rescue at sea of herself and her small sonon the sinking of the Andrea Doria.) The gods are on the side of the stronger. --Tacitus [or Publius Cornelius Tacitus or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus] (c.55c.117), Roman orator, lawyer, senator, and historian. _Histories_, bk. 4, ch. 17 Who is strong? He who subdues his impulses. --Talmud (A.D.1st-6th cent.) Rabbinical writings. In Louis I. Newman, comp. _The Talmudic Anthology_ [1945]. Me Tarzan, you Jane. --a quip overheard by film crew on the film made by Johnny Weissmuller to Maureen O'Sullivan in the studio parking lot when helping her lift something heavy into her car. - 28 Percentage of adults who, if they could have a single superpower, say they would most like to be able to read minds, according to a survey for Activision 15 Percentage who say they would like to be able to fly 11 Percentage who say they would like to be able to be invisible 9 Percentage who say they would like to be able to have super strength --blurb in _Las Vegas Business Press_ [28 August 2006] ----- brawny (adj.) Strong and muscular. Synonyms: hefty, sinewy, muscular, powerful forte (noun) A strong point, a strength.  . . see: "POWER" see: "WEAKNESS" The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. --Steve Biko (19461977) South African anti-apartheid campaigner. Statement as witness [3 May 1976]. The weak are strong because they are reckless. The strong are weak because they have scruples. --Otto von Bismarck (18151898) Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Prussia 18621890. He unified Germany with a series of successful wars and became the first Chancellor 18711890 of the German Empire. Quoted by Henry Kissinger to James Callaghan [1975] in James Callaghan _Time and Chance_ [1987]. As you know, God is usually on the side of the big squadrons against the small. --Roger Bussy-Rabutin (16181693) French soldier and poet. Letter to the Comte de Limoges [18 October 1677]. Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error. Where one has been saved by a true estimation of another's weakness, thousands have been destroyed by a false appreciation of their own strength. --C.C. Colton (17801832) English clergyman and writer. The weak are the most treacherous of us all. They come to the strong and drain them. . . . They are everyone's concern and like vampires they suck our life's blood. --Bette Davis (Ruth Elizabeth Davis) (19081989) American actress. _The Lonely Life: An Autobiography_ [1962] The authoritarian character feels the more aroused the more helpless his object has become. --Erich Fromm (19001980) American philosopher and psychologist. _Escape from Freedom_ [1941], ch. 5 Strong men can always afford to be gentle. Only the weak are intent on "giving as good as they get." --Elbert Hubbard (18591915) American editor, publisher, and author who died in the sinking of the "Lusitania." 'Courtesy as an Asset' (pamphlet), in Elbert Hubbard's Selected Writings, Part 1. There is nothing softer and weaker than water. And yet there is nothing better for attacking hard and strong things. --Lao-tzu (c. 6th cent. B.C.) The first philosopher of Chinese Taoism and alleged author of the _Tao-te Ching_ (Chinese: Classic of the Way of Power). _The Way of Lao-tzu_ ch. 78 In a just cause the weak will beat the strong. --Sophocles (496?406 B.C.) Greek dramatist. _Oedipus at Colonus_ tr. Robert Fitzgerald [1941] We have unmistakable proof that throughout all past time, there has been a ceaseless devouring of the weak by the strong. --Herbert Spencer (18201903) English philosopher. _First Principles_ [1861] The beautiful must ever rest in the arms of the sublime. The gentle needs the strong to sustain it, as much as the rock-flowers need rocks to grow on, or the ivy the rugged wall which it embraces. --Harriet Beecher Stowe (18111896) American writer and philanthropist. [Sister of Henry Ward Beecher, daughter of Lyman Beecher.] To the tune of the strong, the weak must dance. --Nahman Syrkin (18681924) Political theorist. _Natzionale Freiheit_ [1917] . . see "HEALTH" for related links - [As financial markets were crumbling in September, 2008:] 'I don't think I can take another day of this,' a Goldman banker told Lloyd Blankfein as they got out of the Goldman car. 'You're getting out of a Mercedes to go to the New York Federal Reserve,' Blankfein responded. 'You're not getting out of a Higgins boat on Omaha Beach.' --Lloyd Blankfein (1954 ) American investment banker. Quoted in James B. Stewart "Eight Days" in _The New Yorker_ [21 September 2009]. - There is more to life than increasing its speed. --Mohandas K. Gandhi (18691948) Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic movement against British rule. The time to relax is when you don't have time for it. --attributed to Sydney J. Harris (19171986) American journalist. One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important. --Bertrand Russell (18721970) British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate. _The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 19141944_ [1968], v. II, ch. 5 - Every stress leaves an indelible scar, and the organism pays for its survival after a stressful situation by becoming a little older. --Hans Selye (19071982) Austrian-Hungarian endocrinologist. Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one. --Hans Selye (19071982) Austrian-Hungarian endocrinologist. - A violin can not play a sweet note unless the strings are under pressure, but if you put too much pressure on the strings, they snap. So do you. When the violin is NOT being used you must release the tension on the strings. --Tanya Wheway -- Patient: Doctor, you must help me. I'm under such a lot of stress. I keep losing my temper with people. Doctor: Tell me about your problem. Patient: I just did, you stupid bastard! -- The Origin of the Word Stress: The word "stress" was originally an engineering term. It was borrowed for use as a medical term by a scientist named Hans Selye. Selye found that his lab rats became sulky and sickly because he upset them when he tried to catch them by snatching at them and cornering them. This broke down their resistance to ailments. There was no medical term for this in the 1930's. So he used the word "stress" to describe the phenomenon. --source unknown ;void(0)) STRUGGLING . . see "CHARACTER" for related links see "UNHAPPINESS" for related links When I hear my friends say they hope their children don't have to experience the hardships they went through I don't agree. Those hardships made us what we are. You can be disadvantaged in many ways, and one way may be not having had to struggle. --William M. Batten (19091999) American businessman; CEO of JCPenney and Chairman of the NY Stock Exchange. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. --Edmund Burke (17291797) Irish-born Whig politician and man of letters. _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ [1790] For our own good, we should scorn the easy way and the second best; the "digging principle" is important. When we match our abilities against something hard each day, some task that seems beyond our capacity, we are exercising will, mind, and body to good purpose. As we master hard things we gain the ability to handle still more difficult assignments and fuller responsibilities. As we struggle, we grow. --Kenneth Hildebrand _Achieving Real Happiness_ [1955] Out of opposition, a new birth. --Carl Gustav Jung (18751961) Swiss psychologist. _Psychology of the Transference_, tr. R.F.C. Hull [1954] The *probability* that we may fall in the struggle *ought not* deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it *shall not* deter me. --Abraham Lincoln (18091865) American Republican statesman, President [18611865]. "The Sub-Treasury" speech in the House of Representatives at Springfield, Illinois [26 December 1839]. The only way to make strong people is through struggle. One grows tough mentally and spiritually by putting up a strong resistance to hardship, to obstacles, to suffering. This is the disciplinary value of a problem in the development of a person. It enhances his insights, his strengths and his general capability to live constructively. --Norman Vincent Peale (18981993) American preacher and author. _You Can If You Think You Can_ To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals this alone is worth the struggle. --William Penn (16441718) Quaker leader and advocate of religious freedom who oversaw the founding of the American Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a refuge for Quakers and other religious minorities of Europe {E.B.}. - I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. A life of slothful ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual. --Theodore Roosevelt (18581919) American Republican statesman and President [19011909]. Title essay [10 April 1899], _The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses_ [1900]. - In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. --Orson Welles (19151985) American motion-picture actor, director, producer, and writer. ----- agon [AH-gahn; ah-GOHN], noun: A struggle or contest; conflict; especially between the protagonist and antagonist in a literary work. . . see: "OBSTINACY" see "EMOTIONS & FEELINGS" for other related links The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision. --Helen Keller (18801968) American author and educator who was blind and deaf. I know of no higher fortitude than stubbornness in the face of overwhelming odds. --Louis Nizer (19021994) English-born American lawyer. Stubbornness is not firmness. --Friedrich von Schiller (17591805) German poet, historian, and dramatist. In Unitarian Sunday-School Society _Every Other Sunday_ p. 68 [1904]. Stubbornness and stupidity are twins. --Sophocles (496?406 B.C.) Greek dramatist. _Antigone_, tr. Elizabeth Wyckoff [1954] Wooden-headedness consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived, fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be confused by the facts. --Barbara Tuchman {nθe Wertheim} (19121989) American historian and author. "An Inquiry into the Persistence of Unwisdom in Government" _Esquire_ [1980] It is discouraging to try and penetrate a mind like yours. You ought to get it out and dance on it. That would take some of the rigidity out of it. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. ----- adamantine (adjective) [ζ-dκ-'mζn-teen] As hard or lustrous as a diamond; unyielding, inflexible. This is not a synonym of "adamant," which implies an inflexible stubbornness. contumacy (noun) Stubborn and obstinate resistance to authority; rebelliousness. curmudgeon (noun) Somebody who is irritable or stubborn. implacable [im-PLAK-uh-bull], adjective: Not placable; not to be appeased; incapable of being pacified; inexorable; as, an implacable foe. indurate [IN-dur-it; -dyur-], adjective: 1. Physically or morally hardened; unfeeling; stubborn. 2. To make hard; to harden. intransigent (adj.) [in-trζn-sκ-jκnt] Stubbornly resistant; recalcitrant, utterly uncompromising. obdurate (adjective) ['ahb-dyu-rκt] Stubbornly holding to a position or course of action; unyielding; unpersuadable. Synonyms: unyielding, stubborn, rigid, obstinate, inflexible Similar: adamant, intractable, bullheaded, pigheaded, immovable, willful Derived: obduracy, n; obdurately, adv; obdurateness, n. pertinacious [puhr-tin-AY-shuhs], adjective: 1. Holding or adhering obstinately to any opinion, purpose, or design. 2. Stubbornly or perversely persistent. Ex.: The cabman replied: 'If you will excuse me, your coat lapels are badly twisted downward, where they have been grasped by the pertinacious New York reporters.' --David Walton, "Sherlock Holmes's Maker," _New York Times_ [2 May 1999] Synonyms: determined, dogged, headstrong, inflexible, mulish, obstinate, pigheaded, resolute, stubborn, unyielding pervicacious [puhr-vih-KAY-shuhs], adjective: Refusing to change one's ideas, behavior, etc.; stubborn; obstinate. recalcitrant (adj.) Marked by stubborn resistance to and defiance of authority or guidance. refractory (adj.) 1. Stubbornly disobedient; unmanageable. 2. Resisting ordinary treatment or cure. Ex.: It's a head shot of Lucien Bouchard peering out of the dark, openmouthed, teeth showing, eyes glittering and appearing not to have shaved in a week. In another age, the shot might have been held up to a refractory kid with the warning, 'The boogeyman will get you if you don't watch out.' --George Bain, "Whose Reality?" _Time_, [13 October 1997] restive [RES-tiv], adjective: 1. Impatient under restriction, delay, coercion, or opposition; resisting control. 2. Unwilling to go on; obstinate in refusing to move forward; stubborn. tenacious (adj.) [tuh-'ney-shuh s] Holding fast, stubborn or persistent. . . see "KNOWLEDGE" for related links - Your great madness makes my heart ache. You have left aside all the things you ought to be doing at university, and I have it on good authority that you take pleasure in noting but playing at dice, and that you often visit the most disreputable places. For this reason, if you do not cease this kind of behavior and apply yourself strongly to your studies, as you are supposed to do, you should know that you will lose all my support and all my grace; and also that you cannot fool me with your phoney letters. --from a medieval book of form letters, quoted in Chiara Frugoni, _Books, Banks, Buttons, and Other Inventions from the Middle Ages_, [U.S. ed. 2003]. They tell me that, unlike everyone else, you get out of bed before the first bell sounds in order to study, that you are the first into the classroom and the last to leave it. And that when you get back home you spend the whole day going over what you were taught in your lessons. You are thinking of them while you eat, and even in sleep you dream about what the professor said and repeat the lectures, moving your tongue unconsciously...But you ought to remember that if you force something to expand to the limit it will burst, and that you have to learn to tell the difference between too much and too little. Nature condemns both and demands moderation. Many people make themselves permanently ill through excessive study; some of them die, and others, their humoral essence dispersed, waste away day after day, which is even worse. Others actually lose their minds and spend the rest of their days either laughing or sobbing. Yet others ruin the optic nerve through which the rays of vision pass and become blind. So I beg you, my son, to find the golden mean in your studies, because I don't want to have someone say to me, 'I hear you son has come back wearing the garland of knowledge', and have to reply, 'He has indeed gained a doctorate, but he studied so much that he died,' or 'He's hopelessly ill,' or 'He has lost his sight,' or 'Yes, but now he's out of his mind.' --from a medieval book of form letters, quoted in Chiara Frugoni, _Books, Banks, Buttons, and Other Inventions from the Middle Ages_, [U.S. ed. 2003] - ----- lucubration [loo-kyoo-BRAY-shun; loo-kuh-], noun: The act of studying by candlelight; nocturnal study; meditation. lucubrate (verb)  STUPIDITY . . see: "IDIOTS" see: "FOOLS" see "FAILURE" for other related links see "THE MIND" for other related links In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that he did not also limit his stupidity. --Dean Acheson (18931971) American politician. A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side. --attributed to Joseph Addison (16721719) English essayist, poet, and dramatist. There are two kinds of truth. There are real truths, and there are made-up truths. --Marion Barry (1936 ) Mayor of Washington DC [19791991 & 19951999]. (On his arrest for drug use.) The hard part about being a bartender is figuring out who is drunk and who is just stupid. --Richard Braunstein ^^ Anthony Burgess was taking a bath in a Leningrad hotel when the floor concierge yelled that she had a cable for him. "Put it under the door," he cried. "I can't!" she shouted. "It's on a tray." --Anthony Burgess, Preface, in _Modern Irish Short Stories_, [ed. Ben Forkner] ^^ The most stupendous and most revolutionary change that has ever taken place at any time in the history of the world. (Of the utterly useless Kellogg-Briand Pact.) --Nicholas Murray Butler (18621947) President of Columbia University. Let us say that I despise stupidity. Especially when it masquerades as virtue. --attributed to Miguel de Cervantes (15471616), but it is dialogue from the 1964 play "Man of La Mancha". The best argument against democracy is a five- minute conversation with the average voter. --Winston Churchill (18741965) British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [19401945, 19511955]. Attributed but probably apocryphal. ^ Aaron Copland (19001990) American composer. Browsing in a bookshop one day, Copland noticed a woman buying a copy of his book _What to Listen For in Music_, together with a paperback edition of a Shakespeare play. As the customer left the shop, Copland stopped her and asked, 'Would you like me to autograph your book?' Looking blankly into the composer's beaming face, the woman asked, 'Which one?' --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ About sixty years ago, I said to my father, 'Old Mr. Senex is showing his age; he sometimes talks quite stupidly.' My father replied, 'That isn't age. He's always been stupid. He is just losing his ability to conceal it.' --Robertson Davies (19131995) Canadian author and playwright. "You're Not Geting Older, You're Getting Nosier" in the _New York Times Book Review_ [12 May 1991]. Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. --Albert Einstein (18791955) German-American physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Attributed in Robert Byrne _The Fourth [...] 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said_ [1990]. My father, normally a temperate man, so disliked the [political views of the] Chicago Tribune that once, when he had a flat tire in a snowstorm and the man driving a Tribune truck offered to help him, my father told the man to mind his own damn business and bugger off. (My father used to tell this story as an example of how stupid politics can make you.) --Joseph Epstein "The Last Tycoon?" _The Wall Street Journal_ [9 April 2007] China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese. --Charles de Gaulle (18901970) French soldier and statesman, President [19591969]. ^ From the Durham (N.C.) Independent Weekly. Ceiling fans (indoor) with light fixture for sale. --_New Yorker_ (magazine) [24 December 2007] ^ People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want it to be true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People's heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool. --Terry Goodkind (1948) American fantasy author. _Wizard's First Rule_ [1994] You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity. --Robert Heinlein (19071988) American science-fiction writer. "Logic of Empire" in _Astounding Science Fiction_ (mag.) [March 1941]. Stupidity is better kept a secret than displayed. --Heraclitus (c.535475 B.C.) Greek philosopher. Stupidity often saves a man from going mad. --Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (18091894) American physician, poet, and essayist. _The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_ [1858] [Professor Wagstaff, (Groucho Marx) :] Baravelli, you've got the brain of four-year-old boy, and I bet he was glad to get rid of it. --"Horse Feathers" [1932 movie] Screenplay by Will B. Johnstone, Bert Kalmar, S.J. Perelman, and Harry Ruby. Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. --Elbert Hubbard (18591915) American editor, publisher, and author who died in the sinking of the "Lusitania." In "The Philistine" magazine, published [18951915], vol. 23, no. 4 [September 1906]. It is so pleasant to come across people more stupid than ourselves. We love them at once for being so. --Jerome K Jerome (18591927) English novelist and playwright. _The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow_ [1889], "On Cats and Dogs" Sherry [Thomas Sheridan 17191788] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature. --Samuel Johnson (17091784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. [28 July 1763] in James Boswell _Life of Samuel Johnson_ [1791]. The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision. --Helen Keller (18801968) American author and educator who was blind and deaf. Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. --Martin Luther King, Jr. (19291968) American civil rights leader. Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity. --Frank Leahy (19081973) Coached Notre Dame football team to 4 national championships. Though you break your heart, men will go on as before. --Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121180) Roman emperor [161180] and Stoic philosopher. _Meditations_ If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie. --W. Somerset Maugham (18741965) English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer. _A Writer's Notebook_ [1949] The trouble is that too often there is forty horsepower under the bonnet and one asspower at the wheel. --Bruce McCall (1935 ) Canadian author and illustrator. "Pooh," said Rabbit kindly, "you haven't any brain." "I know," said Pooh humbly. --A. A. (Alan Alexander) Milne (18821956) English writer for children. _Winnie the Pooh_ [1926] - News item [10 August 2006] Police in Toledo, Ohio, have rescued dozens of Australian wombats from a man who was trying unsuccessfully to train them to fight. 'The (expletive) who sold them to me said they were vicious killers . . . I paid 300 bucks for a pair of eucalyptus-leaf eating retards who just stare at each other with a dull glare,' the man said. - Think of all the things our nation owes to birdbrains. The very voyage to America in the Mayflower itself was a pretty dumb idea, not to mention the settlement of the West with its log hovels, Indian scalpings, and San Francisco Board of Supervisors. What would be the state of professional athletics in the United States without hockey-score IQS among players, fans, team owners, and businesses willing to pay for Super Bowl television advertising time? Indeed, our entire entertainment industry depends upon a monumental unintelligence, the likes of which is...wearing a tone-on- tone shirt-tie-suit combo and asking people with hockey-score IQs monumentally unintelligent questions on a quiz show. The stock market depends on it too. And without mental retards, Internet chat rooms would be empty and instant messaging would go unused. Then there's politics. Just imagine politics with its dumbbell element subtracted. There would be no Republican candidates. There would be no Democratic voters. The whole system would collapse. --P.J. O'Rourke (1947 ) American political satirist. _The CEO of the Sofa_ [2001] When one thinks of the lies and betrayals of those years [the Thirties], the cynical abandonment of one ally after another, the imbecile optimism of the Tory press, the flat refusal to believe that the dictators meant war, even when they shouted it from the house-tops, the inability of the moneyed class to see anything wrong whatever in concentration camps, ghettos, massacres and undeclared wars, one is driven to feel that moral decadence played its part as well as mere stupidity. --George Orwell [Eric Blair] (19031950) English novelist. _Who are the War Criminals?_ in "Tribune" [22 October 1943]. You shouldn't stay here too long, or you'll turn slitty-eyed. (To some British students in China.) --Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921 ) Consort of Queen Elizaberh II. "But that's okay, right? 'Cuz ye have a Plan!" "I hope I've got it right, though, said Roland. "My aunts say I'm too clever by half." "Glad tae hear it," said Rob Anybody, "'cuz that's much better than bein' too stupid by three quarters!" --Terry Pratchett (1948 ) English science fiction writer. _Wintersmith_ [2006] Heaven and earth fight in vain against a dunce! --Friedrich von Schiller (17591805) German poet, historian, and dramatist. If wicked actions are atoned for only in the next world, stupid ones are only atoned for in this. --Arthur Schopenhauer (17881860) German philosopher. [In 1851.] Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile. --Albert Schweitzer (18751965) Franco-German theologian, philosopher, and mission doctor. Egregiously an ass. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _Othello_ [1604-1605], act II, sc. i Stubbornness and stupidity are twins. --Sophocles (496?406 B.C.) Greek dramatist. "Antigone" Tr. Elizabeth Wyckoff [1954] Wooden-headedness consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived, fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be confused by the facts. --Barbara Tuchman {nθe Wertheim} (19121989) American historian and author. "An Inquiry into the Persistence of Unwisdom in Government" _Esquire_ [1980] Life is tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid. --John Wayne [Marion Michael Morrison] (19071979) American motion-picture actor. Of three things there is no end: the cawing of the raven, the braying of the ass, and the vanity of a man in love. --Bernardo, character in Frank Yerby, _The Golden Hawk_ [1948] Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen and that is the basic building block of the universe. --Frank Zappa (19401993) American rock musician and songwriter. _The Real Frank Zappa Book_ [1989], ch. 13 ---- Donald Robertson Born 1st of January 1785 Died 4th of June 1848 Aged 65 years He was a peaceable man, and to all appearance a sincere Christian. His death was much regretted which was caused by the stupidity of Lawrence Tulloch of Clotherton who sold him nitre instead of Epsom salts by which he was killed in the space of three hours after taking a dose of it. --epitaph on gravestone in Cross Kirk, Shetland Question: If you could live forever, would you and why? Answer: I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever. --Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest. ----- fatuous (adj) ['fζ-chu-wκs] Smugly or unconsciously foolish, stupid. hebetude [HEB-uh-tood-; -tyood], noun: Mental dullness or sluggishness. insensate [in-SEN-sayt; -sit], adjective: 1. Lacking sensation or awareness; inanimate. 2. Lacking human feeling or sensitivity; brutal; cruel. 3. Lacking sense; stupid; foolish. Ex.: The religion of primeval humans, he suggested, held that souls inhabited not only human beings but also animals, trees, plants--even rocks, rivers, and other natural features we regard as insensate. --Bill Strubbe, "The world as self, the self as world," _The World and I_, [1 June 1997] nescience [NESH-uhn(t)s] noun: Lack of knowledge or awareness; ignorance. vacuous [VAK-yoo-uhs], adjective: 1. showing no intelligence or thought 2. having no meaning or direction; empty ;void(0)) STYLE . . see: "THE BODY" see: "DRESS" see: "FASHION" see "COMMUNICATION" for other related links see "LANGUAGE" for other related links People think that I can teach them style. What stuff it all is! Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style. --Matthew Arnold (18221888) English Victorian poet and literary and social critic. In G.W.E. Russell _Collections and Recollections_ [1898]. The gracious and self-sacrificing and womanly women of our revolution wore dresses cut lower than those of their great- granddaughters, as any portrait gallery will show. The dress is indefensible, but let us not be too ready to condemn the wearer for worse sins than thoughtlessness and vanity. --Mrs. L.G. Calhoun American journalist. In the introduction to Elizabeth Lynn Linton _Modern Women and what is Said of Them_, p. 20 [1868]. Altogether, the style of a writer is a faithful representative of his mind; therefore, if any man wish to write a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (17491832) German poet, novelist, and playwright. It is the beginning of the end when you discover that you have style. --Dashiell Hammett (18941961) American author of detective novels. When asked why he had stopped writing, as quoted in Marty Roth _Foul and Fair Play_, p. 13 [1995]. 'Tisn't beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just It. Some women'll stay in a man's memory if they once walked down a street. --Rudyard Kipling (18651936) English writer and poet. _Traffics and Discoveries_ [1904], "Mrs. Bathurst" A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident. --W. Somerset Maugham (18741965) English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer. _The Summing Up_ [1938] When we see a natural style, we are quite surprised and delighted, for we expected to see an author and we find a man. --Blaise Pascal (16231662) French mathematician, physicist, and moralist. _Pensees_ [1670] True wit is Nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed. --Alexander Pope (16881744) English poet. "An Essay on Criticism" [1711] [Of Noel Coward:] He wrote with style, sang with style, painted with style, and even smoked a cigarette with a style that belonged exclusively to him. Despite his ability to do so many things so superbly, he always had to endure the put-down that anyone so versatile could not possibly be a first-rate talent. What nonsense! Versatility on so high a level needs no excuse. Even one of his lesser known operettas, "Conversation Piece", contains more charm, skill and originality than fifty plays put together by men specializing in particular fields. --Richard Rodgers (19021979) American composer. _Musical Stages_ [1975] Style in writing is not just elegance in phrasing; it should marshall argument and prose to move or persuade. --William Safire (1929 ) Journalist, speechwriter, novelist, lexicographer, and winner of the 1978 Pulitzer for commentary. "Stylish Books and Koobs" _New York Times Magazine_ [20 August 1995] Style is a magic wand, and turns everything to gold that it touches. --Logan Pearsall Smith (18651946) American-born man of letters. _Afterthoughts_ [1931] They lacked style, but also lacked pretentiousness, and whatever does not pretend at all has style enough. --Booth Tarkington (18691946) American novelist and dramatist. _The Magnificent Ambersons_ [1918]. As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Pudd'nhead Wilson_ [1894] Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn. --Gore Vidal (1925 ) American writer. Quoted in Ashton Applewhite, Tripp Evans, & Andrew Frothingham _And I Quote: The Definitive Collection..._, p. 355 [rev. ed. 2003]. If you are attacked on your style, never answer; your work alone should reply. --Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (16941778) French writer and philosopher. _Philosophical Dictionary_ [1764] tr. Wade Baskin [1961] Style is the dress of thought; a modest dress, Neat, but not gaudy, will true critics please. --Samuel Wesley (16621735) English clergyman and poet. "An Epistle to a Friend concerning Poetry" [1700] I don't wish to sign my name, though I am afraid everybody will know who the writer is: one's style is one's signature always. --Oscar Wilde (18541900) Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet. Letter to the "Daily Telegraph" [2 February 1891]. ----- aplomb [uh-PLOM], noun: Assurance of manner or of action; self-possession; confidence; coolness. Ex.: For all the slings and arrows, he seems almost preternaturally good-natured; set upon by a group of drunken revelers at dinner in Des Moines,... he weathers their boozy blandishments and inevitable potato jokes with admirable grace and aplomb. --"Quayle Running Against His Own Image," _Los Angeles Times_ [1 August 1999] bathos [BEY-thos], noun: 1. Triteness or triviality in style. 2. A ludicrous descent from the exalted or lofty to the commonplace; anticlimax. 3. Insincere pathos; sentimentality; mawkishness. florid [FLOR-id], adjective: 1. Flushed with red; of a lively reddish color. 2. Excessively ornate; flowery; as, "a florid style; florid eloquence." Ex.: The Reverend Mr Kidney is a short round bowlegged man with black muttonchop whiskers and a florid face, like a pomegranate, into which he has poured a great quantity of brandy and lesser amounts of whisky and claret. --Tom Gilling, _The Sooterkin_ grandiloquent [gran-DIL-uh-kwuhnt], adjective: Lofty in style; pompous; bombastic. The more grandiloquent and picturesque the language the greater the distance at which he keeps you. --Richard Eder, "Irish Memories, Irish Poetry," _New York Times_ [19 September 1976] lampoon [lam-POON], noun, verb: 1. A composition that imitates or misrepresents someone's style, usually in a humorous way. 2. A light, good-humored satire. panache (noun) [pκ-'nζsh] A sense or display of spirited style and self-confidence; dash, flamboyance, verve. subfusc [sub-FUHSK], adjective: Dark or dull in color; drab, dusky. Ex.: Her inscrutable figure -- imposing in designer subfusc, slightly donnish, reminiscent of Vita Sackville-West, to whom she was distantly related -- baffled and intrigued some. --Yvonne Whiteman, "Obituary: Frances Lincoln," _Independent_ [6 March 2001] . . Slums may well be breeding grounds of crime, but middle-class suburbs are incubators of apathy and delirium. --Cyril Connolly (19031974) English writer. - The automobile was the great American machine. Rich people had big, flashy cars; poor people clunkers, used cars, small, old, rusty cars: anything, as long as it would go. The automobile became in many ways the key to American culture. It was the very motor force of American individualism; if the average family was a slave to its automobile, and utterly dependent on it, it was at the same time independent of shackles of time and space that had tied their grandparents to a specific place. The road system built paths to the suburbs. During the postwar period, government also lent money to veterans to buy homes. Suburbs like Levittown sprang up almost overnight. Millions of (mostly white) families deserted the cities and headed out for the fringes, where people had backyards and barbecue pits. The breadwinner did not usually work in the suburbs (later on, the factories and headquarters buildings followed the crowd out past the city limits); but the families lived there, they mowed their lawns and planted flowers, and they did their shopping in the new malls and shopping centers islands of stores afloat in an ocean of parked cars. The old central cities stopped growing. The future was in suburbia, exurbia, and shopping malls. The future rode to work, to the store, and back home again, in cars. --Lawrence M. Friedman (1930 ) _American Law in the 20th Century_ [2002] Ch. 18 "Getting Around and Spreading the Word" pp. 550-551 - end page | SACRED - 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 - SILENCE | SILLINESS - SINGING | SINGLE-MINDEDNESS - SKY | SLANDER - SMILES | SMOKING - SOCIETY | SOLDIERS - SOPHISTICATION | SORROW - SOUTH SEA | SPACE - SPAM | SPEECH - SPENDTHRIFTS | SPIDERS - SPY | SPORTS & SPORTSMANSHIP | STAGE (THE) - STERILIZATION | STOCK MARKET - STRANGERS | STRENGTH - SUBURBS | SUCCESS | SUFFERING - 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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