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TABLOIDS
TACITURN --- TACT
TAHITI --- TAKING ADVANTAGE --- TAKING A STAND
TAKING OFFENSE --- TAKING RESPONSIBILITY
TAKING THINGS SERIOUSLY
TALENT

.
.
.

TABLOIDS

see "JOURNALISM" for related links


People who read the tabloids deserve
to be lied to.
--Jerry Seinfeld (1954— )
American actor, writer, and comedian.



TACITURN

.
.

see "COMMUNICATION" for related links


Be slow of tongue and quick of eye.
--Miguel de Cervantes (1547—1616)
Spanish novelist

^^

One day Calvin Coolidge was waiting to get his hair cut when the
local doctor came in, sat beside him, and asked, "Did you take the
pills I gave you?" Coolidge was characteristically silent for a few
minutes, then said, "Nope." The doctor then asked if he was feeling
better. Another long pause, then Coolidge replied, "No." After his
haircut Coolidge started to leave the barbershop when the barber
suggested that he had forgotten to pay for his haircut. "Oh, I'm
sorry," said Coolidge. "I was so busy gossiping with the doctor,
it slipped my mind."
--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard

^^

WOMAN: You must talk to me, Mr. Coolidge. I made a
bet today that I could get more than two words out of you.
COOLIDGE: You lose.
--Calvin Coolidge (1872—1933)
American Republican statesman and President [1923—1929].
In Ishbel Ross
_Grace Coolidge and Her Era: The Story of a President's Wife_ [1962].

-

I am very little inclined on any occasion to say anything
unless I hope to produce some good by it.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].
Speech in Washington, D.C., [6 August 1862].

A Wise Old Owl lived in an oak;
The more he saw the less he spoke;
The less he spoke the more he heard:
Why can't we all be like that bird?
--Edward Hersey Richards (1874—1957)
American poet.

Never say more than is necessary.
--Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751—1816)
Anglo-Irish dramatist.
_The Rivals_ [1775], act II, sc. 1

-

I soon discovered that if a wayfaring stranger
wishes to eavesdrop on a local population the
places for him to slip in and hold his peace are
bars and churches. But some New England
towns don't have bars, and church is only on
Sunday. A good alternative is the roadside
restaurant were men gather for breakfast
before going to work or going hunting. To find
these places inhabited, one must get up very
early. And there is a drawback even to this.
Early-rising men not only do not talk much to
strangers, they barely talk to one another.
Breakfast conversation is limited to a series
of laconic grunts. The natural New England
taciturnity reaches its glorious perfection
at breakfast.

I fed Charley, gave him a limited promenade,
and hit the road. An icy mist covered the hills
and froze on my windshield. I am not normally
a breakfast eater, but here I had to be or I
wouldn't see anybody unless I stopped for gas.
At the first lighted roadside restaurant I pulled
in and took my seat at a counter. The customers
were folded over their coffee cups like ferns. A
normal conversation is as follows:

WAITRESS: 'Same?'
CUSTOMER: 'Yep.'
WAITRESS: 'Cold enought for you?'
CUSTOMER: 'Yep.'
(Ten minutes.)
WAITRESS: 'Refill?'
CUSTOMER: 'Yep.'

This is a really talkative customer. Some reduce
it to 'Burp' and others do not answer at all. An
early-morning waitress in New England leads a
lonely life, but I soon learned that if I tried to
inject life and gaiety into her job with a blithe
remark she dropped her eyes and answered
'Yep' or 'Umph'. Still, I did feel that there was
some kind of communication, but I can't say
what it was.

--John Ernst Steinbeck (1902—1968)
American novelist.
_Travels With Charley_ [1962]


Presently I saw a man leaning on a two-strand barbed-wire
fence, the wires fixed not to posts but to crooked tree limbs
stuck in the ground. The man wore a dark hat, and jeans and
long jacket washed palest blue, with lighter places at knees
and elbows. His pale eyes were frosted with sun glare and his
lips scaly as snakeskin. A .22 rifle leaned against the fence
beside him and on the ground lay a little heap of fur and
feathers - rabbits and small birds. I pulled up to speak to him,
saw his eyes wash over Rocinante, sweep up the details, and
then retire into their sockets. And I found I had nothing to
say to him. The 'Looks like an early winter' or 'Any good fishing
hereabouts?' didn't seem to apply. And so we simply brooded
at each other.

'Afternoon!'

'Yes, sir,' he said.

'Any place nearby where I can buy some eggs?'

'Not real close by 'less you want to go as far as Galva or up
to Beach.'

'I was set for some scratch-hen eggs.'

'Powdered,' he said. 'My Mrs gets powdered.'

'Lived here long?'

'Yep.'

I waited for him to ask something or to say something so
we could go on, but he didn't. And as the silence continued,
it became more and more impossible to think of something
to say. I made one more try. 'Does it get very cold here
winters?'

'Fairly.'

'You talk too much.'

He grinned. 'That's what my Mrs says.'

'So long,' I said, and put the car in gear and moved along.
And in my rear-view mirror I couldn't see that he looked after
me. He may not be a typical Badlander, but he's one of the
few I caught.

--John Ernst Steinbeck (1902—1968)
American novelist.
_Travels With Charley_ [1962]

-

I have often repented speaking, but never of holding my tongue.
--Xenocrates (c.395—314 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.

-

Our Lips And Ears

If you your lips would keep from slips.
Five things observe with care:
Of whom you speak, to whom you speak,
And how and when and where.

If you your ears would save from jeers,
These things keep meekly hid:
Myself and I, and mine and my,
And how I do and did.

--anon.

-----

laconic (adj.)
Using or involving the use of a minimum of words:
concise to the point of seeming rude or mysterious.
laconically (adverb)

reticent (adj.) ['re-tκ-sκnt]
Reluctant to speak or say anything; taciturn.
This word is misused so often to mean "reluctant to do anything" that the
errant meaning is creeping into US dictionaries. This adjective has but one
meaning: reluctant to speak or express oneself.





TACT

.
.

see "CIVILITY" for related links
see "COMMUNICATION" for related links


A simple rule in dealing with those who are hard to get along
with is to remember that this person is striving to assert his
superiority; and you must deal with him from that point of
view.
--Alfred Adler (1870—1937)
Austrian psychologist.

The tribute which intelligence
pays to humbug.
--St John Brodrick (1856—1942)
British Conservative politician.
Lady Ribblesdale to Lord Curzon [3 April 1891],
in Kenneth Rose _Superior Person_ [1969]

It is tact that is golden, not silence.
--Samuel Butler (1835—1902)
English novelist, essayist, and critic.
_The Note-Books of Samuel Butler_, ed. Henry Festing Jones [1907]

Do not use a hatchet to remove a
fly from your friend's forehead.
--Chinese Proverb

Tact is rubbing out another's mistake
instead of rubbing it in.
--Farmer's Almanac

There is a Time to wink as well as to see.
--Thomas Fuller (1654—1734)
English writer and physician.
Comp., _Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs_ [1732]

Tact is the ability to tell a man he is open-minded
when he has a hole in his head.
--F.G. Kernan

If you wish to appear agreeable in society,
you must consent to be taught many things
which you already know.
--Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741—1801)
Swiss writer, Protestant pastor, and founder of physiognomics.
In Robert Andrews
_The Routledge Dictionary of Quotations_, p. 246 [1987].

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
--attributed to both Anne Morrow Lindbergh & Eleanor Chaffee

-

Allowing an unimportant mistake to pass without
comment is a wonderful social grace.
--Judith "Miss Manners" Martin (1938— )
American newspaper columnist.


Should you happen to notice that another person
is extremely tall or overweight, eats too much
or declines convivial drinks, has red hair or
goes about in a wheelchair, ought to get married
or ought not to be pregnant--see if you can refrain
from bringing these astonishing observations to
that person's attention.
--Judith "Miss Manners" Martin (1938— )
American newspaper columnist.

-

Tact is the knack of making a point
without making an enemy.
--Howard W. Newton (1903—1951)
American advertising executive and
magazine columnist.

Tact is the art of putting your foot down,
without stepping on anyone's toes.
--Laurence J. Peter (1919—1990)
Canadian teacher and author.
_Peter's Almanac_ [1982]

Some delicate matters must be treated like pins,
because if they are not seized by the right end,
we get pricked.
--Jean-Antoine Petit-Senn (1792—1870)
French-Swiss lyric poet.

Do you still throw spears at each other?
--Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921— )
Consort of Queen Elizaberh II.
To Aboriginal cultural park owner William Brim
during a Royal visit to Cairns in Queensland, Australia.

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
--Mary Pettibone Poole
"Made in Manhattan"
_A Glass Eye at a Keyhole_ [1938]

[Tact] is a number of qualities working together: insight into [human
nature], sympathy, self-control, a knack of inducing self-control in
others, avoidance of human blundering, readiness to give the
immediate situation an understanding mind and a second thought.
Tact is not only kindness, but kindness skillfully extended.
--J.G. Randall (1881—1953)
_Lincoln the President_, 4 vols. [1946—1955]

A man says what he knows, a woman
says what will please.
--Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712—1778)
French philosopher and novelist.
_Emile_ [1762]

To tell a woman who is forty, "You look like
sixteen," is baloney. The blarney way of saying it
is "Tell me how old you are, I should like to know
at what age women are most beautiful."
--Fulton John Sheen (1895—1979)
Roman Catholic bishop; the first popular
preacher to appear on television.
_Life Is Worth Living_ (Fifth Series) [1957]

-----

gaucherie goh-shuh-REE, noun:
1. A socially awkward or tactless act.
2. Lack of tact; boorishness; awkwardness.
Synonyms: blunder, faux pas, gaffe.
Ex.: Here we see the insecure, unattractive woman who
at long last has found someone even more insecure and
unattractive than herself, calling attention to her companion's
gaucherie in order to feel, for once in her life, like the belle
of the ball.
--Florence King, "Out and About,"
_National Review_ [9 November 1998]





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TAHITI

.
.

see "PLACES" for related links


European imperialism long ago made Tahiti
a distant suburb of Paris, the missionaries
made it a suburb of Christ's kingdom, and
the radio made it a suburb of Los Angeles.
--Cedric Belfrage (1904—1990)
English born socialist, author, and journalist.
_Away From It All_ [1936]





TAKING ADVANTAGE

.
.

see "DECEPTION" for related links


Take heed: Most Men will cheat without
Scruple where they can do it without Fear.
--Thomas Fuller (1654—1734)
English writer and physician.
Comp., _Introductio ad Prudentiam_ [1731]

When the sun shineth, make hay.
--John Heywood (1497—1580)
English playwright.
_Proverbs_ [1546]

Half the world is composed of idiots, the other half
of people clever enough to take indecent advantage
of them.
--Walter Kerr (1913—1996)
American theater critic [husband of Jean Kerr].

There are no circumstances, however unfortunate,
that clever people don't extract some advantage
from.
--Franηois de La Rochefoucauld (1613—1680)
French classical author.

^^

UN-NAMED ACTRESS: In one year that stinker's got through
$100,000 of my money.
BARBARA STANWYCK: Tell me, darling, is the screwing you're
getting worth the screwing you're getting?

--quoted in Rosemary Jarski, _Hollywood Wit_ [2000]

^^

When I am the weaker, I ask you for my freedom,
because that is your principle; but when I am
the stronger, I take away your freedom, because
that is my principle.
--Louis Veuillot (1813—1883)
French journalist and man of letters.

-

When a man with experience meets a man with
money, the man with money gets the experience,
and the man with experience gets the money.
--anon.





TAKING A STAND

.
.

see "ACTIONS" for related links


It is always easier to hear an insult and not retaliate than have the
courage to fight back against someone stronger than yourself; we can
always say we're not hurt by the stones others throw at us, and it's
only at night - when we're alone and our wife or our husband or our
school friend is asleep - that we can silently grieve over our own
cowardice.
--Paulo Coelho (1947— )
Brazilian lyricist and novelist.

He once sailed into the Newport, California, harbor and took his
skipper along with him into the yacht club bar. An official beckoned
him aside and intimated that a respectable yacht club was no place to
bring his "paid hands." [Humphrey] Bogart called for his bar check
and on the back of it wrote out his resignation.
--Alistair Cooke [Alfred Cooke] (1908—2004)
British-born American broadcater and journalist.
_Six Men_

If you stand up and are counted, you may get
yourself knocked down. But remember this:
A man flattened by an opponent can get up
again. A man flattened by conformity stays
down for good.
--Thomas J. Watson, Sr. (1874—1956)
American industrialist and founder of IBM.




TAKING OFFENSE

.
.

see "EMOTIONS & FEELINGS" for related links
see also: PATIENCE


A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
Will not affront me, and no other can.
--William Cowper (1731—1800)
English poet and hymnodist.

If all printers were determined not to print anything
till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would
be very little printed.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.

If all else fails, the character of a man
can be recognized by nothing so surely
as by a jest which he takes badly.
--Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742—1799)
German scientist and drama critic.
_Aphorisms_ [1765-1799], aphorism 46

At ev'ry trifle scorn to take offense.
--Alexander Pope (1688—1744)
English poet.
_An Essay on Criticism_ [1711], pt. II, l. 186

Do not take life's experiences too seriously. Above all,
do not let them hurt you, for in reality they are nothing
but dream experiences. If circumstances are bad and you
have to bear them, do not make them a part of yourself.
Play your part in life, but never forget that it is only
a role.
--Paramahansa Yogananda (1893—1952)
Indian yogi and guru.

----

umbrage UHM-brij, noun:
1. Shade; shadow; hence, something that affords a shade,
as a screen of trees or foliage.
2. a. A vague or indistinct indication or suggestion; a hint.
b. Reason for doubt; suspicion.
3. Suspicion of injury or wrong; offense; resentment.




TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

.
.

see "CHARACTER" for related links


I did it to myself. It wasn't society... it wasn't a pusher,
it wasn't being blind or being black or being poor. It
was all my doing.
--Ray Charles (1930—2004)
American pianist and soul singer.
[On his heroin addiction.]

Those who cannot think or take responsibility for
themselves need, and clamor for, a leader.
--Hermann Hesse (1877—1962)
German novelist, poet, and winner of the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946.
_Reflections_ [1974], #106




TAKING THINGS SERIOUSLY

.
.

see: "LIGHT-HEARTED"
see "MISTAKES" for related links
see: "TRIFLES"


The one serious conviction that a man should have
is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.
--Samuel Butler (1835—1902)
English novelist, essayist, and critic.

^

Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576)
Italian mathematician and astrologer.

Cardano was renowned throughout Europe as
an astrologer, even visiting England to cast
a horoscope of the young king, Edward VI.
A steadfast believer in the accuracy of his
so-called science, Cardano constructed a
horoscope predicting the hour of his own
death. When the day dawned, it found him
in good health and safe from harm. Rather
than have his prediction falsified, Cardano
killed himself.

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

^^

Charondas (6th century B.C.) Greek legislator.

One of Charondas's laws forbade citizens
to carry weapons into the public assembly.
Forgetting this, he wore his sword into
the public meeting one day. A fellow
citizen reproached him for violating his
own law. "By Zeus, I will confirm it," said
Charondas instantly, and drawing his
sword, killed himself.

_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard

^^

All higher humor begins with ceasing to take oneself seriously.
--Hermann Hesse (1877—1962)
German novelist, poet, and winner of the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946.
_Reflections_ [1974], #588

Laugh at yourself and at life. Not in the spirit of derision or
whining self-pity, but as a remedy, a miracle drug, that will ease
your pain, cure your depression, and help you to put in perspective
that seemingly terrible defeat and worry with laughter at your
predicaments, thus freeing your mind to think clearly toward the
solution that is certain to come. Never take yourself too seriously.
--Og Mandino (1923—1996)
American author and motivational speaker.

It is our responsibilities, not ourselves,
that we should take seriously.
--Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov [1921—2004]
British entertainer, writer, and humanitarian.




TALENT

.
.

see: "ABILITY"


To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent. To do what is
impossible for talent is the mark of genius.
--Henri Frιdιrick Amiel (1821—1881)
Swiss critic.
_Journal_ [1856]

Talents are best nurtured in solitude; character
is best formed in the stormy billows of the world.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright.

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which, in
prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.
--Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65—8 BC)
Roman poet.

People have started asking me if we've got any talent
on this team. Well, I tell them, if we start winning
games we'll have talent. But since we're getting beat
to death, no, we don't.
--Joe Namath (1943— )
American football player.
In Rick Telander _Joe Namath and the Other Guys_ [1976].

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

A Steinway will never sound quite the same again.
--Steinway & Sons, piano manufacturer.
Sole copy in ad honoring the memory of
Vladimir Horowitz who had just died,
_New York Times_ [10 November 1989]

Use what talents you possess: the woods would be
very silent if no birds sang there except those
that sang best.
--Henry Van Dyke (1852—1933)
American clergyman, educator, and author.

If a man has a talent and cannot use it, he has failed. If he has a talent
and uses only half of it, he has partly failed. If he has a talent and learns
somehow to use the whole of it, he has gloriously succeeded, and won
a satisfaction and a triumph few men ever know.
--Thomas Wolfe (1900—1938)
American novelist.
_The Web and the Rock_ [1939], ch. 30

-----

prodigy (noun)
Somebody with exceptional talent: somebody who shows
an exceptional natural talent for something from an
early age.


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