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UGLY --- UNCOMPROMISING --- UNDERSTANDING
UNDERSTATEMENT --- UNEMPLOYMENT
UNEXPECTED (THE) --- UNFAIR
UNICORNS

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UGLY

see: "THE BODY"


It is better to be first with an ugly woman
than the hundreth with a beauty.
--Pearl S. Buck (1892—1973)
American author noted for her novels of life in China;
winner of the 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature.
_The Good Earth_ [1931]

Deformity of the heart I call
The worst deformity of all.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.

-

I'm so ugly, when I was a kid, my father bought a
new billfold, and, instead of my picture, he carried
the picture of the kid who came with the wallet.
--Rodney Dangerfield [Jacob Cohen]
(1921—2004) American comedian.


I was an ugly child. I got lost on the beach. I asked
a cop if he could find my parents. He said, 'I don't
know. There's lots of places for them to hide.'
--Rodney Dangerfield [Jacob Cohen]
(1921—2004) American comedian.

-

I was the world's ugliest baby.
When I was born the doctor
slapped everybody.
--Phyllis Diller (1917— )
American comedian.

-

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], Chapter 24

-

As a beauty I'm not a great star.
Others are handsomer far;
But my face — I don't mind it
Because I'm behind it;
It's the folks out in front that I jar.
--Anthony Euwer (1877—1955)
American author.
In Robert Andrews _The Concise Columbia
Dictionary of Quotations_, p. 102 [1989].

Harris, I am not well; pray get me a
glass of brandy.
--King George IV (1762—1830)
King of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland [1820-1830].
(Upon first seeing his future wife, Caroline of Brunswick.)

^

John James Heidegger (1659?—1749),
Swiss impresario.

Heidegger was famous for his ugliness,
recorded for posterity in a number of
William Hogarth's prints. He once bet Lord
Chesterfield that he would not be able to
produce anyone uglier. The earl eventually
came up with an old woman who was said
to be marginally more hideous. Heidegger
quickly borrowed his rival's bonnet, settled
it on his head, and was awarded the victory.

^

She is magnificently ugly — deliciously hideous . . . Now
in this vast ugliness resides a most powerful beauty which,
in a very few minutes, steals forth and charms the mind,
so that you end as I ended, in falling in love with her.
--Henry James (1843—1916)
American novelist.
Letter to his father [10 May 1869].

Aunt Adeline was a tall, capable woman to whom the word
"horse" clung in conjunction with the words "sense" and
"face."
--Ayn Rand (1905—1982)
Russian-born American writer.
_The Fountainhead_ [1943]
Part Two : Ellsworth M. Toohey, ch. 9

Last week I stated that this woman was the ugliest woman I
had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister and
now wish to withdraw that statement.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.

-

You could throw her in the river and
skim ugly for two weeks.
--anon.

-----

excrescence ik-SKRESS-uhn(t)s, noun:
1. Something (especially something abnormal)
growing out from something else.
2. A disfiguring or unwanted mark, part, or addition.



UNCOMPROMISING

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.

see "STUBBORN"


Like all weak men, he laid an exaggerated
stress on not changing one's mind.
--W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)
English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer,
_Of Human Bondage_ [1915]

-----

intransigent in-TRAN-suh-juhnt; -zuh-, adjective:
Refusing to compromise; uncompromising.
Ex.: Sometimes I was intransigent, and proud of
it. At other times I seemed to myself to be nearly
devoid of any character at all, timid, uncertain,
without will.
--Edward W. Said,
_Out of Place: A Memoir_




UNDERSTANDING

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.

see "COMMUNICATION" for related links
see "KNOWLEDGE" for related links


The greatest understanding you can have, if
you want to be enlightened, is that no one
will ever understand you.
--Dr. Robert Anthony (1916— )
American writer, _Think and Win_

I don't understand you. You don't understand
me. What else do we have in common?
--attributed to Ashleigh Brilliant (1933— )
British-born American writer and artist.

One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego;
the self is more distant than any star.
--G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton (1874—1936)
English essayist, novelist, and poet.
_Orthodoxy_ [1908], "The Logic of Elfland"

-

I have tried at various times in my life to grasp the rudiments
of such inventions as the telephone, the camera, wireless
telegraphy and even the ordinary motor car, but without success.

Television, of course, and radar and atomic energy are so far
beyond my comprehension that my brain shudders at the thought
of them and scurries for cover like a primitive tribesman
confronted for the first time with a Dunhill cigarette lighter.

--Noλl Coward (1899—1973)
English playwright, actor, and composer.

-

Unless we remember we cannot understand.
--E.M. [Edward Morgan] Forster (1879—1970)
English novelist.

It always seems to me extreme rashness on the part of some when they
want to make human abilities the measure of what nature can do. On the
contrary, there is not a single effect in nature, even the least that exists,
such that the most ingenious theorists can arrive at a complete
understanding of it. This vain presumption of understanding everything
can have no other basis than never understanding anything. For anyone
who had experienced just once the perfect understanding of one single
thing, and had truly tasted how knowledge is accomplished, would
recognize that of the infinity of other truths he understands nothing.
--Galileo Galilei (1564—1642)
Tuscan astronomer and physicist.
_Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems_
translated by Stillman Drake [1953].

The reality of the other person lies not
in what he reveals to you but in what he
cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you
would understand him, listen not to what
he says but rather to what he does not
say.
--Kahlil Gibran (1883—1931)
Lebanese poet.
_Sand and Foam_ [1926]

-

You must lie upon the daisies and discourse
In novel phrases of your complicated state of mind
The meaning doesn't matter
If it's only idle chatter
Of a transcendental kind

And everyone will say,
As you walk your mystic way,
"If this young man expresses himself
In terms too deep for me
Why, what a very singularly deep young man
This deep young man must be!"

--W. S. Gilbert (1836—1911)
English writer of comic and satirical verse.
_Patience_ [1881]

-

-

We are accustomed to see men deride what they do
not understand, and snarl at the good and beautiful
because it lies beyond their sympathies.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright.
_Faust_ [1806]


The greatest happiness for the thinking man is to
have fathomed the fathomable, and to quietly
revere the unfathomable.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright.
_Proverbs in Prose_ [1819]

-

^

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770—1831), German
idealist philosopher.

On his deathbed Hegel complained, ''Only
one man ever understood me.'' He fell silent
for a while and then added,'' And he didn't
understand me.''

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

^

Every child who has the use
Of his senses knows a goose.
See them underneath the tree
Gather round the goose-girl's knee,
While she reads them by the hour
From the works of Scho-pen-hauer.
How patiently the geese attend!
But do they really comprehend
What Schopenhauer's driving at?
Oh, not at all; but what of that?
Neither do I; neither does she;
And, for that matter, nor does he.
--Oliver Herford (1863—1935)
American author and illustrator.
"Some Geese"

My words in her mind: cold polished stones
sinking through a quagmire.
--James Joyce (1882—1941)
Irish novelist.

Shallow understanding from people of good will is
more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding
from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is
much more bewildering than outright rejection.
--Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929—1968)
American civil rights leader.
_Letter from Birmingham Jail_ [16 April 1963]

The most important things are the hardest things to say.
They are the things you get ashamed of, because words
diminish them--words shrink things that seemed limitless
when they were in your head to no more than living size
when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't
it? The most important things lie too close to wherever
your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure
your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make
revelations that cost you dearly only to have people
look at you in a funny way, not understanding what
you've said at all, or why you thought it was so
important that you almost cried when you were saying
it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays
locked within not for the want of a teller but for the
want of an understanding ear.
--Stephen King (1947— )
American author known for horror novels.

Life must be lived forwards, but can
only be understood backwards.
--Sφren Kierkegaard (1813—1855)
Danish philosopher.
"Journals and Papers" [1843]

To realize that you do not understand is a
virtue; Not to realize that you do not
understand is a defect.
--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).

You never really understand a person until you consider things
from his point of view -- until you climb into his skin and
walk around in it.
--Harper Lee (1926— )
American novelist.
_To Kill a Mockingbird_, ch. 3 [1960]

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in
each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
_Driftwood_ [1857]

There are three classes of intellects: one which
comprehends by itself; another which appreciates
what others comprehend; and a third which neither
comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others;
the first is the most excellent, the second is good,
the third is useless.
--Niccolς Machiavelli (1469—1527)
Florentine statesman and political philosopher.
_The Prince_ [1513], Chapter 22

A child of five would understand this. Send
someone to fetch a child of five.
--Groucho [Julius Henry] Marx (1895—1977)
American film comedian.

If only everyone talked the way we do in my household. I
mean . . . if only everyone . . . like . . . talked . . .
you know. . . the way we do . . . right? It would be so
much . . . like . . . easier . . . you know . . . to
understand . . . right?
--Robert Nordell

He distains all things above his reach,
and preferreth all countries before his
own.
--Sir Thomas Overbury (1581?—1613)
English poet and essayist.
_An Affectate Traveller_ [1614]

Speak properly, and in as few Words as you can,
but always plainly; for the End of Speech is not
Ostentation, but to be understood.
--William Penn (1644—1718)
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.}.
_Some Fruits of Solitude_ [1693] "Of Conduct In Speech"

But don't you see that the whole trouble lies here.
In words, words. Each one of us has within him a
whole world of things, each man of us his own special
world. And how can we ever come to an understanding
if I put in the words I utter the sense and value of
things as I see them; while you who listen to me must
inevitably translate them according to the conception
of things each one of you has within himself. We think
we understand each other, but we never really do.
--Luigi Pirandello (1867—1936)
Italian dramatist and novelist awarded the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934.
_Six Characters in Search of an Author_ [1921]

-

Sometimes I speak to men and women just
as a little girl speaks to her doll. She knows
of course that the doll does not understand
her, but she creates for herself the joy of
communication through a pleasant and
conscious self-deception
--Arthur Schopenhauer (1788—1860)
German philosopher.


Every man takes the limits of his own field
of vision for the limits of the world.
--Arthur Schopenhauer (1788—1860)
German philosopher.
_Studies in Pessimism_ [1851] "Psychological Observation"

-

A Physician is not angry at the Intemperance of a mad Patient;
nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a Man in a Fever: Just
so should a wise Man treat all Mankind, as a Physician does
his Patient; and looking upon them only as sick, and
extravagant....
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.—65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
In Marion Mills Miller _The Classics, Greek & Latin_ [1909].

For mine own part, it was Greek to me.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Julius Caesar_ [1599], act 1, sc. 2, l. 280

I refuse to understand what you are
talking about.
--Preston Sturges [Edmund Preston Biden] (1898—1959)
American motion picture director, screenwriter, and playwright.
Screenplay, "The Palm Beach Story" [1942].

Where I am not understood, it shall be
concluded that something very useful
and profound is couched underneath.
--Jonathan Swift (1667—1745)
Anglo-Irish poet and satirist.
_The Tale of a Tub_, Preface [1704]

Everything that can be thought at all can be thought
clearly. Everything that can be said at all can be said
clearly. But not everything that can be thought can
be said.
--Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889—1951)
Austrian philosopher.
In Susan Sontag
_Styles of Radical Will_, p. 18 "The Aesthetics of Silence" [2002].

-----

arcane (adj.) [ahr-'keyn]
Known or understood by only a few.

empathy (noun) ['emp-κ-thi]
Understanding another by entering and sharing their emotions.

esoteric (adj.)
1. Restricted to initiates: intended for or understood
by only an initiated few.
2. Abstruse: difficult to understand

fathom (noun) ['fζ-dhκm]
As noun: The outstretched arms or the measure of outstretched arms;
a nautical measure of 6 feet.
As verb: To measure to the bottom (of a water) with a fathom pole
or line; to manage to comprehend.

recondite REK-uhn-dyt, adjective:
1. Difficult to understand; abstruse.
2. Concerned with obscure subject matter.
Ex.: And his fondness for stopping his readers short in their tracks
with evidence of his recondite vocabulary is wonderfully irritating.
--"Books of the Times," _New York Times_ [23 February 1951]

sagacity (noun)
Wisdom or discernment: profound knowledge and understanding,
coupled with foresight and good judgment.




Click picture to ZOOM
UNDERSTATEMENT

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.

see "COMMUNICATION" for related links


The war situation has developed not
necessarily to Japan's advantage.
--Emperor Hirohito (1901-1989)
Emperor of Japan from 1926,
announcing Japan's surrender [15 August 1945]

-----

litotes (noun) ['li-tκ-teez, lI-'to-teez]
A figure of speech that uses dramatic understatement
to express a positive idea by negating its opposite.

meiosis (noun) [mI-'o-sis]
(Rhetoric) Dramatic understatement for effect
(the antonym is "hyperbole").
meiotic (adj.)
meiotically (adverb)
see litotes: an understatement that uses a negative
statement to express a positive idea.




UNEMPLOYMENT

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.

see "WORK" for related links


Machines are the new proletariat. The working
class is being given its walking papers.
--Jacques Attali (1943- )
French economist and writer,
_Millenium: Winners and Losers in the Coming World Order_ [1991]

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his
job; it's a depression when you lose yours.
--Harry S. Truman (1884-1972)
American Democratic statesman,
President of the U.S. [1945-1953],
in "Observer" [13 April 1958]




UNEXPECTED (THE)
Click picture to ZOOM

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.

see "SURPRISE"


What we anticipate seldom occurs; what
we least expect generally happens.
--Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
British Tory statesman, novelist, and
Prime Minister [1868, 1874-1880],
_Henrietta Temple_ [1837]

It is a simple matter to see the obvious, to do the
expected. The tendency of the individual life is to
be static rather than dynamic, and this tendency is
made into a propulsion by civilization, where the
obvious only is seen, and the unexpected rarely
happens. When the unexpected does happen,
however, and when it is of sufficiently grave import,
the unfit perish. They do not see what is not obvious,
are unable to do the unexpected, are incapable
of adjusting their well-grooved lives to other
and strange grooves. In short, when they come
to the end of their own groove, they die.
--Jack London [John Griffith Chaney] (1876-1916)
American novelist and short-story writer,
"The Unexpected"

A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected
when at last it comes.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot,
_Notebooks_ [1935]




UNFAIR
Click picture to ZOOM

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.

see "LIFE" for related links


If life were fair, Dan Quayle would be making a
living asking "Do you want fries with that?"
--John Cleese (1939- )
British comedian and actor

Wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all
the terrible things that happen to us, come because
actually deserve them? So now I take comfort in the
general hostility and unfairness of the Universe.
--Marcus Cole
_Ranger_

It is the answer that fate gives to all who ask that
question, when disaster, death, tragedy, hardship
overtake them. "Why me? Why me? Why me?" ...
And Fate answers these fools --"Why not?"
--John Gardner
_Scorpius_

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are
a good person is a little like expecting a bull not to
attack you because you are a vegetarian.
--Dennis Wholey




Click picture to ZOOM
UNICORNS

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.

see "SUPERNATURAL" for related links


Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
--Benny Hill [Alfred Hawthorne Hill]
(1924-1992), U.K. comedian

The unicorn is said to be a beast with the configuration
of a horse and a long spiraled horn in the center of the
forehead. Only a virgin, we are told, is able to approach
a unicorn. For this and other reasons, no reliable reports
exist to verify the reality of this animal.
--James Randi,
_Flim-Flam_, [1982]

-

Unicorns (Green Alligators)
--Shel Silverstein (1930-1999)
Ameican poet and songwriter


A long time ago, when the Earth was green
There was more kinds of animals than you've ever seen
They'd run around free while the Earth was being born
And the loveliest of all was the unicorn

There was green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born
The loveliest of all was the unicorn

The Lord seen some sinning and it gave Him pain
And He says, "Stand back, I'm going to make it rain"
He says, "Hey Noah, I'll tell you what to do
Build me a floating zoo,
and take some of those

Green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born
Don't you forget My unicorns

Old Noah was there to answer the call
He finished up making the ark just as the rain started to fall
He marched the animals two by two
And he called out as they came through
Hey Lord,

I've got green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but Lord, I'm so forlorn
I just can't find no unicorns."

And Noah looked out through the driving rain
Them unicorns were hiding, playing silly games
Kicking and splashing while the rain was falling
Oh, them silly unicorns

There was green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Noah cried, "Close the door because the rain is falling
And we just can't wait for no unicorns"

The ark started moving, it drifted with the tide
The unicorns looked up from the rocks and they cried
And the waters came down and sort of floated them away
That's why you never see unicorns to this very day

You'll see green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you're born
You're never gonna see no unicorns

[song recorded by The Irish Rovers]


end page





| UGLY - UNICORNS | UNHAPPINESS | UNIONS - USELESS | VACATION - VENGENCE | VENICE - VICTORY | VIGILANCE - VIRGINITY | VIRTUE - VULGARITY | WAGES - WAR & PEACE | WAR (THE CIVIL) - WAR (THE REVOLUTIONARY) | WAR (THOUGHTS ABOUT) - PAGE 1 (A-M) | WAR (THOUGHTS ABOUT) - PAGE 2 (N-Z) | WAR (VIETNAM) | WAR (WORLD WAR I) | WAR (WORLD WAR II) PAGE 1 (A-M) | WAR (WORLD WAR II) PAGE 2 (N-Z) | WASHINGTON (D.C.) - WEAK/WEAKNESS | WEALTH - WEASELS | WEATHER - WELLS (H.G.) | WEST (THE OLD/WILD) - WILDE (OSCAR) | WILL - WINNING | WINTER - WISDOM | WISHING - WIVES | WOMEN - WOMEN'S LIB | WOMEN'S RIGHTS - WORDS | WORK - WORLD | WORLD TRADE CENTER & PENTAGON DISASTER, 11 SEPTEMB | WORRY - WRONG | WRITING | YESTERDAY - ZOOS |
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