Quote of the day 16th December 2014

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes."

(Walt Whitman)
 
(Quoted as an answer to any attentive reader who may have noticed that the quotes I have put down on success and failure over the last fortnight represent different views and do not always perfectly align.) 
 

Comments

Jim said…
How this for contradictions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30499888
6:31 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
I presume you refer to the fact that Michael Heseltine predicted that the UK "will join the euro" but added that it would not be "in the foreseeable future".

Yes, it does seem like a bit of a contradiction, doesn't it, that he foresees it happening but not in the foreseeable future.

Presumably a bit like the joke in which people put questions to God like "will my local football team ever win the cup" and "will we ever sort out the economy" and most of the answers are "Yes, but not in your lifetime"

Then someone asks Him if a particularly difficult problem - say, peace between Jews and Arabs - will ever be solved, and the punchline is that God replies

"Yes, but not in My lifetime."
9:03 pm
Jim said…
Thats exactly what I was getting at, foreseeing something that is not foreseeable.

That one reminds me of the man who meets god.

He asks "so how did you create the heavens and the earth in just 7 days?"
God says "son, a single second to me is like a million of your years"
He then asks "so how much did it cost?"
God days "son, its by the by, a single penny to me is like a trillion of your pounds"
So he thinks and then asks "God, could you lend me a penny please?"
God says "yeah sure son, Just a second"
5:41 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

Image
I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more