Tuesday, 11 July 2017

5 quotations


"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge."
Daniel Boorstin

A man may be in as just possession of truth as of a city, and yet be forced to surrender.
Sir Thomas Browne


No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread.
Robert Burton

A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.
Robert Burton

Idleness is an appendix to nobility. 
Robert Burton 
[Now noblemen and the rich seem always busy and idleness is an appendix to poverty.]

9 comments:

  1. Toma11 July 2017 at 20:35

    NEVER vote for, do business with or be pleasant to anyone who uses the words 'ordinary people'

    Michael Bywater

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    Replies
    1. Political Refugee from the Global Village12 July 2017 at 15:20

      I use the expression in England but not in Romania. For me Romanians are never ordinary.

      Delete
    2. Toma12 July 2017 at 15:48

      He might have meant 'common' as in:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMWgOduFM

      Delete
    3. Political Refugee from the Global Village12 July 2017 at 16:59

      That was fun!
      I took a friend of mine to a barbecue given by an acquaintance and his wife in the garden of their little terraced house in a gated estate in North Bucharest and she said afterwards that they were 'normal people'. This was something she didn't mean as an insult but she rightly considered normal people as a different species from hers. I am ashamed to say that she had to explain what she meant. Once I'd have understood immediately.

      Delete
    4. Toma12 July 2017 at 19:44

      'normal people' is a literal translation of 'oameni normali'...What she meant to tell you is 'they're all right'

      Delete
    5. Political Refugee from the Global Village12 July 2017 at 19:57

      No she meant they were different from the sort of people she mixed with.

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    6. Toma12 July 2017 at 22:33

      Uncouth...

      Delete
  2. Anonymous14 July 2017 at 09:19

    American writer and satirist HL Mencken: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

    Dante

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  3. TheVidra14 July 2017 at 17:13

    Nobility has absolutely nothing to do with financial status (at least in Romania, but I think it's equally valid in Spain and other places where the nobility wasn't wiped out, like in France or Russia). If you meet any people remaining from the aristocratic families in Romania (very few left), you will be struck by the class and the ease with which they demonstrate that class (without trying); but they will likely be pretty poor, especially the older ones.

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