Month: September 2004

There’s a lot we should be able to learn from history. And yet history proves that we never do. In fact, the main lesson of history is that we never learn the lessons of history. This makes us look so stupid that few people care to read it. They’d rather not be reminded. Any good history book is mainly just a long list of mistakes, complete with names and dates. It’s very embarrassing.

Idealism:

There once was a man who said, ‘God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If He finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there’s no one about in the Quad.’

A reply:

Dear Sir, Your astonishment’s odd:
I am always about in the Quad;
And that’s why this tree
Will continue to be,
Since observed by Yours faithfully, God.

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field.

1st Law
You cannot win (that is, you cannot get something for nothing, because matter and energy are conserved).

2nd Law
You cannot break even (you cannot return to the same energy state, because there is always an increase in disorder; entropy always increases).

3rd Law
You cannot get out of the game (because absolute zero is unattainable).

1st Law
The energy of a closed system is conserved (DU = DQ – DW)

2nd Law
The entropy of a closed system can never decrease (DU=T.DS – W)

3rd Law
The entropy of a perfect crystal is zero when the temperature of the crystal is equal to absolute zero (0 K).

The Rolling English Road

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.

She was rather melancholoy, but hoped as much as she could, and when she could not hope did not stand still, but walked on in the dark. I think that when the sun rises upon them, some people will be astonished to find how far they have come in the dark.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Paradise Lost (book IV) – Gabriel to Satan

Satan, I know thy strength, and thou knowest mine;
Neither our own, but given: What folly then
To boast what arms can do? since thine no more
Than Heaven permits, nor mine, though doubled now
To trample thee as mire: For proof look up,
And read thy lot in yon celestial sign;
Where thou art weighed, and shown how light, how weak,
If thou resist. The Fiend looked up, and knew
His mounted scale aloft: Nor more; but fled
Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night.

You play the hand you’re dealt. I think the game’s worthwhile.

If a thing is worth doing it is worth doing badly.

I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, Of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?

The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.””The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.””The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.”

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said — “two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert … near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lips, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.” —

I lately lost a preposition:
It is, I thought, beneath my chair.
And angrily I cried: ‘Perdition!
Up from out of in under there!’

Correctness is my vade mecum,
And straggling phrases I abhor;
And yet I wondered: ‘What should he come
Up from out of in under for?’

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

also attributed

No one can make me feel like a doormat without my permission.

By doubting we come to inquiry, by inquiry we come to truth.

It came burning hot into my mind, whatever he said and however he flattered, when he got me home to his house, he would sell me for a slave.

Lines Written Upon Westminster Bridge

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

We grow taller when we bow.

Why are you bothering to lie to me? You are like a man on a desert island, refusing to admit to his only other companion the he ate the last coconut.