Month: October 2004

On being asked to apologise for calling a fellow MP a liar.

Mr Speaker, I said the honourable member was a liar it is true and I am sorry for it. The honourable member may place the punctuation where he please.

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea’s face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way, where the wind’s likea whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been wrong, which is but saying, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

A boy is noise with dirt on it.

Only he who shouts for the Jews can sing the Gregorian chant.

Those to whom nothing has happpened cannot understand the unimportance of events.

Evolutionary Hymn

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future’s endless stair;
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
while there’s always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we’re going,
We can never go astray.

To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.

Ask not if it’s god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic,
Abstract yardsticks we deny.

Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature’s simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,
‘Goodness = what comes next.’
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.

Oh then! Value means survival-
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present,
Standards, though it may well be).

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong.

The only person who behaved sensibly was my tailor; he took my measurement anew every time he saw me, whilst all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.

Do I not destroy my enemy when I make a friend of him

There is something ridiculous and even quite indecent in an individual claiming to be happy. Still more a people or a nation making such a claim. The pursuit of happiness… is without any question the most fatuous which could possibly be undertaken. This lamentable phrase ”the pursuit of happiness” is responsible for a good part of the ills and miseries of the modern world.

It is better either to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few.

God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.

Tenuous and Precarious

Tenuous and Precarious
Were my guardians,
Precarious and Tenuous,
Two Romans.

My father was Hazardous,
Hazardous,
Dear old man,
Three Romans.

There was my brother Spurious,
Spurious Posthumous,
Spurious was Spurious,
Was four Romans.

My husband was Perfidious,
He was Perfidious,
Five Romans.

Surreptitious, our son,
Was Surreptitious,
He was six Romans.

Our cat Tedious
Still lives,
Count not Tedious
Yet.

My name is Finis,
Finis, Finis,
I am Finis,
Six, five, four, three, two,
One Roman,
Finis.

If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

A seven-year-old of my acquaintance claimed that the last number of all was 23,000. “What about 23,000 and one?” she was asked. After a pause: “Well, I was close.”

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing — that’s what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.

Originality is unexplored territory. You get there by carrying a canoe. You can’t take a taxi.

Former Chinese premiere Chou En-Lai was once asked what he thought was the legacy of the French Revolution. His response reflected the perspective of five thousand years of Chinese civilization: “It is too soon to say.”

Getting facts from my files would be instantaneous
If it weren’t for the drawers marked “miscellaneous”.

The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.

Are we not drawn onward, we few drawn onward to new era?

Euclidian Definitions

A point is that which has no parts.
A line is that which has length without breadth.
The limits of a line are points.
A straight line is that which lies equally to the points on it.
A surface is that which has only length and breadth.
The limits of a surface are lines.
A plane surface is that which lies equally to the straight lines on it.

Euclidean Axioms

Things which are equal to the same thing are also equal to one another.
If equals be added to equals, the wholes are equal.
If equals be subtracted from equals, the remainders are equal.
Things which coincide with one another are equal to one another.
The whole is greater than the part.

Euclidian Postulates

A straight line can be drawn between any two points.
A finite line can be extended infinitely in both directions.
A circle can be drawn with any centre and any radius.
All right angles are equal to each other.
Given a line and a point not on the line, only one line can be drawn through the point parallel to the line.

We do not want to be beginners but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything but beginners all our lives.

“Thank you for the flowers you’ve sent”, she said,
And sweetly smiled, and coyly turned her head.
“I am sorry for the things I said last night.
I was wrong, and you were right.
Please forgive me?”
So I forgave her.
And as we wandered through the moonlit hours,
I thought,
“What bloody flowers?”

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.