Fleas
Adam
Had ’em.
originally entitled “Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes”
Month: April 2008
John F Kennedy
At a dinner for 49 Nobel Laureates (being all the then living laureates from the western hemisphere) at the White House in 1962
I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
Stephen Crane
A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats.
Humphrey Lyttleton
Hello and welcome to I’m sorry I haven’t a clue. You join us this week in Manchester, the fine metropolis boasting a wealth of culture and history. As the epicentre of the industrial revolution, it was here that a phrase was coined that has survived to this day. “What happens in Manchester today, happens in the rest of the world tomorrow”.
So if you’re listening rest-of-the-world, tomorrow it’s going to drizzle.
W B Yeats
When You are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
G K Chesterton
Misers get up early in the morning; and burglars, I am informed, get up the night before.
Sophocles
No enemy is worse than bad advice.
Bernard Lamb
There was a Neanderthal man
Who found that is grunts didn’t scan
This hearty meat-eater
Invented the metre
To prove that it certainly can
Jane Austen
The trees, though not fully clothed, were in that delightful state, when further beauty is known to be at hand, and when, while much is actually given to the sight, more yet remains for the imagination.
Joseph Wood Krutch
Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.
Oliver Herford
She has a whim of iron
William Shakespeare
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Leigh Hunt
…but for the study itself, give me a small snug place, almost entirely walled with books. There should be only one window in it, looking upon trees.
John O’Farrell
I blame the scapegoats.
Shel Silverstein
I know you little, I love you lots,
my love for you could fill ten pots,
fifteen buckets, sixteen cans,
three teacups, and four dishpans.
James Parton
At 32 Thomas Jefferson could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, dance a minuet, and play the violin.
Christopher Fry
I travel light; as light,
That is, as a man can travel who will
Still carry his body around because
Of its sentimental value.
Wallace Stevens
Style is not something applied. It is something that permeates. It is of the nature of that in which it is found, whether the poem, the manner of a god, the bearing of a man. It is not a dress.
Francis Thompson
Mistress of Vision
All things by immortal power,
Near or far, Hiddenly
To each other linked are,
That thou canst not stir a flower
Without troubling of a star.
George Meredith
Kissing don’t last: cookery do!
Noam Chomsky
Colourless green ideas sleep furiously
John Hegley
Uncle and Auntie
my auntie gave me a colouring book and crayons
I begin to colour
after a while auntie leans over and says
you’ve gone over the lines
what do you think they’re there for
eh?
some kind of statement is it?
going to be a rebel are we?
your auntie gives you a lovely present
and you have to go and ruin it
I begin to cry
my uncle gives me a hanky and some blank paper
do some doggies of your own he says
I begin to colour
when I have done
he looks over
and says they are all very good
he is lying
only some of them are
Jonathon Swift
Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to live another time.
Robert Browning
Song, from Pippa Passes
The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in his Heaven –
All’s right with the world!
Ambrose Bierce
History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
Sara Teasdale
Morning
I went out on an April morning
All alone, for my heart was high,
I was a child of the shining meadow,
I was a sister of the sky.
There in the windy flood of morning
Longing lifted its weight from me,
Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering,
Swept as a sea-bird out to sea.
C S Lewis
In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the gelding be fruitful.