"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire

there are websites galore featuring quotes, witty sayings, aphorisms, apothegms and what-have-you-to-say. I'm wondering if y'all have collected any which might be considered to be more obscure, but worthful nonetheless.

Not so witty, but...

Here's from Pascal:

The more I see of men, the better I like my dog.

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it short.

Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.

Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it.

The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.

[I've been reading through Pascal cursorily because he's a source of inspiration for young Dorothea in Middlemarch.......Ah! These ice days off from school! What luxury!]

Better a witty Fool than a foolish wit.

                  -- Quinapalus

...So what does that have to do with the price of green cheese on the moon?

here's one that relates to many a "figure of speech" we've discussed here..

The subtle distinction between two terms [of rhetoric] is completely irrelevant.
- unnamed chairman of Jesse Sheidlower's college classics department

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources


- what sources?

this is hardly obscure in hemingway, but how often does he make you laugh?

"All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first
time." - Ernest Hemingway

>"All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time." - Ernest Hemingway

Which is certainly reflected in his "writing."

>certainly reflected in his "writing"

psst.. TEd.. that's why I laughed!
-ron (remantled) obvious

"I could write a book."
- Robert A. Heinlein, in Glory Road

NEVER TRUST A GOVERNMENT THAT DOESN'T TRUST ITS OWN PEOPLE WITH GUNS.

______________________________________________Thomas Jefferson

"A witty saying proves nothing, especially when shouted."
- joe (it really is) friday

When one speaks to the thickheaded...

it is oft times best to >>SHOUT!<<

_________________________________ Jefferson Davis Jr.

/black
This is from wwh:
/unblack

Ambrose Bierce

Being positive is being mistaken at the top of one's voice.

Well finally Friday, you have said something factual...through tsuwm...through Brother Bill... through Ambrose Beirce.

HURRAY!

"The South will rise again!"...

LBJ, Carter, Bush, Sr., Clinton, Bush, W. -- Gingrich, Lott, Armey, Nunn, etc.

Yep, they sure did...[rolleyes-e]

People of the world, RELAX!

-Sailor the Parrot, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates-Tom Robbins

Hey Whitman...a slight overslight on your part,
you forgot to list Milo Washington and Robert E Lee in your list of southern greats.
One of them said...

 May Good Fortune knock  at your door.
 While you are  at the laundromat.

I know one of them said it, I just can't remember which.

And Consuelo, Tom Robbins wrote a book about the romance of the tropics and where do you find yourself today.

One (or maybe two) can't help but wonder what might happen if Tom Robbins wrote a book about the romance of the moon?

NEVER TRUST A GOVERNMENT THAT DOESN'T TRUST ITS OWN PEOPLE WITH GUNS

Good thing we don't get into politics on this board or I'd point out that as our troops went into Iraq they found gun possession to be ubiquitous.

Dried peas and beans, being rather on the dull side, much like dull people respond readily to the right contacts. Do not scorn them...

--The Joy of Cooking, 1971(?) edition

Nietzsche's aphorisms are the most insightful and witty, in my opinion.

Ah, Nietsche!:

"Man is a bridge, not a goal."

(an earlier Nietsche discussion on this board):

http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=wordplay&Number=61306

>Nietzsche's aphorisms are the most insightful and witty

for a mo there I read that as inciteful.. but then inciteful is a very common "typo" for insightful -- YCLIU.

27.5k Google hits is quite a few for a non-word. That would make a good contest!
I wonder which non-word (not counting colloquialisms) has the most Google hits...

non-word

Aha! Another who seems to know what qualifies a group of phonemes for the honor of being called a word. Pray tell, AL, what are these qualifications? Every time I find one of y'all who blithely proclaims something a non-word and ask my simple question I get no answer. Please, AL, end the drought.

Faldage,

Suppose I typed a group of random letters into an otherwise sensible sentence. Would we agree that the random letters were a 'non-word'? I'm suggesting this as a point of departure for the discussion.

Example sentence: Watching the labent water descend from the thawing pipe, the plumber considered eoxlibnsdaienvlab the brevity of life.

Can we agree or not that 'eoxlibnsdaienvlab' is a non-word?

hey, you're coopting this thread, and in light of Faldo's reminder it really deserves its own.

and what about the Word zzxjoanw?? (ycliu)

Sorry, tsuwm. I stand corrected.

Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves. - Herbert Marcuse

well, crossthreading like a madman, here is one of the epigraphs to Word Freaks.

"Words, words, words. I'm so sick of words."
- Eliza Doolittle, My Fair Lady

/thought balloon
maybe I should adopt an epigraph for my website..
/thought balloon off

"The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit."

- W. Somerset Maugham

Can a non-word be defined? Does "non-word" even desrve to be a word? Can Milo Washington create a non-word for us? The answers to these questions belong to the ages...

--the Cooptible Conspirator

"Only through time time is conquered."

--T.S. Eliot