Reply With Quote"You can ride a pig from Crewkerne to Chard but that don't make it a bicycle".
The English language is rich with great sayings steeped in history.
I like this one for the historical implications.
"Hoist with his own petard."
A petard was a small bomb used to blow up gates and walls when breaching fortifications. The term has a French origin and dates back to the sixteenth century. In a typical implementation, it was commonly either a conical or rectangular metal object containing 5 or 6 pounds of gunpowder, activated with a slow match used as a fuse.
The word petard comes from the Middle French peter, to break wind, from pet expulsion of intestinal gas, from Latin peditum, from neuter of peditus, past participle of pedere, to break wind; akin to Greek bdein to break wind. (Merriam-Webster) Petard remains a French word meaning a firecracker today (in French slang, it means a handgun, or a joint).
The word remains in modern usage in the phrase hoist with one's own petard, which means "to be harmed by one's own plan to harm someone else" or "to fall into one's own trap," literally implying that one could be lifted up (hoist, or blown upward) by one's own bomb.
If a petard were to detonate prematurely due to a faulty or short slow match, the engineer would be lifted or "hoist" by the explosion. William Shakespeare used the now proverbial phrase "hoist with his own petard" in Hamlet.
In the following passage, the "letters" refer to instructions (written by his uncle Claudius, the King) to be carried sealed to the King of England, by Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the latter being two schoolfellows of Hamlet. The letters, as Hamlet suspects, contain a death warrant against Hamlet, who will later open and modify them to instead request the execution of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Enginer refers to a military engineer, the spelling reflecting Elizabethan stress.
There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows, Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd, They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way And marshal me to knavery. Let it work; For 'tis the sport to have the enginer Hoist with his own petar; and 't shall go hard But I will delve one yard below their mines And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet, When in one line two crafts directly meet.
Does it get any better than that, I ask thee? :P
"You can ride a pig from Crewkerne to Chard but that don't make it a bicycle".
"As wet as an otter's pocket"
"its like sprinkling glitter on dog sh*t" or "like putting lipstick on a pig"
that one at the bottom there is my favourite though
I
I
V
"Two things fill the mind with ever increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness." Immanuel Kant
"Yer Maw's got baws"
and
"as far-fetched as a bucket ay shite fae China"
"it only needs a battery"
"The World is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel."
(Horace walpole)
My version is:-Originally Posted by tiny73
"You can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter."
Describes a few people in my daily life......
Or The Dorothy Parker Original:
"You can lead a horticulture, but you cannot make her think!"
Mike.
One from childhood always seemed funny, 'stop crying, or i'll give you something to cry about'
Some people appear to have forgotten that this thread is in G&D.
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
I blame the scapegoats.
I have never heard that one before. Is it local to Sheffield?
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts"
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
"There are two ways of doing this [task], my way and the wrong way"
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
- Bender Bending Rodríguez
This one from EinsteinI spotted earlier today on this forum is pretty good, I think:
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.”
Menno
That lad's so unlucky, if he fell into a bucket of nipples he'd come out sucking his thumb.....
He also said "Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth", which I like very much (but has led me to numerous minor offences.....).
This is Thomas Jefferson, circa 1802........
"“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
Two that I like:
A Greek proverb:
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
Attributed to Einstein:
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
jeff
"There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing." - I believe from Sir Rannulph Fiennes
Look after yer broom !
Hope you dont mind me adding this quote from my dearly departed Father whilst standing over me washing my mouth out with soap for swearing when I was a nipper , after 5 minutes "Alright dont make a meal of it" :?
From my old rural science teacher and WW2 lancaster navigator Mr James Skinner ,"Young man you have two ears and one mouth ,use them in that proportion"
A few favourites:
If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it. - Mary Engelbreit
Only to fight while there is still a small chance so that we don't have to fight when there is none. Only to climb the rock face of risk and doubt in order to engage in the most extreme sport of all -- that of being a free and conscious human. Free and conscious even in a society that seems determined to reduce our lives to a barren pair of mandatory functions: consumption and compliance. - Churchill
To do is to be - Socrates
To be is to do - Sartre
Do be do be do - Sinatra
- Anon
Hope is a good breakfast but a poor supper. Heard it once and it stuck with me since. Might show the pessimist in me somewhat!
My fathers saying - "Always believe in the power of positive pessimism, look on the black side, and it can only get better, but if it doesn't, you're prepared"
And another one:
"Life is really simple, but men insist on making it complicated" Confucius
Alex
“Cunnilingus and psychiatry brought us to this” - Tony Soprano
When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends.
Gray
I am a fan of old roman ones. When I was studying law, the only exam I really liked was roman law. For a thing 2000 years old (at least) all the sayings are still extremely applicable. Which IMHO menas we did not evolve that much as a society since then
I like it but was that before or after he had to have his toes lopped off due to frostbite?
You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!
If you aren't prepared to light a candle, don't complain about the dark.
Pete
"You shop, we drop"
(Tesco - brilliant! :D)
You missed out:
"Yabba Dabba Do - Fred Flintstone" :)
Regarding accuracy the following - "couldn't hit a cows arse with a shovel"
"The best thing since sliced bread"
:D :DI like it but was that before or after he had to have his toes lopped off due to frostbite?
JOG ON !
Your here for a good time, not a long time.
"Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey "
Regional variations......."couldnae hit a coo's erse wi' a banjo" and "couldnae hit a barn door if ye were haudin' it by the haun'l".
jim
Well here is one I think may apply here: "Collectors are driven by passion, whereas investors are driven by fear and greed"
has more than a grain of truth to it.
Today's favour is tomorrows duty. I often recite this quote to myself at work...
See signature :wink:
Respect the past, live the present, protect the future
I saw this on a greeting card once which was attributed to Einstein
"Talk to a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. Sit on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. That's relativity"
You can always tell a Yorkshireman...................................... .......But yer can't tell im much!
My old man also used to say, 'Yer as much use as a chocolate fire guard' and ' Put t'wood in't th'ole'
Confucius say, "Man with watch always know time; man with two watches never quite sure."
"man is closer to god than the fishes are to the ocean"
"expectation is the mother of dissapointment"
churchill produced some memorable quotes . one of my favorites ( apart from the famous exchanges with lady astor ) is "you can always rely on americans to do the right thing—after theyve tried everything else"
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
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