The Quotes Game

N

NicoleZ

Guest
Let's play a new game! The rules are simple: Whoever holds the winner's hat selects three quotes from a single (published and well-known) author that have the quality of being aphorisms. The first person to correctly identify the author takes over and selects three aphorismic quotes from a different author (etc.)

Let's play!

  • Sex should be friendly. Otherwise stick to mechanical toys; it's more sanitary
  • A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits
  • A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased - he hates all creative people equally

Good luck! :cathappy:
 
Let's play a new game! The rules are simple: Whoever holds the winner's hat selects three quotes from a single (published and well-known) author that have the quality of being aphorisms. The first person to correctly identify the author takes over and selects three aphorismic quotes from a different author (etc.)

Let's play!

  • Sex should be friendly. Otherwise stick to mechanical toys; it's more sanitary
  • A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits
  • A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased - he hates all creative people equally

Good luck! :cathappy:

Robert Heinlein.

A bit more obscure:

Talent does what it can; genius does what it must.
Love thou the rose, yet leave it on its stem.
A fool flatters himself; a wise man flatters the fool.
 
Robert Heinlein.

A bit more obscure:

Talent does what it can; genius does what it must.
Love thou the rose, yet leave it on its stem.
A fool flatters himself; a wise man flatters the fool.

It seems quite a dark and stormy night, one that Edward Bulwer-Lytton would have imagined.


Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn’t ask ourselves what it says but what it means.

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.

The pleasures of love are pains that become desirable, where sweetness and torment blend, and so love is voluntary insanity, infernal paradise, and celestial hell -- in short, harmony of opposite yearnings, sorrowful laughter, soft diamond.
 
With Brainyquotes it's all a bit too easy, isn't it? Yet, the quotes themselves are marvellous and some even new acquaintances.

PS. I'll let someone else name the source of your quotes, Tio. :)
 
With Brainyquotes it's all a bit too easy, isn't it? Yet, the quotes themselves are marvellous and some even new acquaintances.

PS. I'll let someone else name the source of your quotes, Tio. :)


You use Brainyquotes?

"Love thou the rose..." is a classic Bulwer-Lytton quote, though not quite as obvious as Gertrude's observation; not hard to get at all. Mine are quite memorable from a memorable author, and at least one should ring familiar for any reader with a post-modernist bent. Would you like some more? Just open any of that author's novel or essays and pick a sentence.
 
You use Brainyquotes?

I googled the Bulwer-Lytton quotes to check the wording (don't remember which quote site I used) but using it to identify other people's challenges would be cheating. Sadly this means I'm stumped on Tio's, so somebody else will have to answer them.

I like to put in the occasional plug for Bulwer-Lytton, because I don't think he deserved to be the poster-boy for bad writing that he has recently become.
 
You use Brainyquotes?

"Love thou the rose..." is a classic Bulwer-Lytton quote, though not quite as obvious as Gertrude's observation; not hard to get at all. Mine are quite memorable from a memorable author, and at least one should ring familiar for any reader with a post-modernist bent. Would you like some more? Just open any of that author's novel or essays and pick a sentence.

No I don't as I consider that to be cheating except when stumped and then only as long as it's done for personal erudition. It' only that I'm amazed at the speed with which first Bramblethorn correctly identified Heinlein and then you almost immediately got Bulwer-Lytton, an author I freely admit is unknown to me. Next time, I shall make certain that it's not only a matter of who is adept at Google-fu even if the important thing is the aphorismic quotes themselves!
 
No I don't as I consider that to be cheating except when stumped and then only as long as it's done for personal erudition. It' only that I'm amazed at the speed with which first Bramblethorn correctly identified Heinlein and then you almost immediately got Bulwer-Lytton, an author I freely admit is unknown to me. Next time, I shall make certain that it's not only a matter of who is adept at Google-fu even if the important thing is the aphorismic quotes themselves!

I used to have a copy of "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long" (probably still do in a moving box somewhere) and I think the first two of yours are in that, so those were easy enough.

Most people would know a couple of Bulwer-Lytton quotes, even if they don't know where they came from: "the pen is mightier than the sword" and "the almighty dollar" at least.
 
Most people would know a couple of Bulwer-Lytton quotes, even if they don't know where they came from: "the pen is mightier than the sword" and "the almighty dollar" at least.

This is what I love about topics like this; you learn something new. As I doubted that this was true, I discovered that the exact phrase is indeed attributed to Bulwer-Lyttleton even if the Assyrian sage Ahiqar purportedly said "The word is mightier than the sword" (7th century BC), and Euripides (5th century BC) supposedly wrote "The tongue is mightier than the blade". Thank you! :rose:


I used to have a copy of "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long" (probably still do in a moving box somewhere) and I think the first two of yours are in that, so those were easy enough.

Well done! They were indeed lifted from the greatest SF novel ever written (in my opinion of course!); Time Enough for Love. I do not hesitate to say that even from a Literotica perspective, The Tale of the Adopted Daughter outshines everything ever published in the Romance category same as Da Capo probably does for the Incest category. If you have never read it, do!
 
Garter: an elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country.

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is a philosopher.

Presidency: the greased pig in the field game of American politics.
 
Garter: an elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country.

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is a philosopher.

Presidency: the greased pig in the field game of American politics.

Ambrose Bierce of course. Much of his Devil's Dictionary still has currency. But how about identifying mine from above?
 
This is what I love about topics like this; you learn something new. As I doubted that this was true, I discovered that the exact phrase is indeed attributed to Bulwer-Lyttleton even if the Assyrian sage Ahiqar purportedly said "The word is mightier than the sword" (7th century BC), and Euripides (5th century BC) supposedly wrote "The tongue is mightier than the blade". Thank you! :rose:

Ah, I hadn't heard those other versions. One of the pitfalls of quotes, so many of the good ones are reinventions of something earlier.

Well done! They were indeed lifted from the greatest SF novel ever written (in my opinion of course!); Time Enough for Love. I do not hesitate to say that even from a Literotica perspective, The Tale of the Adopted Daughter outshines everything ever published in the Romance category same as Da Capo probably does for the Incest category. If you have never read it, do!

RAH seems to have had a thing for incest; see also "All You Zombies". (Or watch the film version "Predestination", which is excellent.) I've read a fair bit of his work, though not the Lazarus Long stories per se, just selected quotes.
 
But how about identifying mine from above?

Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn’t ask ourselves what it says but what it means.

The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.

The pleasures of love are pains that become desirable, where sweetness and torment blend, and so love is voluntary insanity, infernal paradise, and celestial hell -- in short, harmony of opposite yearnings, sorrowful laughter, soft diamond.
Umberto Eco, but I had to look that up -- haven't read him much beyond trivial essays. Meanwhile:

* I am a gentleman; I live by robbing the poor.
* The most intolerable pain is produced by prolonging the keenest pleasure.
* A man ought to be able to be fond of his wife without making a fool of himself about her.
* Until a movement shews itself capable of spreading among brigands, it can never hope for a political majority.
 
Umberto Eco, but I had to look that up -- haven't read him much beyond trivial essays. Meanwhile:

* I am a gentleman; I live by robbing the poor.
* The most intolerable pain is produced by prolonging the keenest pleasure.
* A man ought to be able to be fond of his wife without making a fool of himself about her.
* Until a movement shews itself capable of spreading among brigands, it can never hope for a political majority.
The first reveals a socialist, the second the astute practitioner, the third the provocateur and the last the mature realist. George Bernard Shaw. Also the intentional misspelling of show - shew - is a very solid clue. Nice choices!

The next author, much impressed with his abstemiousness, once accosted G. Bernard Shaw over luncheon:

"Do you really never drink any wine at all?"

"I am hard enough to keep in order as it is", was the reply.


  • It is not possible to form a just judgement of a public figure until his life work as a whole is before us
  • The lustre and respect with which the nation lighted his evening path were a measure of the services he had rendered
  • The ruins are rebuilt, the riven trees are replaced with new plantations. Only the cemetaries, the monuments and stunted steeples, assail the traveller
 
  • It is not possible to form a just judgement of a public figure until his life work as a whole is before us
  • The lustre and respect with which the nation lighted his evening path were a measure of the services he had rendered
  • The ruins are rebuilt, the riven trees are replaced with new plantations. Only the cemetaries, the monuments and stunted steeples, assail the traveller
Churchill, of course. Uttered to bystanders as he squatted on the toilet drinking Scotch. My fave Winnie runs something like this: A woman tells him, "Sir, you are drunk." He replies, "Yes indeed, but in the morning I shall be sober, while you will still be ugly and stupid." You can probably correct that.

Next:

* Don't wee-wee on your tee-vee.
* If you can't deal with reality, reality will surely deal with you.
* All things considered, modern humanity doesn't amount to a fart in the wind.
* When yer smashin' the state, kids...don't fergit t'keep a smile on yer lips an' a song in yer heart!
 
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Churchill, of course. Uttered to bystanders as he squatted on the toilet drinking Scotch. My fave Winnie runs something like this: A woman tells him, "Sir, you are drunk." He replies, "Yes indeed, but in the morning I shall be sober, while you will still be ugly and stupid." You can probably correct that.

Next:

* Don't wee-wee on your tee-vee.
* If you can't deal with reality, reality will surely deal with you.
* All things considered, modern humanity doesn't amount to a fart in the wind.
* When yer smashin' the state, kids...don't fergit t'keep a smile on yer lips an' a song in yer heart!

Keep on truckin' Mr. Natural... Robert Crumb

-he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another

-When is a man not a man? When he is a sham.

-He had tried to build a breakwater of order and elegance against the sordid tide of life...
 
Keep on truckin' Mr. Natural... Robert Crumb
Nice try, but those were actually from Snappy Sammy Smoot by Skip Williamson. You're probably thinking of stuff like:

* "Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope."
* "Smoking grass and drinking beer is like pissing into the wind."
* "Don't get burned again."

But those are not Crumb. Can you ID?

-he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another

-When is a man not a man? When he is a sham.

-He had tried to build a breakwater of order and elegance against the sordid tide of life...
Sounds like James Joyce. I remember the first from the end of the second Firesign Theater album.
 
Nice try, but those were actually from Snappy Sammy Smoot by Skip Williamson. You're probably thinking of stuff like:

* "Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope."
* "Smoking grass and drinking beer is like pissing into the wind."
* "Don't get burned again."

But those are not Crumb. Can you ID?

Sounds like James Joyce. I remember the first from the end of the second Firesign Theater album.

Geez! I was sure the third one was Crumb! I'll have to pass on your latest; better for one who knows than for one who misses. I'll just sit here and wait for the electrician or someone like him.

Yes, Joyce, but not from the Firesign Theater; it's Ulysses, not Temporarily Humboldt County, Lieutenant Bahai'nd. The second is from Finnegans Wake and the third is from Portrait of the Artist.
 
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