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Great Quotations

We watched The Program on Netflix about Ivy Ridge, the behaviour modification facility near New York. Can highly recommend.
Parents of wayward teenagers in certain US states can pay to have their offspring legally abducted, imprisoned and 'corrected'.

It cost a fortune and the kids were horrifically abused.
Parents believed they were doing the right thing, especially after coughing up so much, and didn't believe their kids' claims of brainwashing and violence afterwards.
It was news to them as the Program thrived on secrecy and fear.

Anyway...
One Thomas Houlihan says in the film 'The abuse of a child is the business of anyone who knows about it.'
 
'I had come to the conclusion a long time ago that there was no escape from the labyrinth of contradictions in which we live except by an entirely new road, unlike anything hitherto known or used by us. But where this new or forgotten road began, I was unable to say. I already knew then as an undoubted fact that beyond the thin film of false reality there existed another reality from which, for some reason, something separated us. The 'miraculous' was a penetration into this unknown reality.'

P.D. Ouspensky
 
Not profound, but amusing nonetheless.
Fearless and pioneering motorcycle racing legend, Kevin Schwantz on corner entry:

"Wait until you see god — then brake."
 
"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

H.L. Mencken, Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26 1920
 
Herr Cloaca said:
"Manchester, the city equivalent of an endlessly farting dog that expects nauseated passers by to applaud."

Stewart Lee
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My favourite Manc related quote is from the French writer of - amongst other things - travel guides, Jean Bailhache (I don't think it's pronounced 'ball-ache'):

Manchester revels in its daily life like a man singing in his bath...
 
Spookdaddy said:
My favourite Manc related quote is from the French writer of - amongst other things - travel guides, Jean Bailhache (I don't think it's pronounced 'ball-ache'):

Manchester revels in its daily life like a man singing in his bath...
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Liverpool inspires an intense, mawkish sentimentalism… coupled with an extreme desire to get away and never return. Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/fe...-Liverpudlians-need-an-embassy-in-London.html
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In response to the eleven-year-old article above I wrote the following.

I was all set to jump the gun and compare this sentimentalism to that of the Irish about their homeland, but the stated juxtaposition makes the comparison false: the Irish, like the Scots and the Liverpudlians, frequently travel to earn, but, I'd say, both of these groups often return home if they can and dream of doing so if they can't. The Liverpudlians may dream, but their diaspora does seem rather more absolute. Perhaps, like those who grow up in villages, many Liverpudlians love their birthplace for precisely the same reasons that they have to leave it. You can't return to a childhood, however idyllic, and once the genie of wider-experience is out of the bottle, he isn't going back in there; the innocence or naïvety of thinking you had everything you could ever want is gone forever, even while it's fondly recalled.

I can't see this article being well-received.

Liverpool is just big enough—geographically, socially, culturally, and in terms of population—to suggest that it may offer the metropolitan totality to be found in the world's greatest and biggest cities ('everything you need in life'), but ultimately it bears a peculiar homogeneity (the essence of the brand) and doesn't quite deliver the world-in-microcosm that so many (but far from all) desire. In short, Liverpool isn't London, Paris, New York or Tokyo, but it is close enough (or was at its height) to suggest that it is/could be/was/might one day be. That's my take on the matter. Feel free to pull it to shreds.
 
Liverpool inspires an intense, mawkish sentimentalism…coupled with an extreme desire to get away and never return.

I can't stand that Spectator-style 'journalism'. It's disdainful so-called wit for the sneering class.
 
To be honest, just about every place has a number of people loudly claiming that it's 'God's own country/county/city' (or that kind of unjustified boast).
 
Spookdaddy said:
My favourite Manc related quote is from the French writer of - amongst other things - travel guides, Jean Bailhache (I don't think it's pronounced 'ball-ache'):

Manchester revels in its daily life like a man singing in his bath...
Click to expand...

escargot said:
:dunno:
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We are on a thread about quotations.

As a quotation, it may not be Shakespearean in presentation, but the image itself is one I very much like.

Doesn't mean anyone else has to.
 
Spookdaddy said:
We are on a thread about quotations.

As a quotation, it may not be Shakespearean in presentation, but the image itself is one I very much like.

Doesn't mean anyone else has to.
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A great quotation should stand alone. We might learn something from it, or at least be stimulated to think further. That phrase is just nonsensical.
 
escargot said:
A great quotation should stand alone. We might learn something from it, or at least be stimulated to think further. That phrase is just nonsensical.
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The image works for me: taking pleasure in the commonplace without shame or care whether somebody within earshot might judge one's exuberence tasteful or appropriate.
 
Yithian said:
The image works for me: taking pleasure in the commonplace without shame or care whether somebody within earshot might judge one's exuberence tasteful or appropriate.
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Yup. Precisely why I like it. Ideally, we should try to live life like that. (Although if my own singing is anything to judge by, the noise would be horrendous - so maybe best left as a metaphor.)
 
Yithian said:
The image works for me: taking pleasure in the commonplace without shame or care whether somebody within earshot might judge one's exuberence tasteful or appropriate.
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How does it apply to Manchester though? Or any city?
 
escargot said:
Why not write that in English?
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Because as a quote it's generally known through it's Latin form. Like, for instance, honi soit qui mal y pense is known in it's Anglo-Norman, or hasta la vista by the Spanish.

In all honesty - I'm not sure what the problem is here.
 
Spookdaddy said:
Because as a quote it's generally known through it's Latin form. Like, for instance, honi soit qui mal y pense is known in it's Anglo-Norman, or hasta la vista by the Spanish.

In all honesty - I'm not sure what the problem is here.
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Ah yes, it sounds cleverer in Latin. :chuckle:
 
escargot said:
How does it apply to Manchester though? Or any city?
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I'm not very qualified to answer since I've only been there once, and as a child.

That said, the two Mancunians I knew from university--very different chaps--shared, I might hazard, a certain twinkle of the eye and a delight in minor successes.

Could that be a product of the culture they grew up in?

I couldn't honestly say.
 
escargot said:
Ah yes, it sounds cleverer in Latin. :chuckle:
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I learnt my Latin at a comprehensive school. Kids from comps tend not to look down on others because of their education - let's face it, there's not a whole lot to look down on.
 
Spookdaddy said:
I learnt my Latin at a comprehensive school. Kids from comps tend not to look down on others because of their education - let's face it, there's not a whole lot to look down on.
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I learned Latin at my Grammar school. Only at a basic level and certainly wouldn't use it in everyday life. It comes across as pompous.
 
A quote that can't be understood outside its context is pointless. Comparing a city to a farting dog or a man singing in the bath doesn't convey anything except the peevishness of whoever came up with it.

I'll make some up.
Brussels - a city where onions might as well smell like acorns.
Paris - the only place where they'd drop a bottle top in the gutter rather scratch a knee.
Aberdeen - even the chimneys have zips.

It's hard to come up with anything as banal as the real examples though. :chuckle:
 
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"I 'aven't got the Latin."
 
escargot said:
I learned Latin at my Grammar school. Only at a basic level and certainly wouldn't use it in everyday life. It comes across as pompous.
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It could be much worse.
Spook could be speaking in his native 'Peak District Derbyshire' delivery.

None of us would have a clue what he was on about then.
 
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