#verne

Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing. ↗

— Henri Frederic Amiel

#everything #nothing #serviceable #sufficient

Can you be sure that others have not come before you and destroyed the pristine state of the native myth? Can you be sure that the natives are not humoring you or pulling your leg? Bronislaw Malinowski thought he had discovered a people in the Trobriant Islands who had not worked out the connection between sexual intercourse and childbirth. When asked how children were conceived, they supplied him with an elaborate mythic structure prominently featuring celestial intervention. Amazed, Malinowski objected that was not how it was done at all, and supplied them instead with the version so popular in the West today – including a nine-month gestation period. “Impossible,” replied the Melanesians. “Do you not see that woman over there with her six-month-old child? Her husband has been on an extended voyage to another island for two years.” Is it more likely that the Melanesians were ignorant of the begetting of children or that they were gently chiding Malinowski? If some peculiar-looking stranger came into my town and asked ME where babies came from, I’d certainly be tempted to tell him about storks and cabbages. Prescientific people are people. Individually they are as clever as we are. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#cleverness #myths #people #primitive #humor

The poets, therefore, however much they adorned the gods in their poems, and amplified their exploits with the highest praises, yet very frequently confess that all things are held together and governed by one spirit or mind. ↗

— Lactantius

#all things #amplified #confess #exploits #frequently

This country must be governed, and can be governed, simply on questions of policy and administration and the French Canadians who have had any part in this movement have never had any other intention but to organise upon those party distinctions and upon no other. ↗

— Wilfrid Laurier

#any #canadians #country #distinctions #french

An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence. ↗

— Raymond Chandler

#any #cleverness #decadence #except #incapable

Our nation is built on the bedrock principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. ↗

— Adrian Cronauer

#bedrock #built #consent #derive #governed

The thing is, comedy's gone in a weird direction. People are really into ironic comedy and fakeness and cleverness. ↗

— Louis C. K.

#comedy #direction #gone #into #ironic

And it's a human need to be told stories. The more we're governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible. ↗

— Alan Rickman

#come #control #destinies #each #governed

George W. Bush broke a mold four years ago: Even though he lost the popular vote, he governed as if he had won by acclamation. ↗

— Tony Snow

#broke #bush #even #four #george

A general presumption that Icings will govern well, is not a sufficient security to the People... those who subjected themselves to the will of a man were governed by a beast. ↗

— Algernon Sidney

#general #govern #governed #man #people