It is always our inabilities that irritate us.
[Ce sont toujours nos impuissances qui nous irritent.]
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], ch. 5 “Des Passions et des Affections de l’Âme [On the Soul], ¶ 29 (1850 ed.) [tr. Calvert (1866)]
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(Source (French)). Alternate translations:Our worries always come from our weaknesses.
[tr. Attwell (1896), ¶ 65]It is always our incapacities that irritate us.
[tr. Lyttelton (1899), ch. 4, ¶ 19]It is always our inabilities that vex us.
[tr. Collins (1928), ch. 5]
Quotations about:
impotence
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PATRICK: It was just so embarrassing. I didn’t know what to do.
STEVE: Happens to us all mate.
JEFF: All of us, in our time, are visited by the Melty Man.
PATRICK: The what?
JEFF: Don’t say his name, Patrick. Don’t even think his name or he will rise from the shadow dimensions to do his evil work on your terrified pants.
PATRICK: (chuckle) Terrified pants?
STEVE: (gravely) There’s nothing funny about the Melty Man, Patrick.
PATRICK: (face falls) You know about the Melty Man, too?
STEVE: We all know the Melty Man.
PATRICK: Who is he?
STEVE: The archenemy of trouser confidence.
JEFF: Professor Moriarty, in groin form.
STEVE: Darth Vader.
JEFF: Without the helmet.
PATRICK: What does he do?!
JEFF: Patrick, you know what he does.
PATRICK: (looks down) Oh, right.
JEFF: You’re in bed with a woman. Everything’s going fine. That’s when the Melty Man strikes.
STEVE: Suddenly you find yourself thinking, “Maybe she’s really bored.”
JEFF: Maybe you’re licking her neck too much. Are you over-wetting her neck?
STEVE: Are you spending an equal amount of time on each breast? I mean, what happens if one breast gets ahead?
JEFF: Should you be switching between them really quickly or should you squish ’em both together and do them at once?
STEVE: Or are you allowed to just skip one breast completely, just to save time?
JEFF: She’s wriggling about a bit. Is that a good sign or is she just trying to dry her neck?
STEVE: Should you kiss her now or does that mean you gotta start at the top again?
JEFF: Should you be making noises yet? Is it too soon to grunt?
STEVE: And then, the killer — out of nowhere, for no reason you can think of, you call her (huskily) “baby.”
JEFF: You never called her baby before.
STEVE: You’ve never called anyone baby before.
JEFF: So why did you just call her baby? Suddenly you’re starting to blush.
STEVE: Now, you’re blushing and you’ve got an erection. No-one’s got enough blood!
JEFF: (Scotty voice) It’s the engines, Cap’n! They cannae take it!
STEVE: Then the Melty Man hits you with his secret weapon.
JEFF: Just one single thought placed in your mind at this crucial time.
STEVE: “Please God! Don’t let me lose my erection!”
JEFF: (lowers his hand) Poof.
PATRICK: (with terror and disblief) How do you guys manage to have sex?
STEVE: We don’t.
JEFF: I haven’t had sex in years.
STEVE: It’s just not possible anymore.
JEFF: We are followers of the Melty Man.
STEVE: And you are one of us now.
Steven Moffat (b. 1961) Scottish television writer, producer
Coupling, 02×04 “The Melty Man Cometh” (2001-09-24)
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(Source (Video) -- dialog verified)
Let this be one invariable rule of your conduct — Never to show the least symptom of resentment which you cannot to a certain degree gratify, but always to smile, where you cannot strike.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #312 (26 Mar 1754)
A conference is a gathering of important people who, singly, can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.
Fred Allen (1894-1956) American humorist [b. John Florence Sullivan]
Letter to William McChesney Martin (25 Jan 1940)
(Source)
The letter, to the then-President of the New York Stock Exchange, was written as an apology for a joke Allen had made about Wall Street, and was re-published in TIME magazine (4 Feb 1940).
Allen apparently used the line, and variations of it, at various times in his career. A variant more commonly quoted than the original shows up, without citation, in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations:Committee -- A group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done.
It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, § 538 (1820)
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