WIST Quotations

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 3, Equal Rites (1987)

Dave — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 23:25:06 +0000

Animals never spend time dividing experience into little bits and speculating about all the bits they’ve missed. The whole panoply of the universe has been neatly expressed to them as things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. This frees the mind from unnecessary thoughts and gives it a cutting edge where it matters.

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author
Discworld No. 3, Equal Rites (1987)
(Source)

Frequently paraphrased:

The entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.

Frye, Northrop -- The Educated Imagination, Talk 2 “The Singing School” (1963)

Dave — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 16:43:23 +0000

No human society is too primitive to have some kind of literature. The only thing is that primitive literature hasn’t yet become distinguished from other aspects of life: it’s still embedded in religion, magic and social ceremonies.

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist
The Educated Imagination, Talk 2 “The Singing School” (1963)
(Source)

Nash, Ogden -- “Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man”

Dave — Sat, 15 Aug 2020 01:01:25 +0000

It is common knowledge to every schoolboy and even every Bachelor of Arts,

That all sin is divided into two parts.

One kind of sin is called a sin of commission, and that is very important

And it is what you are doing when you are doing something you ortant.

And the other kind of sin is just the opposite and is called a sin of omission and is equally bad in the eyes of all right-thinking people, from Billy Sunday to Buddha,

And it consists of not having done something you shudda.

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet
“Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man”
(Source)