QUOTATIONS TO BRIGHTEN ANY WEEKEND -11-

It has been a while since I posted some quotations so without further ado let's see a few more:

Showman Phineas T. Barnum knew there were fortunes to be made in show business, since

"Every crowd has a silver lining."

Hollywood producer Sam Goldwin 

"Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined."

and

"What we want is a story that starts with an earthquake and works its way up to a climax."

Pianist and mordant Oscar Levant:

"Strip away the phoney tinsel of Hollywood and you find the real tinsel underneath."

Mae West in the 1930s, playing the bad girl:

"I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."

and

Girl: Goodness what beautiful diamonds you are wearing!

Mae West:  Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie!

Comedian Will Rogers:

"The movies are the only business where you can go out front and applaud yourself."

Errol Flynn, whose private life was expensively wild, confessed:

"My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income."

Mickey Rooney recognizes:

"I'm the only man who has a marriage licence made out 'To Whom It May Concern!'"

More next week

QUOTATIONS TO BRIGHTEN ANY WEEKEND -10-

Happy Weekend Folks


ABC Wednesday Link - G is for Gravestone Inscriptions

This week I continue with Hilarious Epitaphs:


A famous one:  Shakespeare's tomb at Stratford-on-Avon carries this solemn warning:

(I bet many a person wonders why he wrote this and what secret may lie below)



John Gibson Lockhart, Sir Walter Scott's biographer, for a clumsy would-be poet:

Here lies that peerless peer Lord Peter,
Who broke the laws of God and man and metre.


David Garrick, actor, on Oliver Goldsmith, great writer but inept conversationalist, nicknamed 'Noll' : 

Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel but talked like poor Poll.



Matthew Prior, 18th century poet on himself,

Nobles and heralds by your leave,
Here lies what once was Matthew Prior;
The son of Adam and of Eve -
Can Bourbon or Nassau go higher?



18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume,

Within this circular idea
Called vulgarity a tomb,
The ideas and impressions lie
That constituted Hume.



On Nance Oldfield, a famous 18th century actress:

This we must own in justice to her shade,
'Tis the first bad exit Oldfield ever made.



W. C. Fields, comic, said that his epitaph should be:

On the whole I'd rather live in Philadelphia.



Groucho Marx had very definite ideas:

I want it known here and now that this is what I want on my tombstone. Here lies Groucho Marx, and Lies and Lies and Lies and Lies. P.S. He never kissed an ugly girl.



Lionel Barrymore, Hollywood actor, told a magazine his own epitaph should be:

Well, I've played everything but a harp.



Samuel Foote, 18th century actor and brilliant mimic, had two suggestions:

Foote from his earthly stage, alas! is hurled;
Death took him off, who took off all the world.

and

Here lies on Foote, whose death may thousands serve,
For death has now one foot within the grave.



The poet Keates proposed:

Here lies one whose name was writ in water.


Robert Ross, intimate friend of Oscar Wilde went one better:

Here lies one whose name was writ in hot water.


Anonymous gravestone inscription:

Cheerio, see you soon.


Anonymous graveyard inscription from the USA:

Once I wasn't,
Then I was
Now I ain't again.



A young person's tale:

Came in
Looked about
Didn't like it
Went out.



Silly but brief inscription:

Here lies Ann Mann;
She lived an old maid
And she died an Old Mann. 


And finally for this week


From a gravestone in Aberdeen:

Here lie the bones of Elizabeth Charlotte,
Born a virgin, died a harlot.
She was aye a virgin at seventeen,
A remarkable thing in Aberdeen.

(Amazing that some of these were inscribed)


More next week

QUOTATIONS TO BRIGHTEN ANY WEEKEND -9-

Happy Weekend Folks

I'll have some more Alternative Meanings for you next week, but I thought we would have a change this week and look at some:

Hilarious Epitaphs

(Yes, I remember that well in 2002 - what a character Spike was)

An anonymous punster commemorated Dr John Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury:

Alack and well a-day

Potter himself is turned to clay.

Lord Byron savaged prime minister William Pitt the Younger, who is buried in Westminster Abbey:

With death doomed to grapple

Beneath this cold slab, he

Who lied in the chapel

Now lies in the Abbey.

The 'Welsh Wizard', David Lloyd George, suggested as epitaph for himself that might have been adopted by many other politicians:

Count not my broken pledges as a crime. 

I MEANT them, HOW I meant them at the time.

Wisecracking American writer Dorothy Parker proposed this simple tombstone inscription for herself:

Excuse my dust.

Dorothy Parker, suggested that this should be carved on an actress's tombstone:

Her name, cut clear upon this marble cross,
Shines, as it shone when she was still on earth,
While tenderly the mild, agreeable moss,
Obscures the figures of her date of birth.

Hilaire Belloc wrote of himself with the cheerful vanity of an author:

When I am dead, I hope it may be said

'His sins were scarlet but his books were read.'

John Gay, author of The Beggar's Opera, composed his own epitaph:

Life is a jest, and all things show it.

I thought so once; but now I know it.


The journalist, George Augustus Sala dealt a cruel posthumous blow to a colleague, John Camden Hotten:

Begotten
Hotten
Rotten
Forgotten


William Blake, eccentric poet and painter, detested everything his highly successful fellow artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds, stood for, hence the verse:

When Sir Joshua Reynolds died
All Nature was degraded;
The King dropped a tear in the Queen's ear,
And all the pictures faded.


. . . . and now a few more embarrassing gaffs from those who should have know better:

Mr Milosevic has to be careful.
The calendar is ticking - Richard Haas

A zebra doesn't change its spots - Al Gore

The crowd gave the players an arousing reception - Packie Bonner

I have a thermometer in my mouth and I'm listening to it all the time - Willie Whitelaw

I'm absolutely thrilled and over the world about it - Tessa Sanderson

We'll be heading for the deepening heights of recession - Economics spokesman

I would like to than the press from the heart of my bottom - Nick Faldo 


More next week

parting shot:


What message would you like on your tombstone?

Pat says: "I'll be coming to haunt you soon!" . . . . . . lol

. . . and Shadow says: "I'm never going to die!"

QUOTATIONS TO BRIGHTEN ANY WEEKEND -8-

More Quotations

Another Weekend - already!

ABC Wednesday link
theme - E is for Entertaining Quotations

I'm including some gaffs at the end.

 . . . . and we start with the much debated topic, marriage:


Marriage: A community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making two in all.
(Ambrose Bierce)

Marriage:  A romance in which the hero dies in the first chapter.
(Anonymous)
He is too chicken to own up

Marriage: Marriage is give and take. You'd better give it to her or she'll take it anyway.
(Joey Adams)

Marriage: Marriage is like a cage: one sees birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.
(Michel de Montaigne, French writer, 1533-1592)

Memoirs:  When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad things you did do - that's memoirs.
(Will Rogers, 20th century US comedian)

Monogamy:  An obsolete word meaning a fidelity complex.
(J.B. Morton)

Moral Indignation: Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.
(H.G.Wells)

Nation: is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by a common hatred of its neighbours.
(Dean Inge, dean of St Paul's, London 1911-34)

Opera: Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back instead of bleeding, he sings.
(Ed Gardner, 20th century US comedian)

Optimist: An optimist is a guy who has never had much experience.
(Don Marquis, 20th century US satirist)

Optimist: An optimist is always broke.
(Kin Hubbard)

Optimist: A man who is treed by a lion but enjoys the scenery.
(Walter Winchell)

Originality:  Originality is the fine art of remembering what you can hear and forgetting where you heard it.
(Laurence Peter, 20th century Canadian writer)

Pessimist: A pessimist is someone who, if he is in the bath, will not get out to answer the phone.
(Quentin Crisp)

Pessimist: The optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist sees the hole.
(Anonymous)



Now some bloomers, or bloopers:

'If' is a very large preposition. - John Major

I deny the allegations and defy the alligators! - Indicted Chicago Alderman

It's a conflict of parallels. - Alex Ferguson

I couldn't fail to agree with you less. - Fran O'Shea

That football tie is a potential potato skin. - Alan Hansen

I answer in the affirmative with an emphatic 'No'  - Sir Richard Roche

You know what they say, don't get mad, get angry. - Edwina Currie

I drink like a chimney. - Alex Ferguson

I think they have misunderestimated me. - George W. Bush

When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible - George W Bush

(Gosh where does he get them?)




More next week
Enjoy your weekend
  

QUOTATIONS TO BRIGHTEN ANY WEEKEND -7-

ABC Wednesday link
theme - D is for Droll



Another week, another selection of quotations - some famous, some infamous.

Please keep your quotations coming:

eddiebluelights@googlemail.com

Here's one I like to kick off:

Body: Your body is the baggage you must carry through life.  The more excess the baggage, the shorter the trip.

(Arnold H. Glasow)

Faith: It was the schoolboy who said, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."

(Mark Twain)

Friends:  People who borrow books and set wet glasses on them.

(Edwin Arlington Robinson, 20th century poet)

Friendship: Friendship is like money, easier made than

kept,

(Samuel Butler, English writer 1835-1902)

Friendship: Friendship is more tragic than love. It lasts longer.

(Oscar Wilde)

Future: That period of time in which affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.

(Ambrose Bierce)

Gambling: The sure way of getting nothing for something.

(Wilson Mizner, 20th century US wit)

Genius: Genius is born, not paid.

(Oscar Wilde)

Genius: A genius is one who can do anything except making a living.

(Joey Adams, 20th century US comedian)

Gesticulation: Any movement made by a foreigner.

(J.B. Morton)

Gossip:  Gossip is the art of saying nothing in a way that leaves practically nothing unsaid.

(Walter Winchell, 20th century US columnist)

Home: Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they will have to take you in.
(Robert Frost)

Imitation:  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
(Oscar Wilde)

Imitation:  Imitation is the sincerest for of television.
(Fred Allen)

Jury: A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
(Robert Frost)

Liberal: A liberal is a man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel.
(Robert Frost)

Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.
(Ambrose Bierce)

Life: Life is rather like a tin of sardines: we're all of us looking for the key.
(Alan Bennett, Beyond the Fringe)

Life: Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.
(George Santayana)

Life: Life is an incurable disease.
(Abraham Cowley, poet)

Life: Life is one damned this after another.
(Kin Hubbard, US humorist)

Logic: Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence.
(Joseph Wood Krutch, 20th century scholar and critic)

Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.
(Ambrose Bierce)

Love: Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it.
(Jerome K Jerome)

Man:  A creature God created at the end of a week's work when God was tired.
(Mark Twain)



Sex: Continental people have a sex life;  the English have hot water bottles.

(Georges Mikes)

err! As an Englishman - no comment!!!



More next week.



. . . . and finally please stop by at Eva's for her Weekend Silliness feature HERE

QUOTATIONS TO BRIGHTEN ANY WEEKEND -6-

This week I am continuing with the dictionary of alternative meanings and who quoted them.

* * * * * * 

Committee: A committee is a group that keeps the minutes and loses hours.

(Milton Berle, 20th century US comedian)

Conclusion: A conclusion is the place where you get tired of thinking.

(Arthur Bloch, 20th century US writer)

Conference: A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.

(Fred Allen)

Confidence:  Confidence is simply that quiet assured feeling you have before you fall flat on your face.

(Dr L Binder, 19th century US historian)

Conscience:  Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone might be looking.
(H L Mencken, 20th century US humorist and author)

Cult: A cult is a religion with no political power.
(Tom Wolfe, 2oth century US author)

Cult: It just means not enough people to make a minority.
(Robert  Altman, 20th century US film director)

Cynic:  A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
(Ambrose Bierce)

Cynic: A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
(Oscar Wilde)

Dancing: Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.
(Anonymous)

Debacle: Defeat at cricket and tennis.
(J B Morton, alias 20th century humorist 'Beachcomber')

Democracy: Democracy is a form of religion. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses.
(H L Mencken)

Diagnosis:  The physician's art of determining the condition of the patients purse in order to find out how sick to make him.
(Ambrose Bierce)

Diplomat: A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.
(Robert Frost)

Economy: Cutting down other people's wages.
(J B Morton)

Editor:  An editor is one who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff.
(Adlai Stevenson, US politician, 1900-1965)

Egotist:  A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me.
(Ambrose Bierce)

Epigram: Any sentence spoken by anybody who is in the public eye at the moment.
(J B Morton)

Epitaph: A belated advertisement for a line of goods that has been prematurely been discontinued.
(Irwin S Cobb, 20th century US writer)

Epitaph: A monumental inscription designed to remind the deceased of what he might have been if he had had the will and the opportunity.
(Ambrose Bierce)

Expert:  An expert is a man who knows more and more about less  and less, and everything about nothing.
(Nicholas Murray Butler, US educator, 1862-1947)



That's shallot folks for this week.

Please keep your quotes coming:

eddiebluelights@googlemail.com


. . . . and finally please stop by at Eva's for her Weekend Silliness feature HERE

 .

QUOTATIONS TO BRIGHTEN ANY WEEKEND -5-

For a change I have a slightly different 'take' on quotations this week, in the form of a dictionary of alternative meanings, and who quoted them.  

Acquaintance: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
(Ambrose Bierce, US author)

Actor: An actor is a guy who if you ain't talking about him, he ain't listening. 
(Marlon Brando)

Armour: The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.  
(Ambrose Bierce)

Atheist:  An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support. 
(John Buchan)

Baby:  A loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. 
(Father Ronald Knox, English author)

Bachelor: A man who never makes the same mistake once. 
(Ed Wynn, 20th century US comedian)

Bank: A bank is where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and asks for it back when it begins to rain. 

(Robert Frost, US Poet)

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it. 
(Bob Hope)

Bigamist: A man who marries a beautiful girl and a good cook. 
(Chicago Herald-American)

Bore: A bore is a man who, when you ask him how he is, tells you. 
(Bert Leston Taylor, US writer)

A bore is a person who talks when you wish him to listen (Ambrose Bierce)

Brain: The apparatus with which we think we think. (Ambrose Bierce)

Breeding: Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person. 
(Mark Twain)

Calamity: Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others. 
(Ambrose Bierce)

Cannibal: A guy who does into a restaurant and orders the waiter. 
(Jack Benny)

Caricature: Caricature is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius. 
(Oscar Wilde)

Celebrity: A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized. 
(Fred Allen, US comedian)

Classic: A classic is something that everybody wants to have you read and nobody wants to read. 
(Mark Twain)

 * * * More next week * * *

Please keep your quotations coming to my email:

eddiebluelights@googlemail.com

Also tune in to Eva for some more of her  Weekend Silliness laughs.

Enjoy your weekend

QUOTATIONS TO BRIGHTEN ANY WEEKEND -4-

Well, here we are on week 4 of quotations

I wonder if I can ask readers to promote this feature on your blogs in order so get the word round - thanks!

This week is about Money Matters and how the subject seems to have inspired a number of quotations.

A conversation was recorded by the novelist Scott Fitzgerald, who was dazzled by the glamour of the rich:

Fitzgerald: "The rich are different from us."

Ernest Hemingway: "Yes, they have more money!"

The American critic John Leonard made the same point with a little more sophistication:

"The rich are different from you and me because they have more credit."

"Red Hot Momma" blues singer Sophie Tucker summed up her own experience:

"I have been poor and I have been rich. Rich is better!"

The rich, although more fortunate than many, may not yet behave decently. One of the dukes of Argyll remarked:

"As far as I'm concerned there are only two kinds of people in the world.  Those who are nice to their servants and those who are not!"

(Bet I can guess which category he was!)

How rich is rich?  According to multi-millionaire John Jacob Astor III :

"A man who has a million dollars is as well off as if he were rich!"

Wealth is a shield against even the harshest criticisms, as the glittering showman Liberace pointed out:

"What you said hurt me very much.  I cried all the way to the bank!"

American journalist Earl Wilson:

"Success is just a matter of luck. Ask any failure!"

American comedian Jack Benny, famed for his supposed meanness, is said to have been held up one day by a gangster:

Gangster:  "Your money or your life?"

pause

Benny: "I'm thinking it over!"

Much loved and often married, Hollywood star, Zsa Zsa Gabor remembered that:

"I never hated a man enough to give him his diamonds back!"

One of the United States' Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin, handed out much solid practical advise, including this:

"If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some!"

A mis-quote from George Bernard Shaw:
"Lack of money is the root of all evil!"

Evan Esar, "The mint makes it, it is up to you to make it last!"

Elizabeth Taylor, "Money is the best deodorant!"

Bob Hope, "A bank is a place which will lend you money if you can prove you don't need it!"

Little known Eddie Bluelights had a friend who was inspired by a banker's meanness, after declining him a business load.  The mean banker, wearing a glass eye, asked him why he was not looking into his real eye, to which he relied:

"There is so much more humanity in the glass one!"

Film star Lana Turner describes the perfect marriage:

"A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend.  A successful woman is one who can find such a man!"

and the last for this week!

Quentin Crisp's view of social mobility:

"Never keep up with the Jones. Drag them down to your level. It's cheaper!"

Please keep your quotations coming in - I have a few ready to post but will do a special when I get a sufficient number.

Please send to :  eddiebluelights@googlemail.com

Finally, if you want a few more laughs please visit my friend Eva at Wrestling With Retirement for her Silly Saturday feature.

Have a good weekend and more funnies next week.