"The Crimean War brought many new experiences, and most of them were pleasant ones."
--from Lytton Strachey's cheeky 1921 biography Queen Elizabeth (p. 200).
“There’s no such thing as a poor publisher.” ---Curtis Benjamin former chairman of McGraw-Hill.
He had in mind, no doubt, the less certain --- and sometimes tragic ---lives of his authors. (NYTs 9/13/08).
Virginian Woolf famously observed that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
Surely the same is true for a man, though to say so risks being viewed as a callous soul who simply does not "get it."
This is just where mathematical training helps. One sees the ricochets bounce off all of the walls.
According to Peter Ackroyd, "The only difference is that the biographer can make things up, but a novelist is compelled to tell the truth."
I also like a zinger from Ackroyd's review of Gravity's Rainbow:: "... words would fail me if logorrhea were not so catching."
For more, see Emily Mann's interview with Ackroyd in the Guardian Review.
This staple of school yard humor seems to have debuted in Macbeth, or at least that is the inference one draws from the notable list at pathguy of words and phrases coined by Shakespeare.
In Macbeth one also finds the phrase "in one fell swoop" which Larry Shepp morphs to "in one swell foop."
"Great art has dreadful manners." --- Simon Schama
Dostoyevsky is said to have remarked, “Twice two makes four seems to me simply a piece of insolence.”
What an erie sentence; it makes my brain rattle against the sides of the box.
"People need to believe that cowboys are simple, strong and free, and not twisted, fascistic and dumb, as many cowboys I've known have been.'' --- Larry McMurtry
“I have been saying for many years that we are using the word ‘guru’ only because ‘charlatan’ is too long to fit into a headline. " --- Peter Drucker, eschewing the title of management guru. The venerable Wikipedia has this and many other Drucker quotes.
According to an on-line dictionary, an assortment or a medley; a conglomeration.
William Safire once spoke of some sore losers and "their special farrago of resentments."
I never noticed this word until today, when I hit upon it twice in unrelated contexts.
"It's odd how soon one comes to look on every minute as wasted that is given to earning one's salary."
My dad once said to me, “Son, a fool with a plan can beat a genius with no plan.” --- T. Boone Pickens to the NYTs 8/3/09
I have commented elsewhere on the art of fatherly advice.
Incidentally, all chess players know Kotov's command:"Play with a plan!" They also know that this is easier to say than to do.
"Time only strengthens my conviction that it was a good and strenuous life, and that the war, for all its destructiveness, was an incomparable schooling of the heart." --- From Ernst Jünger's preface to the 1929 English edition of Storm of Steel.
Michel Foucault used the term "a secretion of time" to denote "a small thing that condenses 'the spirit and malaise of an epoch.'"
My favorite examples?
The WIN or "Whip Inflation Now" buttons of Gerald Ford, Carter's attack rabbit, Monica's black dress, and, of course, GWB's landing on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.
Charles McGrath finds in Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies...
"...a reminder that, E. M. Forster's famous pronouncement notwithstanding, ''flat'' characters are sometimes much more entertaining than round ones. "
When is a book begun? When you reach the "typing point." -- JMS
"If we ever pass out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone, 'America died from a delusion that she has moral leadership." --- Will Rogers, speaking in the 1930s. Now, Fall 2008, after eight years of retreat from the moral high ground, the delusion is certainly more remote, but perhaps just as dangerous.
Well, those would be regulations without teeth. No quote this time; I just wanted a place to use this cool word.
Incidentally, I recently lost old No. 30, one of the six-year molars. This was the first of my adult teeth to go, so the adjective "edentulous" now has added meaning for me.
"When somebody hears the G550 they ordered won't be delivered until the first quarter of 2013, they rattle their briefcase full of cash and don't understand why they have to wait." --- Robert Baugniet, spokesman for Gulfstream, explaining how new buyers from emerging markets are sometimes unaccustomed to waiting.
It's a funny story, but let's see if Baugniet keeps his job. Jet customers hate it when you insinuated that they are bumpkins.
“Offshore drilling is a mouse; the Everglades is an elephant.” --- Mr. Guest of Earthjustice on the occasion of the acquisition of land from US Sugar by the State of Florida.
"Italians come to ruin most generally in three ways: women, gambling, and farming. My family chose the slowest one." -- Pope John XXIII
"...the border town of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, just across the bridge from Eagle Pass, Texas, has the distinction of being the place where nachos were invented. The story of their creation is the Rashomon of Mexican cuisine: Everyone has a different version." --- David Lida introducing one of his articles on Mexico.
"There is nothing tougher than a tough Mexican, just as there is nothing gentler than a gentle Mexican, nothing more honest than an honest Mexican, and above all nothing sadder than a sad Mexican." — Raymond Chandler in a classic Noir introduction.
"Our top accountant is famous for his loyalty to the firm. He hasn't taken a vacation in years."
Oops. If there is ever a reliable "tell" in business this is it. Such an loyal employee needs to be "honored" with a nice (domestic) vacation ASAP while you call in the consulting forensic accountants.
Allegedly there is a Chinese saying that goes: "All religions are fingers on one hand, but Buddhism is the palm."
There could be something to this palmistry connection.
“It appears that surgeons are more satisfied than patients after total knee replacement.” --- Dr. Pieter H.J. Bullens, surgeon with a sense of humor.
Addendum from a presumably unhappy customer:
George M. Keller, 84, who, as head of Standard Oil of California, made business history in 1984 by taking over another huge oil company in an unprecedented $13 billion buyout that he characterized as a "bet-your-company deal," died Oct. 17 in California.
He died at Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto of complications of knee surgery.
"If real petroleum geologists are sure of anything, it is of the biological origins of the overwhelming majority of all exploitable accumulations of hydrocarbon fuels." --- Daniel K. Simon.
I did think there was more room for controversy here, or even possibly that the pendulum had swung to favor the theory of abiologic origin. Puzzle for the plant theory guys: How did methane become so common in the cosmos? Simon's statement is very carefully made, but it may not even cover the Ghawar field which has been pretty exploitable. Also, most oil shale is conceded to be abiologic, and it is getting more "exploitable" every day.
"I’ve been too early on a lot of things, but now I have enough money to be as early as I want.” --- T. Boone Pickens, in a Fortune Interview 5/30/08, when asked if his move into wind energy might be ahead of the curve.
"Ethanol is a scam!" --- Jeff Mackie, ranting on CNBC.com Fast Trade (5/20/2008).
There it is: The truth in four words. If you need two more words add: Farm Lobby.
"Moral indignation is envy with a halo." --- H.G. Wells (Recently quoted in Forbes)
"Academia doesn't get too interested in us --- we're too simple. What would the professors do? A great many of the formulas [they use to analyze securities and markets] are dead wrong." --- from the May 2008 BRK Annual meeting of stockholders (as reported).
"The last time I took advice, it only worked because I changed it." --- Anonymous, but let's just say it was from Yogi Bera, OK?
"Where historians go wrong, the professional academic historians, is that they leave the best stories literally in the footnotes as if they are too frivolous to tell in the actual body of a text." --- Erick Larson, best selling non-fiction author of Thunderstruck and The Devil and the White City. (see an interview with EL)
“Those who travel the high road in Washington need not fear heavy traffic.” ---Former Senator Alan Simpson, quoted by Warren Buffett in his 2007 Letter to Shareholders. (3/2008)
"Guillaume François Antoine de Lhospital, Marquis de Sainte-Mesme (1651–1704) published (anonymously) in 1691 the world’s first textbook on calculus, based on John Bernoulli’s lecture notes. He seems to have written his name as above, but it is more familiar as L’Hospital (old French spelling) or L’Hôpital (modern French); I prefer the latter, since it stops students from pronouncing the s (which Larousse’s dictionary says is not to be pronounced)." --- Ralph Boas 1 writing in the American Mathematical Monthly in 1986,
Well, you get the (admittedly geekie) idea.
Next, when you are describing
A shape, or sound, or tint;
Don't state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things
With a sort of mental squint.---Lewis Carroll
It is a delight to find a bad paper on a good topic. The bibliography is done, the issue is well posed, and the strawman sits there almost expecting to be poked with a stick.
---- Hey, I'll take credit for this. You can't legitimately quote yourself, so I left off the inverted commas. Incidentally, if you're a student looking for more research "advice" (a dangerous notion) you may want to see my related rant.
"Wherever you work, most of the smart people are somewhere else." --- Bill Joy
"... bottled water is a good idea when traveling overseas, but it's a $22 billion scam in the US. It costs anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 times the cost of tap water. Unlike tap water, there is virtually no enforcement of health and cleanliness standards, nor is there fluoride to prevent tooth decay. The healthiest bottled waters are bottled from tap. And the bottles themselves pose an environmental disaster. Here's a 30 second clip from the episode for you to consider (click on the Watch Video Preview box). " --- David Cowan
The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill was a matter of luck. Still, it led to the California gold rush --- an evanescent event with lasting effects --- substantially, the creation of the city of San Francisco and the State of California.
The Black-Scholes Formula was also substantially a matter of luck. Also, in a way, it was just as evanescent as the California gold rush.
Its concrete use has now almost vanished, except through the vestigial (and inverted) notion of implied volatility. Still, from the formula's tailings new mines of derivative securities have developed that were unimagined during the days when the formula was to be believed.
Related Items: Statements of General Suttter on the circumstances of the discovery of gold at his lumber mill and the immediate consequences.
"Statistical analysis is only as good as the numbers that you run," said Ben Witherington III, Professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky.
Replace "as good as" with "at most as good as" and it's ready to serve, but hey, why do I quote a theologian on statistical inference?
Keep your eyes on Statistical Science (or the Annals of Applied Statistics) ...and keep your fingers crossed that this is the only place you'll see Theologians quoted on statistical inference.
Note for San Francisco Old Timers: Do you hear an echo of a Herb Caen society quip? (or for movie fans, the voice of Danny DeVitio as journalist Sid Hudgens in LA Confidential)
"Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds." -----Richard Feynman
"Any science that calls itself a science is not a science. Consider Chemistry, Physics and Medicine compared to --- say --- Political Science or Computer Science." ---- a quip from well-known computer scientist Jon Bentley. (Incidentally, this quote had a role in the naming of the IMS journal Statistical Science.)
"Remember that nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all." — Arthur Balfour.
From a man who helped to shape the history of the Middle East, we might have wished for more. Still, it was his story, and he stuck to it.
"I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately triumph than to triumph in a cause that will ultimately fail." — Woodrow Wilson
Wilson's quote has more style, but I can't argue that he actually delivered a higher level of statecraft.
"Americans are broad-minded people. They'll accept the fact that a person can be alcoholic, a dope fiend or a wife-beater, but if a man doesn't drive a car, everybody thinks that something is wrong with him.''
---- Art Buchwald, March 1996, via Jonathan Borwein.
As a member of Philly Car Share, I heartily endorse PCS's urban-wise program. It is economical, ecological, and a dominant strategy to car ownership in Philadelphia.
Making Parking Pay: "Ratio of Los Angeles city revenue from parking meter-related fines to parking meter coins collected: 10 to 1." --- Michael Schrage, LA Times