“There are 6,585 days between one solar eclipse and another, which is 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours. This has been known, observed, and calculated for many thousands of years, but was probably first chronicled in ancient Babylon (in Mesopotamia, in modern-day Iraq). It would later be disseminated by the Greeks as the Saros Cycle.”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
“Education is the mother and the father.”
Motto of the “Lost Boys of the Southern Sudan,” as seen on 60 Minutes (2001)
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.
“Privative: Indicating lack of loss of, absence of, or negation, e.g., the prefixes ‘un-, ‘a-,’ ‘non-,’ and the suffix ‘-less.'”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
“March 1st—To the Opera and there saw Romeo and Juliet, the first time it was ever acted; but it is a play of itself the worst that ever I heard in my life, and the worst acted that ever I saw these people do….”
Samuel Pepys, Diary
Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
“Academe, n. An ancient school where were morality and philosophy were taught.
Academy, n (from academe) [1.] A modern school where football is taught. [2.] Originally a grove in which philosophers sought a meaning in nature; now a school in which naturals seek a meaning in philosophy.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities, philosophy/religion
“Education is the art of making man ethical.”
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1821)
Excerpted from: Howe, Randy, ed. The Quotable Teacher. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2003.
“Satire is moral outrage transformed into comic art.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.
“’Ten thousand’ is poetic Chinese for ‘infinite,’ as in ‘May the Emperor reign 10,000 years’ or, as it now says over the gate of Heavenly Peace (Tiananmen) in Tiananmen Square, ‘May the People’s Republic of China last 10,000 years.’ This unit of time is symbolized by a peach, as the Chinese delight in making associations between the sounds of tonal connections of (otherwise unconnected) words. So when you look at Chinese imagery, be it an ancient watercolor or a strident propaganda poster, keep an eye out for a propitious scattering of peaches, birds, bats, and vases. A bird, especially a crane, has tonal connections with ‘harmony,’ a bat with ‘prosperity,’ a vase with ‘peace,’ and, as we have already heard, a peach can say ‘10,000 years.'”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
We Think the World of You by J.R. Ackerley
“not nearly dirty enough, and far too English.”
Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities
“Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
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