ArticleIP_2561.txt

   
   
      
         
            Herb Stein's Unfamiliar Quotations

             

            By Herbert
Stein

            
               (1,184 words; posted
Thursday, May 15; to be composted Thursday, May 22)
            

            I love to
browse through Bartlett's Familiar Quotations . It may be lazy of me, but
I like to taste the plums of many authors whose full puddings I cannot digest.
For example, I cannot make anything of T.S. Eliot in his entirety. But I know
that I am in the presence of genius when I read the following lines from The
Wasteland :

            
               O the moon shone bright on
Mrs. Porter
            

            
               And on her
daughter
            

            
               They
wash their feet in soda water.
            

            Of course, some of these
nuggets are ambiguous. Thus, we have Swedish Count Axel Oxenstierna writing in
the 17 th century, "Behold, my son, with how little wisdom the world
is governed." For a long time I thought that this was a complaint that the
world is not governed with more wisdom. Recently I have come to think it means
that not much wisdom is required to govern the world.

            As
recompense--small though it be--for the pleasure I have got from Bartlett, I am
setting down a few quotations (with explanations where necessary) that have
resonated with me and are not included in that book.

             

            
               If you
meet a madman who says that he is a fish and that we are all fishes, do you
take off your clothes to show him that you do not have fins?
            

            --Milan Kundera,
Risibles Amours , 1984

            I love this in part because I
am proud that I translated it from the French, which, in turn, was translated
from the Czech. But I love it even more because it has saved me so much
trouble. In the past when I encountered some outlandish inanity--often about
taxes--I would sit down at my keyboard and write an answer. I am still tempted
to do that, but since I encountered that quotation, I have resisted.

            You may
ask: How will I know if he is a madman? The answer is: Don't worry, you'll
know. And if you are in doubt, assume he is mad and leave the refutation to
others. You have plenty to do in the world without having to worry about
debating people who may be mad.

             

            
               Never
waste any time you can spend sleeping .

            --Professor Frank H.
Knight, in class at the University of Chicago, 1936

            Clear
enough, aside from these questions: What qualifies as wasting time, and what
should you do if you can't sleep? I recently encountered a somewhat different
quotation from the poet Baudelaire:

            
               To kill that particular
monster [time] is the most ordinary and legitimate occupation of each
person.
            

            It is
interesting that Knight should have used the word "waste," which is the
gangland term for "kill." Perhaps the reconciliation here is that sleep is the
best way of killing time.

             

            
               Honesty
may not be the best policy, but it is worth trying once in a while .

            --Richard Nixon, in a
meeting, 1970

            This may seem the ultimate
in cynicism, but the second half of the quotation (about trying honesty once in
a while) seems foreign to many politicians, among others.

             

            
               Surely
there is something unlovely, to modern as against medieval minds, about marked
inequality of either kind [income or power].

            --Henry C. Simons,
Economic Policy for a Free Society , 1948

            What
fascinates me about this sentence is the word "unlovely." It is a candid
declaration that feelings on this subject are "feelings," not matters of
efficiency or justice but matters of taste, of aesthetics, of emotions.

             

            
               There is
a great deal of ruin in a nation.
            

            --Adam Smith, in a letter
to a friend who, after the battle of Saratoga, was lamenting that the revolt of
the colonies was going to ruin Britain, late 18 th century

            This is a
comfort when one is listening to politicians or editorialists describing the
ruin that will follow if their pet policies are not adopted.

             

            
               If
something cannot go on forever, it will stop .

            --Stein's Law, first
pronounced in the 1980s

            This proposition, arising
first in a discussion of the balance-of-payments deficit, is a response to
those who think that if something cannot go on forever, steps must be taken to
stop it--even to stop it at once.

             

            
               If a
plank creaks in the floor, he [Ernesto IV] snatches up his pistols and
imagines that there is a liberal hiding under his bed.
            

            --Stendhal, The
Charterhouse of Parma , 1839

            A comment
on many of today's pundits.

             

            
               Three
percent exceeds 2 percent by 50 percent, not by 1 percent .

            --Edward Denison, in
conversation, about 1960

            An obvious point, but one
that is important--and commonly overlooked--in discussions of economic
growth.

             

            
               Observe
how he has made a breast of his back.
            

            
               In life
he wished to see too far before him,
            

            
               And now
he must crab backwards round this track .

            --Dante Alighieri,
The 
               Inferno (Canto XX, Circle Eight--The Fortune Tellers and
Diviners), early 14 th century

            This is
Dante's vision of the fate of economic and political forecasters.

             

            
               Where is the wisdom we
have lost in knowledge?
            

            
               Where is the knowledge we
have lost in information?
            

            --T.S.
Eliot, The Rock , 1934

            These
Eliot lines, not in Bartlett's, are an advance comment on the Information Age
of which we are now so proud.

             

            
               Don't
worry, you'll do it again!
            

            --Mother-in-law, in
conversation many times

            In the
Jewish tradition, this sardonic remark is intended to comfort a person who is
grieving over having made a serious mistake.

             

            
               Thus,
prediction of whether or not the capitalist order will survive is, in part, a
matter of terminology.
            

            --Joseph Shumpeter,
Encyclopedia Britannica , 1945

            

               Capitalism survived its crisis and went on to great successes. But the
capitalism that survived and succeeded was not the capitalism of 1929.
            

            --Herbert Stein, The
Triumph of the Adaptive Society , 1989

            This joint
entry is a reminder that terms like "capitalism," "socialism," "liberalism,"
"conservatism," "welfare state," and "free market" have to be defined if they
are to be used in intelligent discussion. The required definitions are missing
most of the time.

             

            
               We
[the American colonists fighting in the War of Independence] have shed our
blood in the glorious cause in which we are engaged; we are ready to shed the
last drop in its defense. Nothing is above our courage, except only (with shame
I speak it) the courage to TAX ourselves .

            --James Madison, 1782

            I was not
the first person to observe this fact.

             

            
               Anyone
can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be
doing.
            

            --Humorist Robert
Benchley, quoted in The Algonquin Wits , 1968

            This comes to mind frequently
when I am emptying the dishwasher or engaging in a similar activity.