(3089/898) Sayings

152) We take things apart in order that they may become the Buddha, and if that seems too Oriental an idea for you [...] remember the early Christian Gnostic statement "Split the stick and there is Jesus."

John Cage
Indeterminancy (story #19) (1959)

153) Cleave wood, I am there; lift a stone, you will find me there.

Jesus
from The Gospel of Thomas (c. 90), Saying 77,
quoted by Burton L. Mack in
The Lost Gospel of Q (1993)

154) The Devil is in the details.

Saying.

[Note: Bartlett's 16th Edition (1993) gives God is in the details as an aphorism popular with architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and art historian Aby Warburg, attributed without citation to Gustave Flaubert; Ralph Keyes says that Admiral Hyman Rickover was fond of saying The devil is in the details, and everything we do in the military is a detail, and cites Barbara Wallraff from Your Own Words (2004) as noting that Ross Perot's use of the "devil" variant of the expression in the 1990's marked increased general usage. Keyes concludes that the expression (in either form, God or the Devil) is proverbial. [QV]. This is supported by [YQ], which lists the "devil" form as a "modern proverb" and gives as the first known citation the Times of London (7/8/1969).]

155) The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

William Shakespeare
The Merchant of Venice (play) I,iii,99 [B15]

156) The Gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.

Euripides
"Phrixus", fragment 970 [B15]

157) No good deed goes unpunished.

Saying.

158) Those whom God would destroy He first makes mad.

Euripides
"Fragment" [BPF & B15]

159) Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.

Cyril Connolly
Enemies of Promise (1938) [OM]

160) Everything has an end.

Masai saying [B15]

161) Caveat emptor [Let the buyer beware].

Proverb [B15]

162) Cave canem [Beware of the dog].

Proverb [B15]

163) De gustibus non disputandum [There is no accounting for tastes].

Proverb [B15]

164) Errare humanum est [To err is human].

Saying [B15]

Sources

[B15] - Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 15th edition (1980)
[BPF] - Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, Cent. ed., rev. (1981)
[OM] - The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations (1991)
[QV] - The Quote Verifier (2006), Ralph Keyes
[YQ] - The Yale Book of Quotations (2006), Fred R. Shapiro, ed.


Note: "3089/898" is the designation I've given to the project of posting all my collected quotes, excerpts and ideas (3089 of them) in the remaining days of the Bush administration (of which there were 898 left when I began).

As of today, there are 845 days remaining in the administration of the worst President ever.