
“It is not well for a man to pray, cream; and live, skim milk.”
Life Thoughts (1858)
H.M.S. Pinafore (1878)
“It is not well for a man to pray, cream; and live, skim milk.”
Life Thoughts (1858)
Merton Miller. Financial Innovations and Market Volatility, 1991. p. 269; as cited in [Merton H. Miller (1923–2000), http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Miller.html, The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, 2nd, Library of Economics and Liberty, Liberty Fund, 2008]
United States v. Windsor oral argument,
On censorship, in The Man Who Sold the Moon (1950), p. 188; this may be the origin of a remark which in recent years has sometimes become misattributed to Mark Twain: Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.
Context: How anybody expects a man to stay in business with every two-bit wowser in the country claiming a veto over what we can say and can't say and what we can show and what we can't show — it's enough to make you throw up. The whole principle is wrong; it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.
“There is probably more suffering in a glass of milk or an ice cream cone than there is in a steak.”
Veganism: The Fundamental Principle of the Abolitionist Movement, http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/veganism-the-fundamental-principle-of-the-abolitionist-movement/
Context: There is no meaningful distinction between eating flesh and eating dairy or other animal products. Animals exploited in the dairy industry live longer than those used for meat, but they are treated worse during their lives, and they end up in the same slaughterhouse after which we consume their flesh anyway. There is probably more suffering in a glass of milk or an ice cream cone than there is in a steak.
“I love revision. Where else can spilled milk be turned into ice cream?”
“Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it.”
Knox College commencement address http://www.knox.edu/colbert.xml (3 June 2006)
Context: Don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. "Yes" is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes.
To Amarantha, That She Would Dishevel Her Hair (l. 21–24).
Lucasta (1649)