“Haven't you heard that this house belongs to an ogre who eats little children?”
Tales of Mother Goose, 1727, "Little Thumb"
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Charles Perrault 15
French author 1628–1703Related quotes
“What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?”
Source: Letter to Harrison Blake (20 May 1860); published in Familiar Letters (1865)
Context: What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? — If you cannot tolerate the planet that it is on?
Context: Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves. They learn to make houses; but they are not so well housed, they are not so contented in their houses, as the woodchucks in their holes. What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? — If you cannot tolerate the planet that it is on? Grade the ground first. If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him … he will be surrounded by grandeur. He is in the condition of a healthy and hungry man, who says to himself, — How sweet this crust is!
“You die alone in your house, and your cat will eat you.”
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014)
If you cannot tolerate the planet that it is on? Grade the ground first. If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him ... he will be surrounded by grandeur. He is in the condition of a healthy and hungry man, who says to himself, — How sweet this crust is!
Letter to Harrison Blake (20 May 1860); published in Familiar Letters (1865)
Pt. I, Lib. III, Ch. X.
Guzmán de Alfarache (1599-1604)
As quoted in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Vol. 37 (1981); also in Boston Globe obituary of George F. Kennan by Mark Feeney (18 March 2005) D23. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2005/03/18/george_kennan_dies_at_101_devised_cold_war_policy Cited in James Carroll, House of War, Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., (2006), chapter 7, note 140, p. 581.
Context: For the love of God, for the love of your children and of the civilization to which you belong, cease this madness. You are mortal men. You are capable of error. You have no right to hold in your hands — there is no one wise enough and strong enough to hold in his hands — destructive power sufficient to put an end to civilized life on a great portion of our planet.
"Obstacles to Happiness", p. 78
Awareness (1992)
Context: Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture. To acquire happiness you don't have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already. How can you acquire what you already have? Then why don't you experience it? Because you've got to drop something. You've got to drop illusions. You don't have to add anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It's only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings. Do you know where these things come from? From having identified with all kinds of labels!