“The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls
Of mastodons, are billiard balls.
The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is Ferric Oxide, known as rust.
The grizzly bear, whose potent hug,
Was feared by all, is now a rug.
Great Caesar's bust is on the shelf,
And I don't feel so well myself.”

—  Arthur Guiterman

On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/24.html

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The tusks which clashed in mighty brawls Of mastodons, are billiard balls. The sword of Charlemagne the Just Is Ferr…" by Arthur Guiterman?
Arthur Guiterman photo
Arthur Guiterman 6
United States writer 1871–1943

Related quotes

“If you make my children, make any child, feel bad for who they are, I will teach you why people fear mama grizzlies more than papa grizzlies.”

Patricia Briggs book Dead Heat

Source: Dead Heat

“There’s a rule I used to call The Niven Rule but which I just now have decided to call the Rusting Bridges rule. It came to me after reading Niven’s “All The Bridges Rusting.””

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

In this story, humans have by the early 21st century explored the Solar System and sent not just one but two crewed ships to Alpha Centauri … despite which the characters moan endlessly about the dire state of the space program. “Eyes of Amber” would be another example of the Rusting Bridges [Rule]: No matter how much the space program you actually have has achieved, whether it’s first contact with aliens or trips to nearby stars, it can never have achieved as much as the space programs you can imagine would have achieved in its place, given that imaginary programs aren’t limited by issues of politics, funding, or engineering.
Review of “Eyes of Amber”, by Joan D. Vinge (as anthologized in New Women of Wonder, edited by Pamela Sargent http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/yet-more-sf-about-women-by-women, 2015
2010s

Maya Angelou photo

“I know that I'm not the easiest person to live with. The challenge I put on myself is so great that the person I live with feels himself challenged. I bring a lot to bear, and I don't know how not to.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Source: phenomenal woman

Jordan Peterson photo

“I have camped where the grizzly bears were plentiful. It is nice that they are on the planet and all that, but I prefer my grizzlies shy, not too hungry, and far enough away to be picturesque.”

Jordan Peterson book Beyond Order

Source: Books, Beyond Order (2021), p. 315

Ian Dury photo

“So long have I been languished on the shelf
I must give all proceedings to myself.”

Ian Dury (1942–2000) English musician

"Spasticus Autisticus" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6isXNVdguI8, On Countdown (Australia) 1981

Milan Kundera photo

“No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches.”

Milan Kundera The Joke

The Joke (1967)

“Let's not pretend that mental phenomena can be mapped on to the characteristics of billiard balls.”

Gregory Bateson (1904–1980) English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist

Source: Mind and Nature, a necessary unity, 1988, p. 99

Homér photo

“So now I meet my doom. Well let me die—
but not without struggle, not without glory, no,
in some great clash of arms that even men to come
will hear of down the years!”

Homér Iliad

XXII. 303 (tr. Robert Fagles); spoken by Hector.
Richmond Lattimore's translation:
: But now my death is upon me.
Let me at least not die without a struggle, inglorious,
but do some big thing first, that men to come shall know of it.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)

“I was thewed like an Auroch bull
And tusked like the great cave bear;
And you, my sweet, from head to feet
Were gowned in your glorious hair.”

Langdon Smith Evolution

Evolution (1895; 1909)

Marcus Annaeus Lucanus photo

“Prayed for so oft, the dawn of fight is come.
No more entreat the gods: with sword in hand
Seize on our fates; and Caesar in your deeds
This day is great or little.”
Nil opus est uotis, iam fatum accersite ferro. in manibus uestris, quantus sit Caesar, habetis.

Marcus Annaeus Lucanus book Pharsalia

Book VII, line 252 (tr. E. Ridley).
Pharsalia

Related topics