
“Life and death are balanced as it were on the edge of a razor.”
The Iliad of Homer, Rendered into English Prose (1898), Book X
Vintage, p. 41
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1965)
“Life and death are balanced as it were on the edge of a razor.”
The Iliad of Homer, Rendered into English Prose (1898), Book X
“Life and death are balanced as it were on the edge of a razor.”
X. 173–174 (tr. Samuel Butler).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
“But the razor edge of ridicule is turned by the tough hide of truth.”
"On Truth" in Damn! A Book of Calumny (1918), p. 53
1910s
Context: The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived. Huxley laughed the devils out of the Gadarene swine. Not the laws of the United States but the mother-in-law joke brought the Mormons to surrender. Not the horror of it but the absurdity of it killed the doctrine of infant damnation. But the razor edge of ridicule is turned by the tough hide of truth. How loudly the barber-surgeons laughed at Huxley—and how vainly! What clown ever brought down the house like Galileo? Or Columbus? Or Darwin?... They are laughing at Nietzsche yet...
“Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine.”
Song lyrics, Blood on the Tracks (1975), Shelter from the Storm
Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), p. 23
“It is easier to know man in general than to know one man.”
Il est plus aisé de connaître l'homme en général que de connaître un homme en particulier.
Variant translation: It is much easier to know men generally, than to know a particular man.
Maxim 436.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
“Straight edge means I'm drug free, alcohol free, and better than you.”
Catchphrases
Source: Straight Edge significa che sono libero da droghe, libero dall'alcol e migliore di voi]