
“5235. To strain at a Knat, and swallow a Camel.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
Must We Go to War? (1937)
“5235. To strain at a Knat, and swallow a Camel.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“America means Civil Liberties, Patriotism Is protecting them”
Patriotisme
“We do not consider patriotism desirable if it contradicts civilized behavior.”
Romulus the Great, act I (1956)
“Being cynical is the only way to deal with modern civilization — you can't just swallow it whole.”
The Dub Room Special (1982).
Context: I think that if a person doesn't feel cynical then they're out of phase with the 20th century. Being cynical is the only way to deal with modern civilization — you can't just swallow it whole.
Comment to Fatima Al-Dhaher who had asked Coulter about previous statements in which Coulter said Muslims shouldn't be allowed on airplanes and should take "flying carpets" instead, as quoted in " "Students divided over Coulter's cancelled speech" at CTV Ottowa (24 March 2010) http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100324/OTT_Coulter_Rxn_100324/20100324/?hub=OttawaHome.
2010
“In horror, in terror, she accepted the metamorphosis — gnat, foam, ant, until death.”
Last lines
All Men are Mortal (1946)
Context: In horror, in terror, she accepted the metamorphosis — gnat, foam, ant, until death. And it's only the beginning, she thought. She stood motionless, as if it were possible to play tricks with time, possible to stop it from following its course. But her hands stiffened against her quivering lips.
When the bells began to sound the hour she let out the first scream.
The Civilization of China https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2076/2076-h/2076-h.htm (1911), p. 37
"The Argentine Writer and Tradition", Fervor of Buenos Aires (1923)
Context: Some days past I have found a curious confirmation of the fact that what is truly native can and often does dispense with local color; I found this confirmation in Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon observes that in the Arabian book par excellence, in the Koran, there are no camels; I believe if there were any doubt as to the authenticity of the Koran, this absence of camels would be sufficient to prove it is an Arabian work. It was written by Mohammed, and Mohammed, as an Arab, had no reason to know that camels were especially Arabian; for him they were part of reality, he had no reason to emphasize them; on the other hand, the first thing a falsifier, a tourist, an Arab nationalist would do is have a surfeit of camels, caravans of camels, on every page; but Mohammed, as an Arab, was unconcerned: he knew he could be an Arab without camels. I think we Argentines can emulate Mohammed, can believe in the possibility of being Argentine without abounding in local color.
“A camel makes an elephant feel like a jet plane.”
On a 1962 visit to India quoted in A Hero for Our Time (1983) by Ralph G Martin