My Small Boat

Here is a very bad aphorism for the purpose of illustrative quotation.

Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.

The Anvil
England’s on the anvil — hear the hammers ring –
Clanging from the Severn to the Tyne!
Never was a blacksmith like our Norman King –
England’s being hammered, hammered, hammered into line.
England’s on the anvil! Heavy are the blows!
(But the work will be a marvel when it’s done.)
Little bits of Kingdoms cannot stand against their foes.
England’s […]

Mistakes are the portals of discovery.

Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of ‘touching’ a man’s heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.

Sir. I bear a rhyme excelling
In mystic force and magic spelling.
(3.14159265358)

My wife had an uncle who could never walk down the nave of an abbey without wondering whether it would take spin.

Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers.

How many people ruin themselves by laying out money on trinkets of frivolous utility? What pleases these lovers of toys is not so much the utility, as the aptness of the machines which are fitted to promote it. All their pockets are stuffed with little conveniences. They contrive new pockets, unknown in the clothes of […]

Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.

The turtle lives twixt plated decks
Which practically conceal its sex.
I think it clever of the turtle,
In such a fix to be so fertile.

Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.