Lewis Carroll….

….pseudonym of CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON

Born Jan 27, 1832, Daresbury, Cheshire, England
Died Jan 14, 1898, Guildford, Surrey

English logician, mathematician, photographer, and novelist, especially remembered for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass (1871). His poem The Hunting of the Snark (1876) is nonsense literature of the highest order.

Dodgson was the eldest son and third child in a family of seven girls and four boys born to Frances Jane Lutwidge, the wife of the Rev. Charles Dodgson. He was born in the old parsonage at Daresbury. His father was perpetual curate there from 1827 until 1843, when he became rector of Croft in Yorkshire--a post he held for the rest of his life (though later he became also archdeacon of Richmond and a canon of Ripon cathedral).

The Dodgson children, living as they did in an isolated country village, had few friends outside the family but, like many other families in similar circumstances, found little difficulty in entertaining themselves. Charles from the first showed a great aptitude for inventing games to amuse them. With the move to Croft when he was 12 came the beginning of the "Rectory Magazines," manuscript compilations to which all the family were supposed to contribute. In fact, Charles wrote nearly all of those that survive, beginning with Useful and Instructive Poetry (1845; published 1954) and following with The Rectory Magazine (c. 1850, mostly unpublished), The Rectory Umbrella (1850-53), and Mischmasch (1853-62; published with The Rectory Umbrella in 1932).

Meanwhile, young Dodgson attended Richmond School, Yorkshire (1844-45), and then proceeded to Rugby School (1846-50). He disliked his four years at public school, principally because of his innate shyness, although he was also subjected to a certain amount of bullying; he also endured several illnesses, one of which left him deaf in one ear. After Rugby he spent a further year being tutored by his father, during which time he matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford (May 23, 1850). He went into residence as an undergraduate there on Jan. 24, 1851.

Dodgson excelled in his mathematical and classical studies in 1852; on the strength of his performance in examinations, he was nominated to a studentship (called a scholarship in other colleges). In 1854 he gained a first in mathematical Finals--coming out at the head of the class--and proceeded to a bachelor of arts degree in December of the same year. He was made a "Master of the House" and a senior student (called a fellow in other colleges) the following year and was appointed lecturer in mathematics (the equivalent of today's tutor), a post he resigned in 1881. He held his studentship until the end of his life.

As was the case with all fellowships at that time, the studentship at Christ Church was dependent upon his remaining unmarried, and, by the terms of this particular endowment, proceeding to holy orders. Dodgson was ordained a deacon in the Church of England on Dec. 22, 1861. Had he gone on to become a priest he could have married and would then have been appointed to a parish by the college. But he felt himself unsuited for parish work and, though he considered the possibility of marriage, decided that he was perfectly content to remain a bachelor.

Dodgson's association with children grew naturally enough out of his position as an eldest son with eight younger brothers and sisters. He also suffered from a bad stammer (which he never wholly overcame, although he was able to preach with considerable success in later life) and, like many others who suffer from the disability, found that he was able to speak naturally and easily to children. It is therefore not surprising that he should begin to entertain the children of Henry George Liddell, dean of Christ Church. Alice Liddell and her sisters Lorina and Edith were not, of course, the first of Dodgson's child friends. They had been preceded or were overlapped by the children of the writer George Macdonald, the sons of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and various other chance acquaintances. But the Liddell children undoubtedly held an especially high place in his affections--partly because they were the only children in Christ Church, since only heads of houses were free both to marry and to continue in residence.

Properly chaperoned by their governess, Miss Prickett (nicknamed "Pricks"--"one of the thorny kind," and so the prototype of the Red Queen in Through the Looking-Glass), the three little girls paid many visits to the young mathematics lecturer in his college rooms. As Alice remembered in 1932, they used to sit on the big sofa on each side of him, while he told us stories, illustrating them by pencil or ink drawings as he went along . . . . He seemed to have an endless store of these fantastical tales, which he made up as he told them, drawing busily on a large sheet of paper all the time. They were not always entirely new. Sometimes they were new versions of old stories; sometimes they started on the old basis, but grew into new tales owing to the frequent interruptions which opened up fresh and undreamed-of possibilities.

On July 4, 1862, Dodgson and his friend Robinson Duckworth, fellow of Trinity, rowed the three children up the Thames from Oxford to Godstow, picnicked on the bank, and returned to Christ Church late in the evening: "On which occasion," wrote Dodgson in his diary, "I told them the fairy-tale of Alice's Adventures Underground, which I undertook to write out for Alice." Much of the story was based on a picnic a couple of weeks earlier when they had all been caught in the rain; for some reason, this inspired Dodgson to tell so much better a story than usual that both Duckworth and Alice noticed the difference, and Alice went so far as to cry, when they parted at the door of the deanery, "Oh, Mr. Dodgson, I wish you would write out Alice's adventures for me!" Dodgson himself recollected in 1887 how, in a desperate attempt to strike out some new line of fairy-lore, I had sent my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole, to begin with, without the least idea what was to happen afterwards.

Dodgson was able to write down the story more or less as told and added to it several extra adventures that had been told on other occasions. He illustrated it with his own crude but distinctive drawings and gave the finished product to Alice Liddell, with no thought of hearing of it again. But the novelist Henry Kingsley, while visiting the deanery, chanced to pick it up from the drawing-room table, read it, and urged Mrs. Liddell to persuade the author to publish it. Dodgson, honestly surprised, consulted his friend George Macdonald, author of some of the best children's stories of the period. Macdonald took it home to be read to his children, and his son Greville, aged six, declared that he "wished there were 60,000 volumes of it."

Accordingly, Dodgson revised it for publication. He cut out the more particular references to the previous picnic (they may be found in the facsimile of the original manuscript, later published by him as Alice's Adventures Underground in 1886) and added some additional stories, told to the Liddells at other times, to make up a volume of the desired length. At Duckworth's suggestion he got an introduction to John Tenniel, the Punch magazine cartoonist, whom he commissioned to make illustrations to his specification. The book was published as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865. (The first edition was withdrawn because of bad printing, and only about 21 copies survive--one of the rare books of the 19th century--and the reprint was ready for publication by Christmas of the same year, though dated 1866.)

The book was a slow but steadily increasing success, and by the following year Dodgson was already considering a sequel to it, based on further stories told to the Liddells. The result was Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (dated 1872; actually published December 1871), a work as good as, or better than, its predecessor.

By the time of Dodgson's death, Alice (taking the two volumes as a single artistic triumph) had become the most popular children's book in England: by the time of his centenary in 1932 it was one of the most popular and perhaps the most famous in the world.

There is no answer to the mystery of Alice's success. Many explanations have been suggested, but, like the Mad Hatter's riddle ("The riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all"), they are no more than afterthoughts. The book is not an allegory; it has no hidden meaning or message, either religious, political, or psychological, as some have tried to prove; and its only undertones are some touches of gentle satire--on education for the children's special benefit and on familiar university types, whom the Liddells may or may not have recognized. Various attempts have been made to solve the "riddle of Lewis Carroll" himself; these include the efforts to prove that his friendships with little girls were some sort of subconscious substitute for a married life, that he showed symptoms of jealousy when his favourites came to tell him that they were engaged to be married, that he contemplated marriage with some of them--notably with Alice Liddell. But there is little or no evidence to back up such theorizing. He in fact dropped the acquaintance of Alice Liddell when she was 12, as he did with most of his young friends. In the case of the Liddells, his friendship with the younger children, Rhoda and Violet, was cut short at the time of his skits on some of Dean Liddell's Christ Church "reforms." For besides children's stories, Dodgson also produced humorous pamphlets on university affairs, which still make good reading. The best of these were collected by him as Notes by an Oxford Chiel (1874).

Besides writing for them, Dodgson is also to be remembered as a fine photographer of children and of adults as well (notable portraits of the actress Ellen Terry, the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the poet-painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and many others survive and have been often reproduced). Dodgson had an early ambition to be an artist: failing in this, he turned to photography. He photographed children in every possible costume and situation, finally making nude studies of them. But in 1880 Dodgson abandoned his hobby altogether, feeling that it was taking up too much time that might be better spent. Suggestions that this sudden decision was reached because of an impurity of motive for his nude studies have been made, but again without any evidence.

Before he had told the original tale of Alice's Adventures, Dodgson had, in fact, published a number of humorous items in verse and prose and a few inferior serious poems. The earliest of these appeared anonymously, but in March 1856 a poem called "Solitude" was published over the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. Dodgson arrived at this pen name by taking his own names Charles Lutwidge, translating them into Latin as Carolus Ludovicus, then reversing and retranslating them into English. He used the name afterward for all his nonacademic works. As Charles L. Dodgson, he was the author of a fair number of books on mathematics, none of enduring importance, although Euclid and His Modern Rivals (1879) is of some historical interest.

His humorous and other verses were collected in 1869 as Phantasmagoria and Other Poems and later separated (with additions) as Rhyme? and Reason? (1883) and Three Sunsets and Other Poems (published posthumously, 1898). The 1883 volume also contained The Hunting of the Snark, a narrative nonsense poem that is rivalled only by the best of Edward Lear.

Later in life, Dodgson had attempted a return to the Alice vein but only produced Sylvie and Bruno (1889) and its second volume, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893), which has been described aptly as "one of the most interesting failures in English literature." This elaborate combination of fairy-tale, social novel, and collection of ethical discussions is unduly neglected and ridiculed. It presents the truest available portrait of the man. Alice, the perfect creation of the logical and mathematical mind applied to the pure and unadulterated amusement of children, was struck out of him as if by chance; while making full use of his specialized knowledge, it transcends his weaknesses and remains unique.

MAJOR WORKS

Children's books.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865); Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871); The Wasp in the Wig: A "Suppressed" Episode [of the latter] (1977).

Verse.

Phantasmagoria and Other Poems (1869); The Hunting of the Snark (1876); Rhyme? and Reason? (1883); The Collected Verse (1929).

Mathematical books.

A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry (1860); Euclid and His Modern Rivals (1879); Curiosa Mathematica (1888-93). Symbolic Logic, Part I (1896), published with Part II (1977), ed. by William W. Bartley III.

Other works.

Sylvie and Bruno, 2 vol. (1889-93), novel.

You said – ”…and why is it some of the greatest 'evils' in mankind's history have been perpetrated in the name of persecution of Christians? where is your pagan charity now?”

The words ‘pagan’ and ‘charity’ are Christian inventions, but those attributes that make up a ‘charitable act’ can be found in Christian and non-Christian alike.

You said – ”The reason why there are so many packed hospitals in the world is the very same reason why a crowd of people tortured and crucified an innocent man 2000 years ago. The vast majority of the earth's population rejects God's free gifts.

So, what you’re saying is, if one has faith in God, one is likely to receive ‘His salvation, His direction, His provision, His wisdom or His healing’.

Then how do you account for the fact that our ‘packed hospitals’ are full of devout Christians, as well as non-believers….those with faith suffering the same agonies of terminal illness as those who choose not to believe? I’ve seen it Chris. Throughout my life, just like everyone else, I’ve seen members of my family stricken with illness….and those of devout faith have received no special dispensation ‘from above’. And Chris, how do you account for the fact that many of the people buried under the rubble in the wake of the Indian earthquake were devoutly religious (including many Christians)?

The thing is Chris, whether these victims of the earthquake were religious or were non-believers, if He really did exist, your God could have saved them – but he didn’t. God showed no mercy, because God is not there - only the dispassionate and random ‘course of nature’, that is all that governs man’s destiny. But if God were there, because he ignored the plight of the earthquake victims, that would make him culpable. And, don’t forget, he’s not saving people from the earthquake, he caused it by having ‘created’ the world in the first place. I liken God to a child who puts ants in a jar, and then revels in their torture and destruction.

So, the truth of the matter is, there is no God. Believer or atheist, we all suffer and prosper according to the random forces of nature, the support or sabotage of another human being, and the consequence of our own actions, be they ambitious or cautious. There is no ‘divine power’ influencing our lives…though it may be argued that faith in a God emboldens and strengthens a human’s resolve and well-being. Chris, you are not finding your strength from God, you are finding it from within yourself. You are a good man Chris, and it is you who deserves the credit for that, not a fictional entity.

I’m not relying on a fictional deity, or on a mortal who claimed to be the ‘son of God’ for my salvation….just as there is no ‘good God’, there is no ‘devil’ to be saved from.

You said – ”And there you sit, Daniel. You have rejected it all, and yet you have the audacity to complain about the consequences.”

And considering my atheism, I’ve enjoyed 68 years of reasonably good health whilst many of those around me with devout Christian faith have suffered premature, and often agonizing, death.

Go figure!

Anybody else out there disenchanted with the increasing phenomenon of cell phones? The Saudis have a solution of sorts:

BRITONS WITH BALLS – part XIX

William Shakespeare

Born 1564 Stratford-upon-Avon, England
Died 1616 Stratford-upon-Avon, England

English dramatist and poet. His works, translated and performed throughout the world, have made him the most celebrated and most quoted of English writers. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, the son of a glover, and in 1582 he married Anne Hathaway, who bore him three children. He is known to have been active in the London theatre by 1592, but nothing is recorded of his earlier education or working life. As an actor and playwright he worked for the Lord Chamberlain's Men (known from 1603 as the King's Men), the leading company which from 1599 occupied the Globe Theatre, of which Shakespeare was a shareholder.

Shakespeare's unparalleled reputation rests on the plays' memorable and complex characters, their dynamic movement through rapid alternations of short scenes, and above all the extraordinary subtlety and richness of the blank verse, dense with metaphors and elaborate in rhetoric. Since the 18th century Shakespeare has been regarded as the greatest English dramatist, and in the period of Romanticism he came to be venerated as a semi-divine genius, timeless and universal.

Below are some of my favourite extracts from Shakespeare’s life’s work, much of which is now indelibly imprinted on the English language.

All's Well That Ends Well

I am a man whom fortune hath cruelly scratched.
V,ii,28

Anthony and Cleopatra

The nature of bad news infects the teller.
I,ii,96

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety; other women cloy
The appetite they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.
II,ii,241

If I lose mine honor,
I lose myself.
III,iv,22

To be furious
Is to be frightened out of fear.
III,xiii,195

I am dying, Egypt, dying; only
I here importune death awhile, until
Of many thousand kisses the poor last
I lay upon thy lips.
IV,xv,18

As You Like It

Well said: that was laid on with a trowel.
I,ii,100

We have seen better days.
II,vii,120

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
II,vii,139

Blow, blow thou winter wind!
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude.
II,vii,174

I am falser than vows made in wine.
III,v,73

The Comedy of Errors

Every why have a wherefore.

Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine:
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,
Whose weakness married to thy stronger state
Makes me with thy strength to communicate.
II, ii, 172-175

For slander lives upon succession,
For ever housed where it gets possession.
III, i, 105-106

It is thyself, mine own self's better part;
Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart;
My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim;
My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.
III, ii, 61-64

Time is a very bankrupt, and owes more than he's worth to season.
Nay, he's a thief, too: have you not heard men say,
That time comes stealing on by night and day?
IV, ii, 58-60

Coriolanus

In such business
Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant
More learned than ears.
III,ii,75

Cymbeline

Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
II,ii,262

Quiet consummation have,
And renowned be thy grave.
II,ii,280

The ground that gave them first has them again.
Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain.
IV,ii,289

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

All that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
I,ii,72

O! That this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew;
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world.
I,ii,129

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
I,iii,58

Neither a borrower, nor a lender be.
I,iii,75

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
I,iv,90

Murder most foul, as in the best it it;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.
I,v,27

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
I,v,166

Brevity is the soul of wit.
II,ii,90

Doubt that the stars are fire
Doubt that the sun doth shine
Doubt that truth be a liar
But never doubt that I love.
II,ii,116

Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.
II,ii,207

What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though, by your smiling, you seem to say so.
II,ii,312

The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
II,ii

To be, or not to be: That is the question:--
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
III,i,56

Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the threat of something after death,--
That undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,--puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others we know not of?
III,i,76

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is slicked o'er with the pale cast of thought.
III,i,83

Get thee to a nunnery.
III,i,121

God has given you one face
and you make yourselves another.
III,i,144

Be not too tame neither, but let your own
Discretion be your tutor; suit the action
To the word, the word to the action.
III,ii,17

Some must watch, while some must sleep;
So runs the world away.
III,ii,279

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
III,iii,97

O shame, where is thy blush?
III,iv,83

I must be cruel only to be kind.
III,iv,178

A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king,
And eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
IV,iii,27

He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone
IV,v,29

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio
A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy;
V,i,185

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince.
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
V,ii,360

Henry IV, Part I

If all the year were playing holidays
To sport would be as tedious as to work.
I,ii,208

There's villainous news abroad.
II,iv

The better part of valour is discretion.
V,iv,119

Henry IV, Part II

Open your ears; for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?
Introduction,1-2

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
III,i,31

How quickly nature falls into revolt
When gold becomes her object!
IV, v, 65-66

How ill white hairs becomes a fool and jester!
V, v, 48

Henry V

Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
III,i,1

Men of few words are the best men.
III,ii,37

There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distill it out.
IV,i,4

There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.
V,i,3

Henry VI, Part I

Fight till the last gasp.
I,ii,127

Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.
I,ii,133

Unbidden guests
Are often welcomest when they are gone.
II,ii,55

Delays have dangerous ends.
III,ii,33

Care is no cure, but rather corrosive
For things that are not to be remedied.
III,iii,3

Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety
III,iii,9

Henry VI, Part II

To weep is to make less the depth of grief.
II,i,85

The game's afoot!
III,i,32

Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.
III,i,53

The first thing we do, lets kill all the lawyers.
IV,ii,75

Small things make base men proud.
IV,i,106

Presume not that I am the thing I was.
V,v,57

Henry VI, Part III

My crown is in my heart, not on my head;
Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones,
Nor to be seen: my crown is call'd content;
A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.
III,i,62

Hasty marriage seldom proveth well.
IV,i,18

A little fire is quickly trodden out;
Which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench.
IV,viii,7

And many strokes, though with a little axe,
Hew down and fell the hardest-timbered oak.

King Henry VIII

Two women placed together make cold weather.
I,iv

Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain-tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Everything that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by.
In sweet music is such an art,
Killing care and grief of heart.
III,i,3

Julius Caesar

Beware the Ides of March
I,ii,18

Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.
I,ii,194

Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort
As if he mock'd himself nad scorn'd his spirit
That could be moved to smile at anything!
I,ii,205

You are my true and hounorable wife:
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.
II,i,288

When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.
II,ii,30

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
II,ii,32

Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.
I,ii,192

Et tu, Brute? Then fall Caesar.
III,i,77

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
III,i,254

Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war;
III,i,273

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.
III,ii,75

This was the most unkindest cut of all.
III,ii,185

Good reasons must of force give place to better.
IV,iii,202

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when serves,
Or lose our ventures.
IV,iii,217

King John

Strong reasons make strong actions.
III,iv

What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
When this was now a king, and now clay?
V,vii,68

King Lear

Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
I,i,124

Who is it that can tell me who I am?
I,iv,236

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have an ungrateful child.
I,iv,295

You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both.
II,iv,271

Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire; that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.
IV,vii,46

The wheel is come full circle.
V,iii,176

Macbeth

If you can look into the seeds of time,
And tell me which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate.
I,iii,58

Yet I do fear thy nature;
It is too full of the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way.
I,v,17

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly.
I,vii,1

We fail!
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail.
I,vii,58

Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what's done is done.
III,ii,11

We have scorched the snake, not killed it.
III,ii,13

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle towards my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
III,iv,63

Great business must be wrought ere noon.
III,v,22

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
IV,i,10

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
IV,i,45

Out, damned spot! Out, I say!
V,i,38

What's done cannot be undone.
V,i,71

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle.
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
V,v,19

Measure for Measure

Oh! It is excellent
To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
II,ii,107

The Merchant of Venice

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.
I,i,51

His reasons are two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you find them they are no worth the search.
II,i

It is a wise father that knows his own child.
II,ii,76

The quality of mercy is not strained,--
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
On the place beneath;
IV,i,183

The man who hath no music in himself...
Let no such man be trusted.
V,i,83

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Why, then the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open.
II,ii,2

A Midsummer Night's Dream

For aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.
I,i,132

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
I,i,234

To say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days.

Lord, What fools these mortals be!
III,ii,115

Much Ado About Nothing

Beauty is a witch,
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
II,i,77

I pray thee cease thy counsel,
Which falls into my ears as profitless
As water in a seive.
II,i

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
II,ii,63

Beauty is a witch.
II,i,177

Comparisons are odorous.
III,v,15

There was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently.
V,i,35

Othello

We cannot all be masters.
I,i,43

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.
I, i, 64-65

I am nothing if not critical.
II,i,117

If it were now to die,
'Twere now to be most happy.
II, i, 189-190

But men are men; the best sometimes forget.
II,iii,243

Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
III, iii, 157-161

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.
III, iii, 165-167

If she be false, O then heaven mocks itself!
III, iii, 278

Put out the light, and then put out the light.
V, ii, 7

One that lov'd not wisely but too well.
V, ii, 344

Richard II

Truth hath a quiet breast.
I,iii,96

This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This prescious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England...
II,i,40

The worst is death, and death will have his day.
III,ii,103

You may my glories and my state depose
But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
IV,i,192

Richard III

Now is the winter of our discontent
made glorious summer by this sun of York.
I,i,1

Talkers are not good doers.
I,iii,350

By his face straight shall you know his heart.
II,iv,53

An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.
IV,iv,358

True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings;
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.
V,ii,23

Let's lack no discipline, make no delay,
For lords, tomorrow is a busy day.
V,iii,17

Be not afraid of shadows.
V,iii,216

Conscience is a word that cowards use,
Devised at first to keep the strong in awe.
V,iii,310

A horse! A horse! my kingdom for a horse!
V,iv,7

Romeo and Juliet

He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
II,ii,1

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
II,ii,2

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
II,ii,33

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
II,ii,43

Good-night, good-night! parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good-night till it be morrow.
II,ii,184

Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.
II,iii,94

These violent delights have violent ends.
II,vi,9

A plague on both your houses!
They have made worm's meat of me.
III,i,108

Death lies upon her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
IV,v,28

The time and my intents are more savage-wild
More fierce and more inexorable far
Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.
V,iii,37

The Taming of the Shrew

There's small choice in rotten apples.
I,i,134

Kiss me, Kate
II,i,317

Old fashions please me best.
III,i,78

The Tempest

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
I,ii,397

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
II,ii,40

He that dies pays all debts.
III,ii,136

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solomn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
IV,i,148

Timon of Athens

The fire in the flint
Shows not till it be struck.
I,i,22

We are not thieves, but men that much do want.
V,iii,422

Troilus and Cressida

Her bed is India, there she lies, a pearl.
I, i, 100

Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is."
I, ii, 289

Untune that string,
And hark what discord follows.
I, iii, 109-110

Modest doubt is call'd
The beacon of the wise.
II,ii,15

Nature, what things there are
Most abject in regard, and dear in use!
What things again most dear in the esteem,
And poor in worth!
III, iii, 127-130

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
III,iii,174

But sometimes we are devils to ourselves,
When we will 'tempt the frailty of our powers."
IV, iv, 95-96

The error of our eye directs our mind."
V, ii, 110

Twelfth Night

If music be the food of love, play on...
I,i,1

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.
I, v, 19

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
I,v,35

Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?
II, ii, 114-115

Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
II,iii,44

What is Love? 'Tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure.
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then, come kiss me, sweet, and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
II,iii,48

But be not afraid of greatness; some men are born great, some achieve
greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
II,v,143

Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.
III, i, 158

In nature there's no blemish but the mind;
None can be called deformed but the unkind.
III, iv, 379-380

And thus the whirlagig of time brings in his revenges.
V, i, 378-379

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,
As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple!
II,i,145

From the Poems and Sonnets

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste.
Sonnet XXX

All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
Sonnet XLIII

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end.
Sonnet LX

Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.

My favourite lines of Shakespeare, an excerpt from The Merchant of Venice –

”The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
’T is mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s,
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.“

You said – ”Bob had powder burns all over his uniform, and the five bullets were retrieved from the back of the police vehicle seat.”

It’s a shame that God couldn’t have prevented those powder burns from ruining his uniform as well. And then there’s the punctured upholstery of the police vehicle’s seat. Wouldn’t it have been easier (and less messy) for God to have simply prevented the gun from firing in the first place?

You said – ”The truth is that God doesn't own this world. It was legally turned over to Lucifer…”

And how does Lucifer manifest his powers of evil, Chris? Is it Lucifer who is responsible for HIV and the cancers that so horribly and agonisingly kill our loved ones? Is it Lucifer who creates the earthquakes and tornadoes that destroy our homes and kill our loved ones? Is it Lucifer who decimates whole communities with famine and disease?

No, of course not. All of the above ‘evils’ are naturally occurring phenomena that have been rationally and scientifically explained. There is no ‘evil force’, only the dispassionate and indifferent face of nature.

Perhaps then, it is Lucifer who compels man to murder, rape and wrong his fellow man? And here we have it, Chris. Lucifer exists only in the minds of men – he is the product of mankind’s imagination, just as God himself is an invention of the superstitious, with even less evidence to support His existence, than there is to suggest the possibility of ghosts, fairies, yetis and alien abductions, themselves the product of hoax and the delusional mind.

When people recover from illness, or are pulled from the wreckage of a natural disaster, we are not witnessing the power of God, we are seeing the artistry and benevolence of man triumphing over the forces of nature. People are healed by the care of doctors and nurses, and by the powers of recuperation that nature has equipped our own bodies with. Indeed, a belief in the power of God to heal can be dangerous – the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ refusal to accept blood transfusions is evidence of that, and many innocent, and uncomprehending children of such people have lost their lives thanks to the Dark Ages’ ignorance of their Jehovah’s Witnesses’ parents.

We can thank the inventiveness, ingenuity, industry and creativity of our fellow man for the warmth and comfort our homes provide, for the bountiful food that some of us enjoy, for the pleasures of music and the arts, and for the benevolence shown towards those who are less fortunate than ourselves. If we all relied on God for our survival, mankind would simply succumb to the destructive forces of nature.

No, all of the ‘evil’ and all of the ‘good’ in the world stems from mankind – the rest is merely nature relentlessly progressing the evolution of the universe. Only man, through technology and knowledge, can attempt to alter the course of nature.

If only religion was a force for good, I would simply regard it as a comical aberration. However, throughout mankind’s history, not only has religious stunted the progression of society, science and the arts, but religious belief has also spawned hate, bigotry, prejudice and divisiveness like no other human institution. However, if individuals gain solace or comfort from religious belief, I am all for it, just so long as they keep it to themselves.

Not only have the followers of different religious doctrine fought one another, but factions within each religion have also fought one another – and nowhere more so than within Christianity itself.

”Many of the greatest 'evils' in mankind's history have been perpetrated by Christian against Christian”. For instance, Great Britain’s transition from Catholicism to Protestantism during the 16th and 17th centuries saw some of the bloodiest and most gruesome atrocities perpetrated by man against his neighbour, all in the name of God. And it doesn’t stop there. Even within Protestantism, innumerable factions vie and compete for attention, with sometimes bloody consequences. Even today, Chris, your ‘ministry’ is a faction within Christianity that is at odds with many other factions of Christian practice – by your own admission, you are in dispute with the Christian establishment itself. It is only thanks to the toleration and benevolence of our modern society, that people with ‘magical’ beliefs such as yours are not being burnt at the stake as witches and warlocks.

Small wonder that the people of our modern and enlightened societies are turning away from religion in droves.

Why not just post a link and save us some scrolling?!?!
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/9/0,5716,20839+1,00.html

You said – ”Funny, Daniel2 will quote himself, but not his sources!”

Whatever my sources, at least they are based on substantiated fact and open to verification, unlike the whimsical and delusional fantasies that you so gullibly accept.

You said – ”….if the Reverend Dodgson (an incredibly intelligent theologian who would laugh at your antiquated views on natural disaster) were alive, he would probably spit in your face.”

Though that would be the typical Christian response, from the Reverend Dodgson I would expect a well-reasoned and compelling explanation of his beliefs and opinions, something you appear incapable of.

http://www.observer.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,432993,00.html

Not so. The Christian church is growing like no time since Jesus ministered in Israel 2000 years ago! If you have a television, Daniel, you may want to check out Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar (he's going to be ministering in London this month!), and a few others. These Bible teachers have huge international ministeries that are growing daily, because they are teaching the full Gospel and people are being set free from sickness & disease, as well as bondages of all kinds!
Your statement could not be more wrong. The Christian body of believers is in the midst of the great end-time harvest of souls, and the growth is phenomenal! At the end of last year, Dutch evangelist Reinhard Bonnke brought over SIX MILLION people in South Africa to the Lord Jesus Christ! Even here in my area, the churches that are teaching the FULL GOSPEL (I'm not speaking of the main-line denominations here, because many of them ARE drying up!) are growing like never before. It's happening throughout the world, in fulfillment of prophecy.

”Bob had powder burns all over his uniform, and the five bullets were retrieved from the back of the police vehicle seat.”

It’s a shame that God couldn’t have prevented those powder burns from ruining his uniform as well. And then there’s the punctured upholstery of the police vehicle’s seat. Wouldn’t it have been easier (and less messy) for God to have simply prevented the gun from firing in the first place?"

I know you're pulling my leg. The story is completely factual exactly as I related it to you. Newspapers in Atlanta, Georgia documented the incident in anal-retentive detail.
However, in a pragmatic sense you do make a point. God could easily have made the entire incident much cleaner by simply jamming the gun. But then nobody would've SEEN THE HAND OF GOD simply because a gun jammed. Bob led many fellow police officers to the Lord because of this - they NEEDED evidence - just like YOU need evidence, Daniel. God is always delighted to provide evidence. Ruining a police uniform and automobile upholstery is a small price to pay for a uniquely supernatural display of divine protection.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Observer:
Terry Gilliam probably has the worst luck of any filmmaker

---

Dammit.

Within ten days, THIS will be the longest thread-response of ALL time

In reply #19, after Mark Hatfield announced that he won't "contribute to this silliness", H Rocco said:

Me neither. I don't know WHAT I was thinking.

Say, Your H'ness, what do you think now?

Who ever ends it sings "So Long and Farewell" and links to "Another ? For Peter K".

I double posted!

That's seven!

PeterK, I bet, has a doomsday device, doesn't he? He'll set it off on the thread when it's over?

HEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAH! YEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAA!
WOOOOOOOOO HEEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I was joking then. I'm being serious now when I say that I'll miss this thread, despite the arguments and boring lectures from Historians.