Friday, March 17, 2006

On a day like this

Mad Magazine (1, 2) says something like:

"March 17, 400-something: St. Patrick introduces Christianity to Ireland, thereby giving the natives something to fight about for the rest of their recorded history."

Actually March 17 was the date of his death. It's still a good quote. Apparently, it's also a good reason to wear green and drink pints of beer in Irish pubs all over the world.

"When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land." Desmond Tutu

10 comments:

Lazarus said...

funny stuff hassan. you MI! ;)

Raja said...

"But faith, like a jakal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope"

Herman Melville

Lazarus said...

quote competition i see :P

here's one i like. of course, feel free to change the last two nouns to whatever you want.

"Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest!"

Emile Zola.

Raja said...

Laz, you're funny! :) Here's a couple of simple ones that I underlined in a novel I read recently called The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin:

"You can't crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them... By refusing to think, refusing to change. And that's precisely what our society is doing!"

The other one, I am afraid, may pose a challenge to your quote...

"The same old hypocrisy. Life is a fight, and the strongest wins. All civilization does is hide the blood and cover up the hate with pretty words."

Lazarus said...

yeah, that second quote is quite true.

and emerson seems to agree: "The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization."

however, i won't give up! so i will refer to dear gandhi and write: "The truest test of civilization, culture, and dignity is character, not clothing."

in other words, a civilization that does "unkind things in a kind way" (shaw) is not civilization.

Lazarus said...

yeah, that second quote is quite true.

and emerson seems to agree: "The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization."

however, i won't give up! so i will refer to dear gandhi and write: "The truest test of civilization, culture, and dignity is character, not clothing."

in other words, a civilization that does "unkind things in a kind way" (shaw) is not civilization.

Raja said...

Hey Laz, Hassan,

I just found one that fits right into our theme of religion and civilization. It's from another novel I read a couple weeks back called the "The Last Kingdom" by Bernard Cornwell.

The context is medieval England, and the author describes king Alfred of England (who really lived and fought off the Danish invasion of England).

"King Alfred was obsessed by the task of marshaling life's chaos into something that could be controlled. He would do it by the church and by the law, which are much the same thing...."

I really love how the author phrased that: "marshalling life's chaos into something he could control..."

and how the king used "the church" and "the law", "which are much the same thing."

A uncanny resemblance to the reality in Lebanon and the Middle East in general. Unbelievable!

Hassan said...

Totally Unbelievable. Does this repetition put you down?

Anonymous said...

somewhat

AbdulKarim said...

Hey guys

what about this quote:

"3asfour bil eed btitla3 il bint la imma"

;-)