Proverbs

Woebot

Well-known member
"Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead."

Old Scottish one apparently. Like this one very much. Kind of clever.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Great thread idea, WB.

A mate of mine had a book of proverbs - specifically Sufic ones, IIRC - one of which went summat like:

"It is unwise to make friends with an elephant trainer if you have no room to entertain an elephant."

which I thought was brilliant. :D
 

zhao

there are no accidents
When a monkey climbs a tree, its bottom becomes more exposed the higher it goes. ~Malawian Proverb

Not all winds propel the boat. ~African Proverb

Every misfortune is a blessing. ~African Proverb
 

bobbin

What
hmm... it's trite, but i feel like making the observation that pretty often when something shit happens, you learn something or probabilities alter in a way that ultimately causes something good. i reckon it's how i tend to think of things. i think i get a bit too wound up about misfortunate without that idea.

obviously there are other well known proverbs along the same lines. maybe it's just psychologically useful. maybe if you look at the sum misfortune in the world (not just e.g. my small-time concerns) it's inaccurate and even slightly offensive.

feels odd to me trying to have a serious discussion about the merits of a proverb, but why not eh?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I guess the "every misfortune is a blessing" is just another way of saying "every cloud has a silver lining" - which I have to admit I'm not totally convinced by either.
I'd like some clarification on a few to be honest - do many hands make light work or do too many cooks spoil the broth? Is it better late than never or is that just shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted?
 

bobbin

What
I'd like some clarification on a few to be honest - do many hands make light work or do too many cooks spoil the broth? Is it better late than never or is that just shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted?

there's an art piece i remember enjoying seeing called truisms. it was one of those dot matrix led text displays, like you get in a train carriage or whatever, that was just fed by a massive database of 'truisms'. if you watched for a while, you started to notice how many contradictions there were.

here we go, jenny holtzer. a list, though obviously it was cooler seeing them scroll one by one almost painfully slowly: http://mfx.dasburo.com/art/truisms.html
 

Dr Awesome

Techsteppin'
there's an art piece i remember enjoying seeing called truisms. it was one of those dot matrix led text displays, like you get in a train carriage or whatever, that was just fed by a massive database of 'truisms'. if you watched for a while, you started to notice how many contradictions there were.

here we go, jenny holtzer. a list, though obviously it was cooler seeing them scroll one by one almost painfully slowly: http://mfx.dasburo.com/art/truisms.html

"We've always been at war with Eastasia"
"We've always been at war with Eurasia"
 

zhao

there are no accidents
hmm... it's trite, but i feel like making the observation that pretty often when something shit happens, you learn something or probabilities alter in a way that ultimately causes something good. i reckon it's how i tend to think of things. i think i get a bit too wound up about misfortunate without that idea.

obviously there are other well known proverbs along the same lines. maybe it's just psychologically useful. maybe if you look at the sum misfortune in the world (not just e.g. my small-time concerns) it's inaccurate and even slightly offensive.

feels odd to me trying to have a serious discussion about the merits of a proverb, but why not eh?

sure (nearly) every misfortune can become a blessing, depending on what you decide to do with/about/in spite of it.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Having a hard time seeing how being robbed or getting hit by a car (say) would constitute much of a blessing, TBH.

I mean, of course you can try and "put your best foot forward", "make the best of a bad job" and so on, but these aren't so much proverbs as platitudes.

Edit: as pointed out nicely by Rich. Well I guess when all's said and done, at the end of the day you can't beat a good cliche.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
here we go, jenny holtzer. a list, though obviously it was cooler seeing them scroll one by one almost painfully slowly: http://mfx.dasburo.com/art/truisms.html

I saw a similar thing in a little animation once, just as a joke though, that involved a 'platitudipus' - a huge platypus floating in the sky above London, with various messages projcted onto it such as "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" and "Cheer up, it might never happen!" in order to spread vague, anodyne 'good vibes' among the populace.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I saw a similar thing in a little animation once, just as a joke though, that involved a 'platitudipus' - a huge platipus floating in the sky above London, with various messages projcted onto it such as "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" and "Cheer up, it might never happen!" in order to spread vague, anodyne 'good vibes' among the populace.

it is pretty likely that will happen at some point during the next ten years, though.

Anyone who uses the phrase "Cheer up, it might never happen" deserves to be boiled alive in hot oil, tied in a sack with twenty rabid, starving cats and flung off the battlements. And then kicked to death, just in case.
 
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