Cheeky Quote Day! 19 August 2009

From Denny: This was a fun category I discovered recently - genius quotes. Since I grew up in the intelligence community where they chased after geniuses, even tried to breed them, this has long been an area of interest for me. I even used to throw all my IQ tests just so my father's "blessed" colleagues would never know my level of ability.

They had already nailed my mother and older brother and the last thing I wanted to be labeled was as a genius. In my experience all it meant was you had to memorize useless trivia to prove how smart you were and act like a performing seal at a marina for your handlers. That translated as a lack of freedom to live your life as you chose.

Humor has always been my choice of how to best react to life, especially when other people who don't quite "get it" try to harass, bully or stress you. More than anything I found it amusing how people who are not defined as geniuses have decided they know how to define genius. Now does that practice make any sense to you? It sure didn't to me when I was growing up in the weird atmosphere.

It would have been pure heaven to have some of these cheeky quotes to whip out and use from time to time when my father's crowd got pushy about trying to control someone else's intelligence, like you were a willing robot to be used as they willed. Too bizarre. Some of these quotes are by people labeled as geniuses and they have a wonderful sense of the ironic and good humor!

Quotes

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others. - Mark Twain

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

I think the world is run by C students. - Al McGuire

Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one. - E.B. White

In every work of genius, we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self Reliance," Essays, 1841

Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius. - George Bernard Shaw

If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If the Aborigine drafted an I.Q. test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it. - Stanley Garn

The reluctance to put away childish things may be a requirement of genius. - Rebecca Pepper Sinkler

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. - Albert Einstein

Character is higher than intellect. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. - Albert Einstein

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up. - Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad"

Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun. - George Scialabra

A great many people think that polysyllables are a sign of intelligence. - Barbara Walters

The invention of IQ does a great disservice to creativity in education. - Joel Hildebrand

If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't. - Emerson M. Pugh

I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb... and I also know that I'm not blonde. - Dolly Parton, singer and actress


Clown Photo by I'm Fantastic! @ flickr

Cheeky Quote Day! 1 April 2009

Image via Wikipedia

Photo of writer Fran Lebowitz.

April Fools Day AND Cheeky Quote Day: Blog Writer Wins Lottery!

In addition to the usual amusing quotes you have come to expect every Wednesday at The Social Poets...

And not one to let a holiday celebration like April Fools Day pass into oblivion without some historical commentary...

I spent some time over at the Museum of Hoaxes, chuckling over the many hoaxes people were actually gullible enough to believe. Be kind. These were our parents and grandparents! Imagine that. Some day your kids will be laughing at you while Karma stands to the side and nods his head in agreement with the philosophy of "what goes around comes around."

Featured today are quotes from American journalist Fran Lebowitz:

“Calling a taxi in Texas is like calling a rabbi in Iraq.”

“Polite conversation is rarely either.”

“Food is an important part of a balanced diet.”

“In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country of America, capitalism triumphed over democracy.”

From a man who has been making the world laugh for decades:

“Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry.”
- Bill Cosby, American comedian

Even the math guys can be funny:

"To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself."
- Albert Einstein, math wiz, “ya think?”

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Since it’s April Fools Day…

From the Museum of Hoaxes come some real grinners!

Drunk Driving on the Internet

Happened in 1994:

An article in PC Computing magazine written by John Dvorak described a bill going through Congress that would make it illegal to use the internet while drunk, or to discuss sexual matters over a public network.

The bill was supposedly numbered 040194 (i.e. 04/01/94), and the contact person was listed as Lirpa Sloof (April Fools backwards). The article said that the FBI was going to use the bill to tap the phone line of anyone who "uses or abuses alcohol" while accessing the internet.

Passage of the bill was felt to be certain because "Who wants to come out and support drunkenness and computer sex?" The article offered this explanation for the origin of the bill: "The moniker 'Information Highway' itself seems to be responsible for SB 040194, which is designed to prohibit anyone from using a public computer network (Information Highway) while the computer user is intoxicated. I know how silly this sounds, but Congress apparently thinks being drunk on a highway is bad no matter what kind of highway it is. The bill is expected to pass this month."

The article generated so many outraged phone calls to Congress that Senator Edward Kennedy's office had to release an official denial of the rumor that he was a sponsor of the bill.

***



The Left-Handed Whopper

Happened in 1998:

Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a "Left-Handed Whopper" specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans.

According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers.

The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according to the press release, "many others requested their own 'right handed' version."

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The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest

Happened in 1957:

The respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees.

Huge numbers of viewers were taken in. Many called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC diplomatically replied, "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

For full length article go here.

Go here for the actual historical video, most amusing since in 1957 most of the world didn’t know a thing about spaghetti, except my mother who was born in New York City and cooked it regularly much to the chagrin of the locals in Maine who thought it was weird at the time, becoming converts later like most of America.

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For today’s generation of typographers and designers, check out the previous cheeky generation of pranksters. Once in a while newspaper guys are actually funny!

San Serriffe

Happened in 1977:

The British newspaper The Guardian published a special seven-page supplement devoted to San Serriffe, a small republic said to consist of several semi-colon-shaped islands located in the Indian Ocean.

A series of articles affectionately described the geography and culture of this obscure nation. Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica.

The Guardian's phones rang all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot. Only a few noticed that everything about the island was named after printer's terminology. The success of this hoax is widely credited with launching the enthusiasm for April Foolery that gripped the British tabloids in subsequent decades.

For the full length article go here.

Keep grinning through your work week!