Comments
Please wait...
Comments are closed.
Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.
is a proud member of the
network
network
All contents © Noisy Creek, Inc.
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
I've converted to the "proud to be a mammal" shave-less behaviour some years ago too :-)
Intriguing. If the origin is Shaw, Twain, Parker, or anyone of that ilk (I'd throw Wilde in as another likely contender), I'd think it'd be included. I tried to check my OED, to see it used as an example quote, but came up dry.
As for the "Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait" that Alison suggests, Bartlett's has that (yes, 1594), but while it's perhaps true, it lacks the spirit of frustration that youth is wasted on the young has.
I sometimes feel a sense of "if I knew then what I know now," but that's a totally different feeling than YIWOTY, which I love--and tend to agree with.
By the way, the book containing "si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait" published in 1594 by Henri Estienne was a collection of French proverbs rewritten as epigrams.
So this proverb is probably older than that, and may even have roots in the Antiquity, as Estienne was both a printer, and a greek and latin scholar.
It's not a Happy Place, to know. I am not ignorant, just because I don't want to snoop.
This is a great article from the New Yorker, in which Rebecca Mead (who's just published My Life in "Middlemarch") writes about Eliot, Middlemarch, and that quote.
She says: "'Middlemarch' is not about blooming late, or unexpectedly coming into oneās own after the unproductive flush of youth. 'Middlemarch' suggests that it is always too late to be what you might have beenābut it also shows that, virtually without exception, the unrealized life is worth living. The book that Virginia Woolf characterized as āone of the few English novels written for grown-up peopleā is also a book about how to be a grownup personāabout how to bear oneās share of sorrow, failure, and loss, as well as to enjoy moments of hard-won happiness."
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/0…
http://freakonomics.com/2011/04/14/quote…
Iām not a classicist, so a brief google only gets me this from Sophocles: No man loves life like him thatās growing old.
Some truth to that, but the key is not to let it get you down. There is so much to enjoy and experience in life.
Yep, it has a distinct classical feeling... A good test for an antique origin would be to scan for the same meaning in other languages, like russian.
@Larry1234
The hot, young gays do not constitute the entirety of the gay world, I hope ?
"The hot, young gays do not constitute the entirety of the gay world, I hope?"
No, but there is a generational cohort wherein the formerly young and hot are disproportionately unrepresented.
First, Dan was completely biased and off the mark in referring to this merely as 'online flirting'. The boyfriend most certainly went outside of the relationship by setting up secret accounts, exchanging photos, and possibly having intimate conversations that should only be reserved between those in a committed relationship. Committed and monogamous couples, straight or gay, do not do such things behind one another's backs. Think of this in heterosexual terms. I could never imagine my mother EVER being okay with my father having secret email accounts, conversing secretly with other women, and exchanging pictures! I have known straight and gay couples whose relationships have been almost destroyed over this type of activity. I also know experts in the filed of marital and couple's therapy/counseling who definitely refer to this as a form of infidelity that effects trust as a core of committed relationships. But what bothers me the most is the minimizing, sarcastic, cruel, catty, and insensitive way that Dan responded to SOCI. WOW! My sincere condolences to whoever Dan is in a relationship with! And to SOCI.......you most certainly have every right to feel stressed and then some if what occurred is outside of the parameters of what appears to be a committed and monogamous relationship with someone that you have life plans with!