Ben Quotes - page 7
Every universe, our own included, begins in conversation. Every golem in the history of the world, from Rabbi Hanina's delectable goat to the river-clay Frankenstein of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, was summoned into existence through language, through murmuring, recital, and kabbalistic chitchat -- was, literally, talked into life.
Michael Chabon
Ben Franklin was a little stout later in life and it was said that in Paris a young woman, tapping him on his protruding abdomen, said,'Dr. Franklin, if this were on a woman, we'd know what to think.' And Franklin replied,'Half an hour ago, Mademoiselle, it was on a woman, and now what do you think'
Benjamin Franklin
Let me end with... man's ageless fantasy, to fly to the moon.... Plutarch and Lucian, Ariosto and Ben Jonson wrote about it, before the days of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells and science fiction. The seventeenth century was heady with... fables about voyages to the moon. Kepler wrote one full of deep scientific ideas... wrote... The Discovery of a New World. They did not draw a line between science and fancy... they all tried to guess where... earth's gravity would stop. Only Kepler understood that gravity has no boundary, and put a law to it-... the wrong law.
All this was a few years before Isaac Newton was born, and it was all in his head that day in 1666, when he... came to conceive... that the moon is like a ball... thrown so hard that it falls exactly as fast as the horizon... he went on to calculate how long... the distant moon would take to round the earth... [T]he imagination that day chimed with nature, and made a harmony.
Jacob Bronowski
In these fast and fickle times, it's nice to know that there are some things you can always count on: the enduring brilliance of the last page of The Great Gatsby; the near-religious harmonies of the Beach Boys' "California Girls”; and the lifelong friendship of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
Sarah Vowell
What do Ben and Jerry's, an 800,000-member South African trade union, countless college professors, a big chunk of Amazon's Seattle workforce, and more high school students than you can imagine have in common? They're all joining in a massive climate strike this coming Friday, September 20 - a strike that will likely register as the biggest day of climate action in the planet's history.
Bill McKibben
I descend from both Philadelphia Quakers and Carolina colonists whose families were separated by the Revolutionary War. That helped give me insight into the agony of Patriots who, until the British government denied their claims, had always, like Ben Franklin himself, thought of themselves as free-born Englishmen.
Edward Rutherfurd
As far back as 1624... Louis Savot invented the first heat-circulating fireplace. His unit was installed in the Louvre, Paris, and became the prototype for Ben Franklin's 1742 Pennsylvania stove. The 1624 French fireplace achieved 30 to 45 percent more efficiency than do most American tract home fireplaces of today! Savot surrounded the grate of his creation with a metal chamber, which had warm air outlets above the fire opening. He also supplied the fire with air from under the floor. Thus, room drafts were reduced and combustion efficiency was further improved. Few people are aware that practically all of the technical features of Franklin's Pennsylvania stove were copied from earlier inventors.
Ken Kern
I hate people at Halloween they don't carve their pumpkin out, they'll just like paint a face on it; you know what I'm talking about? But some people won't even do that, they'll paint a face, but it won't even be on a pumpkin, it'll be like on a piece of paper. But some people won't even do that, they'll take like a bunch of words and put that on a piece of paper, and it'll be like an essay on Ben Franklin or some shit, you know? And then they'll hand it in at school and it won't even be Halloween! It's like, pffft, nice jack-o-lantern, jackass![citation needed].
Kyle Cease
For we Englysshe men ben borne under the domynacyon of the mone, whiche is never stedfaste but ever waverynge, wexynge one season and waneth and dyscreaseth another season. And that comyn Englysshe that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from a-nother, in so moche that in my dayes happened that certayn marchauntes were in a ship in Tamyse for to have sayled over the see into Zelande, and, for lacke of wynde, thei taryed atte Forlond, and wente to lande for to refreshe them. And one of theym named Sheffelde, a mercer, cam in to an hows and axed for mete and specyally he axyd after eggys, and the goode wyf answerde that she could speke no Frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no Frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges; and she understode hym not. And thenne at laste a-nother sayd that he wolde have eyren. Then the good wyf sayd that she understod hym wel. Loo, what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges, or eyren?
William Caxton
