Bed Of Procrustes Quotes & Sayings

I undid the wrappings with great curiosity, for Holmes did not normally give gifts. I opened the dark velvet jewller's box and found inside a shiny new set of picklocks, a younger version of his own. Holmes, ever the romantic. Mrs. Hudson would be pleased. — Laurie R. King

The Procrustean bed ... suggests itself with dispiriting aptness as a metaphor for the Culture Wars, right down to the blandishments with which Procrustes must have lured his guests over the threshold. (I picture him as a handsome fellow with a large vocabulary and an oleaginous tongue, not unlike the chairmen of many English departments.) There's just one crucial difference. Sometimes Procrustes lopped off his victims, and sometimes he stretched them, but the Culture Wars always lop. I have never seen cultural politics enlarge a work of literature, only diminish it. — Anne Fadiman

Two Romans seem to deliver no contest. Send three, so that I may deliver proper tribute! — Gannicus

It is indeed a matter of great difficulty to discover, and effectually to distinguish, the true motions of particular bodies from the apparent because the parts of that immovable space, in which those motions are performed, do by no means come under the observation of our senses. — Isaac Newton

If some area of your life sucks - do something else. Life is too short - and too long - to spend it being miserable. Life may indeed be short but it is for a fact wide. It is high time we started settling for more. — Jill Conner Browne

Procrustes, in Greek mythology, was the cruel owner of a small estate in Corydalus in Attica, on the way between Athens and Eleusis, where the mystery rites were performed. Procrustes had a peculiar sense of hospitality: he abducted travelers, provided them with a generous dinner, then invited them to spend the night in a rather special bed. He wanted the bed to fit the traveler to perfection. Those who were too tall had their legs chopped off with a sharp hatchet; those who were too short were stretched (his name was said to be Damastes, or Polyphemon, but he was nicknamed Procrustes, which meant "the stretcher"). — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Everybody is fucked up and we are all freaks in our own ways-Agent Reed — C.J. Roberts

Great innovation only happens when people aren't afraid to do things differently. — Georg Cantor

We can't live any more in a world which is based on stuff and not ideas. If you want to live with the world of stuff, we're all doomed. — Dean Kamen

Anyone who starts doubting details will end by doubting life itself. — Milan Kundera

The self is a
self-made
Procrustean bed
of little comfort — Ulf Wolf

It's frustrating to witness how popular Fairtrade bananas, coffee and tea have become with shoppers and supermarkets while plenty of unfair trade goes on, largely unnoticed, in our own back yard. — Rose Prince

When I'm unhappy with something, people know, because I don't want to hold on to it. I'd rather deal immediately with the stuff that bothers me, so using my network - my girlfriends, my husband, my mom - I talk a lot, I vent. — Michelle Obama

Procrustes in modern dress, the nuclear scientist will prepare the bed on which mankind must lie; and if mankind doesn't fit - well, that will be just too bad for mankind. There will have to be some stretching and a bit of amputation - the same sort of stretching and amputations as have been going on ever since applied science really got going into its stride, only this time they will be a good deal more drastic than in the past. These far from painless operations will be directed by highly centralized totalitarian governments. — Aldous Huxley

Play as much as you can as often as you can with as many people as you can. That's how you learn and grow. — Les Claypool

A goal without a pan is just a wish. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

My memories of camp - I was four years old to eight years old - they're fond memories. — George Takei