he wrote the praise of folly
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real spelling is erasmus. Erasmus was born with the name Gerrit Gerritszoon (Dutch for Gerhard Gerhardson), probably in Rotterdam, although recent discoveries suggest he was actually born in Gouda, the Netherlands. Although much associated with this city, he lived there for only four years, never to return. Information on his family and early life comes mainly from vague references in his writings. He was almost certainly illegitimate.
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George Graham Vest\nA Tribute to Dogs\n\nGeorge Graham Vest (1830-1904) served as U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1879 to 1903 and became one of the leading orators and debaters of his time. This delightful speech is from an earlier period in his life when he practiced law in a small Missouri town. It was given in court while representing a man who sued another for the killing of his dog. During the trial, Vest ignored the testimony, but when his turn came to present a summation to the jury, he made the following speech and won the case.\n\n\n\nGentlemen of the Jury: The best friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us, may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads. \n\nThe one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog. A man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer. He will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings, and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens. \n\nIf fortune drives the master forth, an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies. And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by the graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even in death. \n\nGeorge Graham Vest - c. 1855
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He wrote as Silence Dogood in the New England Courant.\n\nyou can even read some of those letters here -\n\nhttp://www.ushistory.org/franklin/courant/\n\nHe also published the Pennsylvania Gazette and Poor Richard's Almanack.
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I am familiar with him, and I studied his plays.  \n\nThe poem was new to me, but it is short so I have an inkling what Mr. Williams may have been thinking.\n\nSome people believe that a soul that has never been born resides is a perfect place, perhaps even Heaven.  The Heavenly Grass is TWs metaphor for that place.  I think he mentions both day and night in the first half to show that he had completed a "cycle."  That he was ready to be born.  \n\nAnother possibility is the Heavenly Grass is his mother's womb.  He completed the cycle of growing, and then he was ready to be born.\n\nSo in the next part is his birth, and then he travels the earth.\n\nAt the end he admits that he misses what was before.  Whether it is Heaven or his mother's womb, it was a simpler and safer time for him.  He repeats himself for emphasis.
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Too arrogant.\n\nWhat would he SAY?
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A sermon i gave this last Yom Kippur:::\n\nI learned the hard way that Ecclesiastes is Right!\nLet me explain.\n\nMost people wrongly believe that the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes is a downer, a cynical, depressing book, and i have never never felt that way! I always thought that the book was one of the most uplifting books of the Bible, and i guess i need to explain that, as well, first.\n\nThe Book of Ecclesiastes is known for verses like, \n\n'to everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under the heavens, a time to be born and a time to die...' and:\n\n'there is nothing new under the sun.'  and:\n\n'vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' (horrible translation!)  and:\n\n'the sun also rises.'\n\nThe basic idea to Ecclesiastes is quite simply put, 'a hundred years from now, no one will know the difference.' And most people stop trying to understand the book after this. But they miss the point when they stop! The best way to say this is, 'a hundred years from now, no one will know the difference, AND SO WHAT??' \n\nIn other words, yes, its true, a hundred years from now, no one will know the difference, and so the successes you have now in your life, you must do for your sake, because they are meaningful to You, because they give your life meaning, and not because they will make any difference down the road. \n\nMy wife died 4 and half years ago. She was bright and funny, and clever, and raised two young daughters as best she could from the depth of all her illnesses. And a hundred years from now, no one will know it, but so what? She did it because it gave her pleasure and pride to see her daughters, my children, OUR kids, grow up, full of life and love and self-assured. It gave her life, no matter how short, meaning, and that is the only person it had to be meaningful to, not those who will live in 100 years. \n\nMy brother died almost two years ago. He started the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, yes, that M.I.T. at the age of 15! He was brilliant and he had a deep-seated passion for Justice, and he worked for Justice until he got sick. A hundred years from now, no one will know or care that he was brilliant and passionate, and so what? He did what he did because HE felt it to be important, because that is what gave his life meaning, and that is all, in the scheme of things, that mattered!\n\nMy mom now has lost her memories. She at one time, ran 5 businesses, got Broadway shows to come through Springfield Missouri, raised three sons, appeared on stage with actors now gone, too, and if a hundred years from now no one will know the difference, then so what? She did what was meaningful to her, and that is what is important. \n\nSo long as we remain within the boundaries of right, and what is just, and fair, in accordance with what Gd wants from us, we are free to make our lives as meaningful as we can. That is why i love the book of Ecclesiastes, because it frees us to make our own lives as meaningful as we can, in whatever ways we want, so long as we stay within the boudaries that Gd has set up for us. And that can be scary, because it means it is up to us, and us alone, even as we are free to do whatever we want as we live out our very short life on this earth! Life has no meaning whatsoever outside of whatever meaning WE put into it. It is therefore up to us, and only up to us, alone, to make our lives meaningful to ourselves, and there is, in the final analysis, no one else to blame but ourselves, if we dont put 60 seconds of life into each minute we live!\n\nThat is what i knew a long time ago, when i first read Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew Scriptures, but that is what i Realized with so many recent losses in my life. \n\nLife is what we make of it, and if 100 years from now, no one else knows the difference, SO WHAT, WE know the difference, so does Gd, and in the end, that is all who need to know.\n\n                Ecclesiastes 9:7-10 7 Go thy way, eat
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Shakespere wrote it.  It's from Henry V.  Part of a monolog by the king
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I wish I knew.  I've been a reader of his for some time now, and I have never seen anything offensive in his writings.  I have written Yahoo Answers asking them to reinstate him.
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The Triumph of the Intellect
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Yes, that is a doxology, a song of praise to God for all He has done.
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FOR WESMEISTER:  Answer not a fool according to his folly lest thou also be like unto him.\n                                                 Proverbs 26:4
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One who knows he is one and admires himself for it.
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Awesome poem!\nAmazing!! lol...\nu were 10 or 11? that's so amazing!
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First, to find "irony," we need to know what we are looking for.  I went to www.dictionary.com and found several listings for irony.  I think the definitions of "irony," that stick out the most after reading the poem are these:  (1) in literature conveying an attitude opposite of what is discussed; and (2) humorous mockery.  \nHow did the author of the poem create this ingenious irony?  When you read the poem, you are not worried about the impending doom that is discussed.  You are smiling and think its funny because the author is joking about a common human tendency to worry too much.  \nAlso, "irony," is "sardonic," humor or mockery.  I looked up "sardonic," in the dictionary and learned that the poem is sardonic in every sense.  It is bitter about tragedy and doom, and scornful of its own tendency to worry!
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CS Lewis wrote it.\nIt is an allegory about the  purpose of Jesus Christ
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"Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo." \n- H. G. Wells (1866-1946)\n\n"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." \n- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) \n\n"Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake." \n- Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956) \n\n"Don't be so humble - you are not that great." \n- Golda Meir (1898-1978) to a visiting diplomat \n\n"His ignorance is encyclopedic" \n- Abba Eban (1915-2002) \n\n"If a man does his best, what else is there?" \n- General George S. Patton (1885-1945) \n\n"I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better." \n- A. J. Liebling (1904-1963) \n\n"People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." \n- Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855) \n\n"Give me chastity and continence, but not yet." \n- Saint Augustine (354-430) \n\n"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." \n- Albert Einstein (1879-1955) \n\n"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." \n- Albert Einstein (1879-1955) \n\n"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." \n- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) \n\n"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." \n- Galileo Galilei \n\n"The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work." \n- Emile Zola (1840-1902) \n\n"This book fills a much-needed gap." \n- Moses Hadas (1900-1966) in a review \n\n"The full use of your powers along lines of excellence." \n- definition of "happiness" by John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) \n\n"I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart." \n- e e cummings (1894-1962) \n\n"Give me a museum and I'll fill it." \n- Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) \n\n"Assassins!" \n- Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) to his orchestra \n\n"I'll moider da bum." \n- Heavyweight boxer Tony Galento, when asked what he thought of William Shakespeare \n\n"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is." \n- Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut \n\n"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have." \n- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) \n\n"Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems." \n- Rene Descartes (1596-1650), "Discours de la Methode" \n\n"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." \n- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) \n\n"Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right." \n- Henry Ford (1863-1947) \n\n"Do, or do not. There is no 'try'." \n- Yoda ('The Empire Strikes Back') \n\n"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it." \n- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) \n\n"Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed." \n- George Burns (1896-1996)\n\n\n"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves." \n- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)\n\n\n"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense." \n- Edsgar Dijkstra\n\n\n"C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg." \n- Bjarne Stroustrup\n\n\n"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." \n- Paul Erdos (1913-1996)\n\n\n"Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by fighting b
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He was a creative genius who was surely out of his mind. Dostoevsky was just as brilliant, but not as insane.