I can't fix her. She's already perfect.
What is the greatest sentence ever written in human history?
3 months ago by stermy4u to c/asklemmy
I can't fix her. She's already perfect.
Don't let your dreams stay dreams. I'm not saying it will be easy. Get an alligator and a pineapple costume. Sign up for tap lessons and bring them along. Volunteer as a docent at your local zoo. Success isn't guaranteed, but I bet you'll be surprised with how far you get.
Thank you for your faith,…the alligator is likely to be my biggest challenge. Maybe a baby croc…or a Winnie dog in an alligator outfit…..it’s the same thing really. I don’t suppose I even have to learn tap to teach it. So there’s a few hurdles down.
Does she have a sister?
At this juncture, I would point out that !floridaman@lemmy.world also accepts "Florida Woman" submissions.
EDIT: Unfortunately, it appears to be fake.
I need this pineapple costume.
I'd agree, but that's 2 sentences.
"In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very unhappy and has been widely regarded as a bad move.";
Still doesn't work.
At least now it compiles
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.
"This too shall pass"
If something good happens, it's a cautionary warning to stay humble.
If something bad happens, it's a comforting reminder that things will get better.
Good point
I've also heard "Everything ends"
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
Buffalo buffalo WHICH Buffalo buffalo, buffalo buffalo Buffalo
It annoys me that the quoted sentence misses out essential words.
Not an essential word if you the listener have context! It's just that understanding this phrase is reliant on reader knowing context (i..e either that buffalo tend to buffalo buffalo OR just the theory/gimmick of the sentence itself.)
Also i believe OP made some effort to indicate via Capitalisation that one repeated buffalo is a proper noun. (Place name)
See: Buffalo(pl) buffalo(an) Buffalo(pl) buffalo(an) buffalo(vrb), buffalo(vrb) Buffalo(pl) buffalo(an)
pl: place, an: animal, vrb: verb.
Washington cats [missing] florida rats chase, annoy Vegas whores.
There needs to be a which, that, who or something in that missing space for a proper sentence structure.
Here's some discussion of omitting "that" after a noun. I don't agree with Grammar Girl on what sounds awkward but she acknowledges that sentences can sound awkward but not be "wrong".
The Packers haven’t drafted a quarterback despite rumors they were interested in doing so.
Again, these sentences aren’t wrong, but they would sound a lot better with “that” inserted after the nouns “allegations” and “rumors.”
Nope, that makes perfect sense to me without which that or who.
"Washington cats florida rats chase annoy vegas whores"
It's a question of where you put pauses and intonation, when sounding it out in your head (or to another person). If you read it monotone it makes little sense. Unfortunately, knowing how its said requires deciphering it first. A lot of english novels have stuff like this, you'll probably find - you have to read sentences twice to understand what it means
I'll read this phrase but I won't enjoy it
The chinese poem "The Story of Mr. Shi Eating Lions"
Shíshì shī shì shǐ shì, shì shǐ, shī shì, shì shí shí shī. Shī sì shì shī. Shǐ shì shè sì, shì shī shì, shǐ shī shì shí shī shī, shì shí shí, shǐ shí shìshì. Shǐ shǐ shì shì shì shì, shì shī shì. Shì shì shì shì.
"I look both ways when I cross a one way street, because that's how much faith I have in humanity."
I live on a one way street. The amount of vehicles that zoom by in the wrong direction is ridiculous
"Do you think... God stays in heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he's created, here on Earth? "
Dr Romero, Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams, written by Robert Rodriguez.
I thought this was his character in Con Air
Tiān gāo, huángdì yuǎn
Heaven is high and the emperor is far away
Is one of my favorite.
Another is the a misattributed quote:
Les hommes ne seront jamais libres tant que le dernier roi ne sera pas étranglé avec les entrailles du dernier prêtre.
Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
Though the apparent original is good too.
Je ne veux ni donner ni recevoir de lois.
Et ses mains ourdiraient les entrailles du prêtre,
Au défaut d'un cordon pour étrangler les rois.
I seek neither to rule nor to serve.
And its hands would weave the entrails of the priest,
For the lack of a cord with which to strangle kings.
The second line from the US declaration of indpenedce is a banger too:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
John Brown's:
I cannot remember a night so dark as to have hindered the coming day.
Is also really good.
I seek neither to rule nor to serve.
And its hands would weave the entrails of the priest,
For the lack of a cord with which to strangle kings.
What does that even mean? What thing's hands are we talking aboit by the second line?
It's a truncated quote from Diderot. The full verse is:
J’en atteste les temps ; j’en appelle à tout âge ;
Jamais au public avantage
L’homme n’a franchement sacrifié ses droits ;
S’il osait de son cœur n’écouter que la voix,
Changeant tout à coup de langage,
Il nous dirait, comme l’hôte des bois :
« La nature n’a fait ni serviteur ni maître;
« Je ne veux ni donner ni recevoir de lois. »
Et ses mains ourdiraient les entrailles du prêtre,
Au défaut d'un cordon pour étrangler les rois.
A slightly better translation would be:
I bear witness to the times; I appeal to all ages;
Never, for the public good,
Has man willingly sacrificed his rights;
If he dared to listen only to the voice of his heart,
Suddenly changing his tone,
He would say to us, like the dweller of the woods:
“Nature has created neither servant nor master;
“I wish neither to give nor to receive laws.”
And his hands would tear out the priest’s entrails,
For lack of a cord to strangle kings.
It is the voice of the forest, dweller of the woods being a stand in for anarchists. So the hands strangling kings with priest's entrails are those of the man realizing the importance of rights and freedom. Diderot elaborates across the poem about the character of political order. Declaring that no law or political rule is sacred or natural. Mankind makes sociopolitical structures, they are not natural, and thus nature will gladly unmake them, as a king dying, for example. Essentially, he says that no elevated, supernatural, or godly power exists that will stop the hands of a person who has chosen to defy political oppression. It was extremely controversial in the XVIII century, a liberal cry for revolution against political systems that still stood over the pillars of a god given right of monarchs to rule. It's called Les éleuthéromanes, I'm not gonna try to translate that, but the full text can be found freely.
Worse yet it's missing some good context that dustyData shared in this thread. I just included it in reference to the quote I thought of
Despite all our accomplishments, we all own our existence to a 6 inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.
I found it somewere on the Internet and can Not forget it.
I read that too. Good one.
Spoken, not written:-
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly
"It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times...stupid monkey!"
Boo-urns. Boo-urns
We apologize for the inconvenience.
I am reading this, but I am not enjoying it, and I thought you should know
You have nothing to loose but your chains
"The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed."
"Long days and pleasant nights."
"The man in black fled into the desert, and the gunslinger followed"
By far my favorite Stephen King books. There are some rough parts for sure, but overall they're very good. That reminds me I haven't read them for a few years.
The cost of living is dying, and everyone pays.
"He who fights monsters must see that he doesn't become a monster himself. For when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you."
Friedrich Nietzsche
I hate how often I see this quote without attribution.
Also: "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger."
Friedrich Nietzsche
"What doesn't kill you, makes you crippled"
Gregory House
It's over 9000!
Was shocked to discover very recently that it’s meant to be “It’s over 8000!”, and 9000 was a mistranslation
Wait, really? My whole life is a lie.
Yeah, in the Dragon Ball Z Kai English dub, Vegeta now says 8000!
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.
Perhaps the best, most succinct explanation of historical materialism.
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language.
love that with such a broad sample pool, what we get here are some quips, in English, from the last few decades
Here's some really profound writing you might enjoy, really brings a tear to the eye.

honestly, I always felt like this passage was heavy handed. Sort of manipulating us to feel something rather than earning it, you know?
They're such powerful words...
猿も木から落ちる
Ja. Selbst der beste Schütze verfehlt sein Ziel
A wall is but a bridge built wrongly.
If you're gonna be stupid, be smart about it.
*Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?"
I think we are at that point again but with “AI”.
"Money can't buy happiness, but it's better to cry in a taxi than on a bus." - Marcel Reich-Ranicki (German literary critic)
I changed the last word in the translation to bus for the US readers. It should be tram or streetcar but I assumed bus is more common and widely known.
Be good...or be good at it.

you know. you should never open it.
Hand me that piano.
Mrs. Higgins’ body was found in the pantry, bludgeoned with a potato ricer and lying atop a fifty-pound sack of Yukon golds, her favorite for making gnocchi, though some people consider them too moist for this purpose.
-Joel Phillips
Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.
Never half ass two things, instead whole ass one thing.
"I have a hawk and it's trained to kill cops"
The problem is, or rather one of the problems, for there are many, a sizeable proportion of which are continually clogging up the civil, commercial, and criminal courts in all areas of the Galaxy, and especially, where possible, the more corrupt ones, this.
“ The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” -Teddy Roosevelt
That's a long sentence.
Yeah, I did not plan on that. At first I was going to just put the first sentence, “It is not the critic who counts,” but then I started reading, and on the third sentence I kept reading and not finding a period, which I thought was funny so I shared that.
I’m also now realizing that, while I typically read it, this quote was originally from a speech and not a piece of writing, therefore not technically qualifying for this post at all!
But you know what, it’s what I thought of, and at least I hopped in the comment arena and gave something.
It has not been written yet. But it will be soon. Look in the obituary sections.
"Elaine, if I'd a knowed that you'd a wanted to went, I'd a seen that you'd a got to get to go."
"A traveller from an antique land who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert."
OZYMANDIAS
These words have ways stuck with me, reminding me of the rest of the poem, but mainly reminding me that even vast, expensive and truly effortful things that many once cared about will eventually decay and become forgotten. Similar to the other post that this too shall pass.
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
You left out the most poignant part of the verse: "Nothing beside remains." Look on your works? They all turned to dust.
I memorized the whole thing in school. I've forgotten parts, but it really has stuck with me since. But it took a decade or so before the real true impact of it hit home.
Like, as a teen I understand it, King built a statue, was a powerful proud king, had everything, blah blah, now it's all but gone and only pieces of a statue even remain.
But, the impact of it hit as an adult.
Not even the greatest of kings or warriors or sages can escape the slow erosion of time and sand and all things crumble to dust.
It's both depressing and empty feeling, but also freeing in a way. Optimistic Nihilism I guess? It's all going to be dust one day, so be nice and have fun and be whimsical and silly and do what you want.
It does at least give me comfort that even the big evil rulers of our age will one day be long forgotten and but a crumbled relic and some lines in a rotting history book that no one bothers to read anymore.
I can't imagine I've read enough to know that but have always loved this one, from St Augustine, of all people.
Dance is a transformation of space, of time, of people, who are in constant danger of becoming all brain, will, or feeling.
The whole poem is amazing.
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
Shakespeare
Personally I think the golden rule, it has many variations.
e.g. What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others.
Then another is from V for Vendetta
Beneath this mask, there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask, there is an idea, Mr Creedy. And ideas are bullet-proof!
Even through the darkest day, this fire burns, always.
"The end."
You either die a hero, or you live long enough to become the villain.
"When you're here, you're family" (Fast and the Furious)
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@lemmy.world
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
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"A Florida woman has been accused of entering the penguin enclosure to teach them to tap dance, using a live alligator as her partner."
save