The phrase was originally meant literally. In John Fitzherbert’s 1534 Book of Husbandry, he warns shepherds that they had better train their dogs to herd…
“And now go,” Neil Gaiman urged his audience at the end of his commencement speech at the University of the Arts, in Philadelphia, in 2015.…
This phrase comes from Lucretius, who in his poem De Rerum Natura, sums up all the scientific knowledge known in the first century before the…
In Margaret Atwood’s novel The Blind Assassin, when young Claire Chase asks questions about her mother’s miscarriage – “How could anything so little hurt Mama?”…
In the poem Comus, John Milton asks, “Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud / turn forth her silver lining on the night?” He…
This bit of machismo wisdom originated with Nietzsche, who was a professional scoffer. His book, Twilight of the Idols (1888), subtitled How to Philosophize with…
Dubious Maxim 1: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. This expression may have originated in falconry, a sport that never…
In anticipation of the coming election campaign, I thought it would be useful to draw up a short list of appropriate terms of abuse for…