And finally...

Gray · 55692. Mon Feb 27, 2006 6:34 am

Here's where we can put good anecdotes, quotes or cliff-hangers with which to end the show, or possibly individual questions.

MatC · 56845. Sat Mar 04, 2006 5:38 am

A few quotes:

"Books and ideas are the most important arms of the revolution. Read! Read! Read!"

- President Hugo Chavez, Havana, 2006, reported in Morning Star 7 Feb 2006.

MatC · 56860. Sat Mar 04, 2006 7:53 am

“If we all know now, at last, where we are really going to and where science and statesmanship are leading us and if it is quite obviously to an enormous lunatic asylum, let us at least, by the grace of God, go there in company with a man who has a sense of humour.”

- G.K. Chesterton, quoted in Morning Star 29 February 2006.

MatC · 56873. Sat Mar 04, 2006 8:54 am

“Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name."
- William Morris: ‘A Dream of John Ball.’

MatC · 58939. Sat Mar 11, 2006 10:01 am

“If you believe in the existence of fairies at the bottom of the garden you are deemed fit for the bin. If you believe in pathogenesis, ascension, transubstantiation and all the rest of it you are deemed fit to govern the country.”

- Jonathan Meades, writing in The Times, quoted in The Freethinker, December 1999

MatC · 58943. Sat Mar 11, 2006 10:15 am

At Sunday school, the vicar asks his flock of tinies: “What has a cold, wet nose, likes having his tummy tickled, and runs after sticks and balls?”

There’s a long, worried silence, until eventually one six-year-old puts his hand up. “I know the answer should be ‘Jesus,’” he says, apologetically, “but it sounds awfully like a dog to me.”

(This is actually a bit of foaflore which predates the invention of the “forward to all” button; it was probably transmitted by fax in ye olde days. It is found all over the internet today - sometimes it’s a squirrel, sometimes it’s a fish. Intriguingly, the version I clipped years ago comes from an undated issue of “Dogs Today” and actually names the reverend concerned.

Apocryphal as it no doubt is, I do feel it rather neatly sums up the feeling that must sometimes come over QI panellists when they hear the typical Gen Ig question, and try to avoid pressing the buzzer which, they know, will activate the forfeit klaxon!)

Frederick The Monk · 58952. Sat Mar 11, 2006 11:15 am

There's a lot of history that isn't fit to repeat itself.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Molly Cule · 61738. Fri Mar 24, 2006 9:33 am

There is a good fable wherein the wise men of the kingdom condense all the knowledge of the world into a single sentence : 'This too shall pass'. I like that.

Flash · 62049. Mon Mar 27, 2006 7:35 am

Closer for a show on language / dialect - a language spoken by only two people in the world - and they aren't on speaking terms with each other:

virtualwill · 145521. Sun Feb 11, 2007 10:38 am

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before."
- Former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower

virtualwill · 145523. Sun Feb 11, 2007 10:40 am

"I think it would be a good idea."
- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), when asked what he thought of Western civilization

MatC · 145797. Mon Feb 12, 2007 5:39 am

grizzly · 145822. Mon Feb 12, 2007 6:17 am

Although Gandhi is the one that Ricky Gervais quotes in Politics.

samivel · 146137. Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:46 pm

Must be true, then.

HasBeany · 151416. Sun Feb 25, 2007 6:10 pm

Everything matters ... but nothing matters frightfully.

:0)