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Fiction
Is there a thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been long ago, in the ages which were before us.
But before and before, and ever so long before
And such contrivances were used,
The whole Confucian sea-board had standardized the lee-board.
And hauled it up or dropped it as they choosed
And such contrivances were used,
The whole Confucian sea-board had standardized the lee-board.
And hauled it up or dropped it as they choosed
— Rudyard Kipling, The Junk and the Dhow
"When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer." Hans Gruber, Die Hard.
— Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock
Abby: It's like Bill Nye.
Gibbs: Who?
Abby: TV scientist? Had a kids show?
Gibbs: Ah, like Mister Wizard.
Abby: Who?
Gibbs: Who?
Abby: TV scientist? Had a kids show?
Gibbs: Ah, like Mister Wizard.
Abby: Who?
— NCIS
I've got good genes and I'm agin' well.
Is a bitch thirteen? They can never tell.
"Pockiez", Awkwafina
Oak may well be responsible for the first modern Pokédex, a digital device that can record data automatically upon witness or catch. But 'Pokédex' was a pre-existing term when he made them, and gave them to Red and Blue. And this is what that term referred to - a record of all Pokémon to be found within a region. This one was compiled by a Professor... Laventon, in a region called 'Hisui'.
— Professor Rowan, A Collection of Notes on Personal Experiences with Legendary Pokémon
Creators
Animals engage in a struggle for existence; for resources, to avoid being eaten and to breed. Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to offspring.
— Arabic scholar Al-Jahiz, discussing the theory of evolution in the ninth century.
A "new thinker," when studied closely, is merely a man who does not know what other people have thought.
— Frank Moore Colby
Jack Kirby did it first and did it better.
— Old comic creator's proverb
Nothing is created, everything is copiated.
— Chacrinha, Brazilian TV host and humourist. The grammar was sacrified to maintain the rhyme.
I have a scoop for you. I stole his act. I camouflaged it with punchlines, and to really throw people off, I did it before he did.
— Bill Hicks, commenting on similarities between his stand-up comedy routine and Denis Leary's.
When I was up in Winnipeg for the movie's premiere, some awestruck kid asked me, 'Hey man, a guy selling his soul to the devil, did you make that up?'" Williams says, chuckling. "And I said, 'Well, no, there was this guy named Goethe who did that.'"
— Paul Williams The story behind Phantom of the Paradise
Phantom of the Paradiseosey889: I know that a lot of people say like games like Final Fantasy VI and VII really started to push the whole, uh, you know, hybrid between high fantasy and technology, but it's been really prevalent since the very first game.
Gyre: And if we get Warmech, we will see the highest of high technology.
puwexil: We will see Magitek before it was cool.
Gyre: And if we get Warmech, we will see the highest of high technology.
puwexil: We will see Magitek before it was cool.
Each generation thinks it invented sex; each generation is totally mistaken. Anything along that line today was commonplace both in Pompeii and in Victorian England; the differences lie only in the degree of coverup — if any.
That's right, The Aristo Cat, in 1943. I was able to steal it from the Disney studio twenty years before they deftly added an "s" to The Aristocats. This is what is known as retroactive plagiarism on my part.
Reviews
That's right: The Bourne Identity was first a TV movie in 1988. Everything's a remake these days.
— Peter Paltridge, Platypus Comix's "Lost Art of TV Guide Advertising Vol. 6"note
Percival: ...and, egad! What's this? A magical ball emiting light?
Onlooker: Uh, Percival... you had the electric light bulb in 1909!
Percival: Ah, but I am an idiot!
Onlooker: Uh, Percival... you had the electric light bulb in 1909!
Percival: Ah, but I am an idiot!
Nonfiction
One thing we know for sure about the Democracy Scare—the global revulsion against populism—is that it is a contemporary mode of thinking, as up-to-date as this morning's Twitter feed. How can it be otherwise? The horrors of populism only really registered in the pundit consciousness after the disastrous elections of 2016 delivered Brexit to the U.K. and Trump to the White House.
The argument of this book, however, is that anti-populism is in fact an old and surprisingly persistent habit of mind. No matter the guise or cast in which populism appears, each new generation of outraged critics thinks to describe it using the same stereotypes and the same images, as though they were reading from some long-lost script, lightly modified for current conditions.
The argument of this book, however, is that anti-populism is in fact an old and surprisingly persistent habit of mind. No matter the guise or cast in which populism appears, each new generation of outraged critics thinks to describe it using the same stereotypes and the same images, as though they were reading from some long-lost script, lightly modified for current conditions.
—Thomas Frank, The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism
Our 19th Century rube would fail to recognize cars/trucks, airplanes, helicopters, and rockets; radio, and television (the telephone was 1875, so just missed this one); toasters, blenders, and electric ranges. Also unknown to the world of 1885 are inventions like radar, nuclear fission, and atomic bombs. The list could go on. Daily life would have undergone so many changes that the old timer would be pretty bewildered, I imagine. It would appear as if the world had blossomed with magic: voices from afar; miniature people dancing in a little picture box; zooming along wide, hard, flat roads at unimaginable speeds—much faster than when uncle Billy’s horse got into the cayenne pepper. The list of “magic” devices would seem to be innumerable.
—Tom Murphy, physicist (2015)
