Dumocracy

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
— HL Mencken

The Use Of A Book

"and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"
— Lewis Carroll 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'

The Evolutionary Horizon

In a vivid insight, a flash of black lightning, he saw that all life was parallel: that evolution was not vertical, ascending to a perfection, but horizontal.
— John Fowles 'The French Lieutenant's Woman'

Dam Anagram

Literally!

The strangest thing that human speech and human writing can do is create a metaphor.
That is an amazing leap, is it not?
— Dennis Potter

Black & Blue

Frig!

The fear of Friday the 13th is called friggatriskaidekaphobia, frigga, meaning "Friday" and triskaidekaphobia, or paraskevidekatriaphobia, a word derived from the concatenation of the Greek words Paraskeví (Παρασκευή, meaning "Friday"), and dekatreís (δεκατρείς, meaning "thirteen"), attached to phobía (φοβία, from phóbos, φόβος, meaning "fear"). The word was derived in 1911 and first appeared in a mainstream source in 1953.

Personæ

Be careful what you pretend to be
because you are what you pretend to be.
— Kurt Vonnegut 'Mother Night'

The Shape Of Things To Come

Be there or be square.
— John Cooper Clarke (c1979)

For Life Is Quite Absurd, And Death's The Final Word

Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true,
You'll see it's all a show,
Keep 'em laughing as you go.
Just remember that the last laugh is on you!
— Monty Python 'Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life'

Pottery

Potter = shaper of clay;
Abrahamic Mythology: God as shaper of man from clay.

Tom Riddle (cryptic crossword clue) = mot (French) = word;
Abrahamic Mythology: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Tom Riddle — an anagram of 'mi toddler' — represents Harry Potter’s accompanying childish self, the self to be transcended through the maturation rituals symbolised in each of the seven volumes.

One Academic Technique

Find a proposition, invert it, then look around for proofs.
— Alan Bennett 'The History Boys'

This is the technique used, for example, by the philosopher David Chalmers, who inverts what neuroscientists see as the "easy" and "hard" problems of consciousness. It has gained him a lot of attention, not least because he offers hope to those who need to believe in 'life after death' (which is itself an inversion).

Herbivore Anagram

History

History is an angel
being blown
backwards
into the future.
— Laurie Anderson 'The Dream Before'

History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
— James Joyce 'Ulysses'

History nowadays is not a matter of conviction, it's a performance, it's entertainment …
— Alan Bennett 'The History Boys'

… arguing for effect; not believing what you say; that is not history, it's journalism.
— Alan Bennett 'The History Boys'

History is a commentary on the varying and continuing incapabilities of men.
— Alan Bennett 'The History Boys'

History is women following behind with the bucket.
— Alan Bennett 'The History Boys'

History is one fucking thing after another.
— Alan Bennett 'The History Boys'

The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless.
— Sir Humphrey Appleby

Biographical history, as taught in our public schools, is still largely a history of boneheads: ridiculous kings and queens, paranoid political leaders, compulsive voyagers, ignorant generals — the flotsam and jetsam of historical currents. The men who radically altered history, the great scientists and mathematicians, are seldom mentioned, if at all.
— Martin Gardner

Political Economy

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
— Leonard Cohen 'Everybody Knows'

Now, you can say that I've grown bitter but of this you may be sure:
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
— Leonard Cohen 'Tower Of Song'

Disgrace

A belligerent state permits itself every such misdeed, every such act of violence, as would disgrace the individual.
— Sigmund Freud

Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
— Ambrose Bierce

Humanity

I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
— Oscar Wilde

The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.
— Oscar Wilde

I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational.
— Oscar Wilde

The Soul Proprietor

This mental space is occupied and everything is mine.
— Leonard Cohen 'Death Of A Ladies' Man'

Ugly Customer

Well he was an ugly guy.
With an ugly face.
An also ran
in the human race.
And even God got sad
just looking at him.
— Laurie Anderson 'Gravity's Angel'

Indifference To The Suffering Of Others

Looked through the paper.
Makes you want to cry.
Nobody cares if the people
Live or die.
— Leonard Cohen 'In My Secret Life'

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along
— WH Auden 'Musée Des Beaux Arts'

It's despair at the lack of feeling, of love, of reason in the world. It's despair that anyone can even contemplate the idea of dropping a bomb or ordering that it should be dropped. It's despair that so few of us care. It's despair that there's so much brutality and callousness in the world.
— John Fowles 'The Collector'

A most depressing thing occurs
But no-one minds and no-one stirs,
Which means you've ended up with two
Depressing things depressing you.
— Michæl Leunig 'The Two Depressing Things'

How nice — to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.
— Kurt Vonnegut

What Is It Good For?

War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.
— Ambrose Bierce

Homicidal Maniac

The Old Testament God might well have benefited from a rudimentary course on anger management.

Tour de Langue

Huge crowds follow the Tour de France; some of them, of course, have no choice because the roads are closed and they can't go anywhere.
— Phil Liggett

Since he had that tetanus injection he hasn't been able to find his legs.
— Phil Liggett

He was wiped out in sight of the finish.
— Phil Liggett

When they literally hit the wall, they're going to lose some time.
— Phil Liggett

They tried this on the slopes of the Alps and they destroyed themselves — so they need to be careful.
— Phil Liggett

The computer's running around like a very busy machine here today.
— Phil Liggett

There's some serious ravaging going on at the head of the field.
— Paul Sherwen

He would not assassinate his squad unless he thought he had a good chance of winning the race.
— Paul Sherwen

I think that's what they'll do: they'll asphyxiate a lot of guys.
— Paul Sherwen

He was an integral part of assassinating the field.
— Paul Sherwen

These roads are Belgian roads and they're always dangerous.
— Paul Sherwen

If Moreau goes for that, he will be tickling the back end of Chartreau for the King Of The Mountain competition.
— Paul Sherwen

If I were in this leading group, I would feel a little bit of trepidation creeping into my morale.
— Paul Sherwen

You can see a lot of enthusiasm being dished out into the pace–making.
— Paul Sherwen

The first part of this race was inundated by very high temperatures.
— Paul Sherwen

The time trial will smile to his advantage.
— Paul Sherwen

He's eating across this gap.
— Paul Sherwen

France is the centre of Europe.
— Paul Sherwen

We're in the middle of nowhere, we're in the middle of France.
— Paul Sherwen

They have their own form of language in this region, the Gascon language, which is half between Spanish and half between Basque.
— Paul Sherwen

Isn't it amazing how coincidences happen?!
— Paul Sherwen

Isn't fate a funny thing?!
— Paul Sherwen

Thirst Quenching

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.
— Carl Sagan 'The Demon-Haunted World'

Myth

… whenever a myth has been taken literally its sense has been perverted; but also, reciprocally, … whenever it has been dismissed as a mere priestly fraud or sign of inferior intelligence, truth has slipped out the other door.
— Joseph Campbell

Warning Girls Through Metaphor

The folk tale 'Pinocchio' can be read as allegorical for the inverse correlation of male truthfulness with male sexual arousal.

Tourist Anagram

Shock The Monkey

All bridges burning behind me,
all safety beyond reach ...
the monkey feels his chains out blindly,
only to find himself released.
— Peter Hammill 'La Rossa'

The Criminal Mind

Frank Sinatra's favourite Lennon & McCartney song was 'Something' by George Harrison.

Spin

Well, that's like hypnotising chickens.
— Iggy Pop 'Lust For Life'

The Dispossessed

We carry in our hearts the true country
And that cannot be stolen
We follow in the steps of our ancestry
And that cannot be broken
— Midnight Oil 'Dead Heart'