Word: proverb
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...proverb. "Those on whom the gods smile die young" can never blight athletic fortune, for the smiles of gods of sport are much too transient. Nevertheless, even their passing favor is pleasant. And the University may well seize the moment to observe the recent successes of its teams...
Franz Werfel, the author, is concerned with the blind fling with which the gods dash the cup from mortal lips. Proverb calls it the slip. Werfel does not bother to define it. He is simply eaten up with a gigantic bitterness at a world which is given reason and at the same time irresistible fate, luck or a divinity that rips reason to ribbons. Werfel is annoyed because God has given him just enough sense to understand what an impotent fool he really is. This gloomy abstraction is woven into a play about a wealthy farmer's family to which...
...circumstances I hope you will agree with me that the words extortion, holdups, gouging, etc., which have been frequently used in this connection, are, to put it mildly, as Mark Twain said of the reports of his own death, perhaps a trifle exaggerated. If, to quote an old English proverb: 'Soft words butter no parsnips,' neither are hard words milch cows from which we extract the milk of human kindness...
Journalistic wit and an old proverb united delectably on the front page of yesterday's Boston Herald. A telephone call, which specified house and street, but not the need, sent an engine of the Atlantic fire department clanging out into the snow. The destination was quickly attained, but, before the men could inquire into the cause of their summons, a low wail descended from a snowy tree. Like Androcles, the fire fighters hesitated. But the cry, like the unspecific lament of a hoot owl, did not betray whether it sprang from bird, beast, or fish. Yet it darted so pitifully...
Seeing so much organized interference with religion and morals, a liberal minded Loyola, inspired by the proverb, "Set a thief to catch a thief", has gathered together a few chosen souls and gone hunting for fanatics with their own weapons. At all events, it ought to be good sport. The woods are full of game...