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Thread: Anecdote of the day |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 545
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
During the Civil War Lincoln had occasion at an official reception to refer to the Southerners as erring human beings rather than as enemies to be exterminated. An elderly lady, a fiery patriot, rebuked him for speaking kindly of his enemies when he ought to be thinking of destroying them. "Why, madam," said Lincoln, "do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"
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cjslman
Master Cruncher Mexico Joined: Nov 23, 2004 Post Count: 2082 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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In later life, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle became an ardent spiritualist and frequently attempted to commune with the dead. One day Doyle was asked by a friend to visit a fellow author who had fallen ill.
----------------------------------------"I'll call in tomorrow," Doyle remarked. "Tomorrow could be too late," the friend warned. "He may not survive the night." " In that case," Doyle replied, "I'll speak to him next week." |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
After watching Cary on a television broadcast, his mother, then in her nineties, reprimanded him for letting his hair get so gray. "It doesn't bother me," he replied carelessly.
"Maybe not," said his mother sternly, "but it bothers me. It makes me seem so old." |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
In the early years of their marriage, Victoria and Albert visited Florence several times, greatly impressed by the city's architectural treasures. Of these, the Brunelleschi dome surmounting the cathedral was their personal favorite. Victoria returned to Florence some years after Albert's death to find that the dome had been magnificently restored. She ordered the carriage to stop in the piazza outside the cathedral and rolled down the window. Opening up the locket that hung around her neck, she turned the miniature of her beloved husband to face the building, so that he could share with her the splendor of the newly restored dome. Then, after a few moments' silent contemplation, she closed the locket and drove away.
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jonnieb-uk
Ace Cruncher England Joined: Nov 30, 2011 Post Count: 6105 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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George Brown, British Foreign Secretary 1966-68, was unable to cope with the pressure of high office without excessive drinking. The following anecdote is attributed to him but is probably apocryphal:
----------------------------------------At an official reception in South America, George Brown was said to have lumbered over to a tall, elegant vision in red, and requested the honour of the next dance, to be told, "I will not dance with you for three reasons. The first is that you are drunk. The second is that the band is not playing a waltz, but the Peruvian national anthem. The final reason is that I am the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima." Other versions place the story in Rio, the anthem being Brazilian, and the cleric being the Bishop of Montevideo. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Nice
 Noel Coward was strolling around an art exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London when a friend rushed up to him with an invitation to dinner. Noël politely declined, explaining that he was about to leave for Jamaica. "When will you be back?" asked his friend. "In the spring," replied Coward. "With the swallows. " |
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cjslman
Master Cruncher Mexico Joined: Nov 23, 2004 Post Count: 2082 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Accounts of the cherry-colored cat in jokelore indicate that the trick was practiced during the eighteenth century. A century later P. T. Barnum, a past master of trickery, is said to have been a victim of it. A man from Vermont wrote offering him a cherry-colored cat for $100. Always on the lookout for rare attractions for his show, he replied that he would send the money on condition that the creature was guaranteed to be genuinely, not artificially, cherry-colored. Upon receipt of the guarantee, Barnum sent the money, and shortly afterward received a small crate.
----------------------------------------When Barnum had it opened, a black cat jumped out. Around its neck was a ribbon from which hung a note: 'Up in Vermont,' it read, 'the cherries are black!' |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
After Gershwin's death an admirer with musical aspirations wrote an elegy for him and took it to Oscar Levant. Levant reluctantly agreed to hear the piece. Afer the man had finished playing it, he turned to Levant, looking for his approval. "I think," said Levant, "it would have been better if you had died and Gershwin had written the elegy
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cjslman
Master Cruncher Mexico Joined: Nov 23, 2004 Post Count: 2082 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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On April 17th, 1790, as Benjamin Franklin lay dying, his daughter suggested that he change positions on his bed to make his breathing easier. "A dying man," he replied, "can do nothing easy."
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Robert Todd Lincoln was home from Harvard on a visit at the time that his father was assassinated. After the shooting he sat by his father's bedside until he died. He had no political ambitions, preferring the life of a lawyer. But President James Garfield called him away from his practice to occupy the post of secretary of war in 1881. He reluctantly accepted. Later that same year Robert Lincoln arrived at the Washington railroad station just in time to see Garfield shot. Twenty years later, as president of the Pullman Company, Robert Lincoln was invited to bring his family to meet President William McKinley. As they arrived they heard the news: the president had just been shot. Robert Lincoln observed, "There is a certain fatality about presidential functions when I am present."
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