 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
History Forum / General / British History / March 2008A Wise, Wise Man
"If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?" -- Benjamin Franklin (to Thomas Paine, Date Unknown) Reference: Original Intent, Barton (297); original The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Sparks, ed., vol. 10 (281-282) "Just do as you please, young man. Acting morally will get you nowhere. Feigning morality, on the other hand, will con enough people to ensure your success. Power and achievement in this world come to him who is the biggest a.shole. Pass that message along to your descendants. But beware: do not act like such an obvious jackass that _everyone_ sees through you." --- Thomas Jefferson to Walton Henry Hines, 1 April 1825 (Source: Complete Apocryphical Works of Thomas "Two-Sheds" Jefferson, pp. 435-512) > "Just do as you please, young man. Acting morally will get you > nowhere. Feigning morality, on the other hand, will con enough people > to ensure your success. Power and achievement in this world come to > him who is the biggest a.shole. Pass that message along to your > descendants. But beware: do not act like such an obvious jackass that > _everyone_ sees through you." Funny, but this is very close to the recommendations given by Count Rastopchin (person quite different from Jefferson in his background and career) to a young man who was just starting his career in the Russian Empire of early 1820's. Perhaps the rules of success have little to do with a social system. :-) On Mar 24, 9:29 am, a...@hotmail.com wrote: > On Mar 24, 7:32 am, James Hogg <Jas.Hogg...@SPAM.gmail.com> wrote:> "Just do as you please, young man. Acting morally will get you > > nowhere. Feigning morality, on the other hand, will con enough people [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > Perhaps the rules of success have little to do with a social > system. :-) I always liked "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh*t". In alt.history.british deemsbill@aol.com <deemsbill@aol.com> wrote: >On Mar 24, 9:29 am, a...@hotmail.com wrote: >> On Mar 24, 7:32 am, James Hogg <Jas.Hogg...@SPAM.gmail.com> wrote:> "Just do as you please, young man. Acting morally will get you [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] >> Perhaps the rules of success have little to do with a social >> system. :-) > I always liked "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle >them with bullsh*t". I have that as "If you can't baffle them with brilliance, bury them in bullsh*t." But the meaning is the same. ;-)  Signature--- Paul J. Gans On Mar 24, 9:53 am, "deemsb...@aol.com" <deemsb...@aol.com> wrote: > On Mar 24, 9:29 am, a...@hotmail.com wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > I always liked "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle > them with bullsh*t". Well, this is more or less an universal rule.... :-) >> "Just do as you please, young man. Acting morally will get you >> nowhere. Feigning morality, on the other hand, will con enough people [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >and career) to a young man who was just starting his career in the >Russian Empire of early 1820's. Sounds like someone that Hines should really be quoting. More appropriate for him than the high standards of morality and the Christian sentiments expressed by the Founding Fathers. I mean, it's hard to imagine Ben Franklin as a drunken troll sitting at his computer insulting people left, left and centre, or Thomas Jefferson publicly spreading his sick sexual fantasies about how a certain Canadian lady spends her Saturday night, or Samuel Adams calling Erilar an "ignorant, tyro, fat troglodyte, pseudo-grammarian" for vainly trying to teach him correct English, or George Washington downloading pictures of interracial sex in order to have a quick one off the carpus. How Hines can read and quote all this stuff from the Founding Fathers without actually understanding a single word of it, and without the slightest sense of irony, is rather amazing - and amusing. James > >> "Just do as you please, young man. Acting morally will get you > >> nowhere. Feigning morality, on the other hand, will con enough people [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > > James Well, I can't tell for sure if Rastopchin would get openly engaged in any of these activities (actually, I can quite easily imagine Ben Frankling writing nasty things about other people because he was writing political pamphlets and, IIRC, while in France, rather 'enjoyed life') and I suspect that in the matter of manners he was more restricted than most of the Founding Fathers: after all, he belonged to a high aristocracy and at least part of his career had been made at the court of Paul I who officially forbade usage of the swear words in printed documents (which was a novel idea for Russia). So, the nasty things were probably done with a little bit more of a social grace than one could reasonably expect from a colonial gentry. :-) I was commenting strictly on cynical part of his statements: on young man's comment that one has to have a talent to reach position as high as Rostopchin did, the Count answered that all that talk about a talent is pure nonsense and that his career had been made by cheating and faking loyalty (and he gave couple of the really impressive examples to illustrate the point). |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2009 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.