BBC Radio 4: The News Quiz - Chaired by Simon Hoggart, with regular panellists Alan Coren, Andy Hamilton, Jeremy Hardy, Linda Smith and Francis Wheen. Listen to the current week's programme online. [RealAudio]
Prometheus Books: Bizarre Beliefs - Simon Hoggart and Mike Hutchinson span the globe in search of rational and factual explanations for the world's mysteries, from fire walking to the prophesies of Nostradamus.
Chortle: World of the News - Interview with host Simon Hoggart on the 25th anniversary of the Radio 4 News Quiz. He talks about the history of the show, the panelists, his experience as both panelist and host, and how the show is made.
Guardian Unlimited: Simon Hoggart - Current column plus recent articles and full archives of both his humour column and his parliament sketch for the newspaper.
If a man does his best, what else is there?
- General George S. Patton Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.
-- Dr. Benjamin Spock, American pediatrician, address to new parents The nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people.
-- Lucille S. Harper A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no
religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear
of The church is the great lost and found department.
-- Robert Short Hoggart, Simon "The happy people are failures because they are on such good terms with themselves they don't give a damn." (Agatha Christie) Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.
-- George E. Woodberry If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.
-- Thomas Szasz Hoggart, Simon
A scar nobly got, or a noble scar, is a good livery of honour; so belike is that.
-- Shakespeare, William We love because it's the only true adventure.
-- Nikki Giovanni He who limps is still walking.
-- Stanislaw J. Lec I want to die in my sleep like my friend.... Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his
car.
-- Seen on a bumper sticker In great matters men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small matters, as they are.
-- Gamaliel Bradford Hoggart, Simon The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are the more leisure we have.
-- William Hazlitt Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the
writing will be just as it should be.
-- Mark Twain If you cannot be the master of your language, you must be its slave. If you cannot examine your
thoughts, you have no choice but to think them, however silly they may be.
-- Richard Mitchell, from Hoggart, Simon
"I don't believe people die. They just go uptown. To Bloomingdales. They just take longer to get back." (Andy Warhol) Man is a natural polygamist. He always has one woman leading him by the nose and another
hanging on to his coattails.
-- H. L. Mencken "The reason why kids are crazy is because nobody can face the responsibility of bringing them up." (John Lennon) The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.
-- Anonymous If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?
-- Harry Shearer Hoggart, Simon I was under medication when I made the decision not to burn the tapes.
-- Richard Nixon, U.S. President The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of
them, it's considered to be your style.
-- Fred Astaire The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this
is true.
-- James Branch Cabell, The Silver Stallion Hoggart, Simon
Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one.
-- Fredrich Halm "Ninety percent of my salary I spent on booze and women ... and the other ten percent I wasted." (Tug McGraw, Major League Baseball pitcher) A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
- Oscar Wilde There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson [You reporters] should have printed what he meant, not what he said.
-- Earl Bush, press aide to Richard Daley Hoggart, Simon "Man was born free and everywhere he is in chains." (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French philosopher, The Social Contract) "It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living." (Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poe If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man
will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.
-- Henry Ford Hoggart, Simon
"I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead." (Oscar Wilde) I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need.
- Francois-Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), when asked how he managed to make his remarkable
statues A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.
-- Robert Frost Any intelligent woman who reads the marriage contract, and then goes into it, deserves all the
consequences.
-- Isadora Duncan It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.
-- St. Francis of Assisi Hoggart, Simon Propel, propel, propel your craft softly down liquid solution. Ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically,
ecstatically, Existence is simply illusion.
-- Fred Rogers, parody of "Row, row, row your boa "Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery." (Andy Warhol) This novel is not to be tossed lightly aside, but hurled with great force.
-- Dorothy Parker Hoggart, Simon
"I had discovered that a person does not have to be this or be that or be anything, not even oneself. One is free." (Walker Percy, The Moviegoer) Art and science have their meeting point in method.
-- Edward Bulwer-Lytton No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman.
-- Honore de Balzac A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no
religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear
of Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.
-- Samuel Johnson Hoggart, Simon If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get
married.
-- Katharine Hepburn Flowers are words which even a baby can understand.
-- Arthur C. Coxe Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.
- Benjamin Franklin Hoggart, Simon
"He who speaks of what he knows not only works hard to portray his ignorance." (Joseph Muchemi) Life is the flower for which love is the honey.
-- Victor Hugo If you cannot be the master of your language, you must be its slave. If you cannot examine your
thoughts, you have no choice but to think them, however silly they may be.
-- Richard Mitchell, from There are three types of people in this world: Those who can count, and those who can't.
-- Seen on a bumper sticker It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated.
-- Alec Bourne, A Doctor's Creed Hoggart, Simon Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive.
-- Anaïs Nin Wit is educated insolence.
- Aristotle "Failure is not an option!" (Ed Harris, as Gene Kranz, Apollo 13) Hoggart, Simon
"A wise man among the ignorant is as a beautiful girl in the company of blind men." (Saadi) He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
- Sir Winston Churchill Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her. I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
-- Paul Valery Hoggart, Simon "The mark of our time is its revulsion against imposed patterns." (Marshall McLuhan) "The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances." (Viktor E. Frankl) Genius is 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration.
-- Thomas Edison Hoggart, Simon
"It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep.
-- Albert Camus Beware you be not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.
-- John Wesley Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.
- Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower To realize that you do not understand is a virtue;
Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.
--Lao-Tzu, "Tao Teh Ching" Hoggart, Simon If God wanted women to understand men, football would never have been created.
-- Seen on a bumper sticker As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
-- Proverbs 23:7 Although the course may change sometimes, rivers always reach the sea.
-- Led Zeppelin, Ten Years Gone Hoggart, Simon
Friends applaud, the Comedy is over.
-- Ludwig von Beethoven, dying words He who limps is still walking.
-- Stanislaw J. Lec The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to
heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need
more supervision.
-- Lynn Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed.
-- Robert G. Ingersoll, (seen attributed to "R.S. Ingersoll" - a typo?) There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world; and that is an idea whose time has
come.
-- Victor Hugo Hoggart, Simon Per cubic inch, your current TV set is perhaps the dumbest appliance in your home (and I'm not
even talking about the programs).
-- Nicholas Negroponte Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.
-- Helen Keller To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.
-- Ghandi Hoggart, Simon
"One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) "Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them." (Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance) Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more
experiments you make the better. What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat
soiled or torn? With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.
-- Abraham Lincoln "The intellect is always fooled by the heart." (François VI Duke (duc) de La Rochefoucauld, 1616-80) Hoggart, Simon Value your words. Each one may be the last.
-- Stanislaw J. Lec The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing
changes and yet everything is completely different.
-- Aldous Huxley I am not young enough to know everything.
-- Oscar Wilde Hoggart, Simon
