Or even an office bed!

If you were starting your career over again what would you do differently?
I don't know. I don't think I did anything really wrong. Maybe I'd get a good office chair right away.

by Adrian Shaughnessy from How to be a graphic designer, without losing your soul

100 000 EUR doodled on my account. Yiha!

A very simple diddle, indeed, is this. The captain of a ship which is about to sail, is presented by an official looking person, with an unusually moderate bill of city charges. Glad to get off so easily, and confused by a hundred duties pressing upon him all at once, he discharges the claim forthwith. In about fifteen minutes, another less reasonable bill is handed him by one who soon makes it evident that the first collector was a diddler, and the original collection a diddle.

by Edgar Allan Poe from Works Of Edgar Allan Poe complete and unabridged

Please-identify-your-location

31:11. And the angel of God said to me in my sleep: Jacob. And I answered: Here I am.

by Anonymous from The Bible, Old Testament

Simon says

The biggest cell in humans is the ovum, or female sex cell, at a full mm in diameter. After that comes the nerve cell. The smallest human cell is the male sperm cell. So who says size matters?

by Jonathan Green from Match Wits with the Kids

Genius knows no facts

The story is told that the great scientist Einstein was once asked how many feet are there in a mile. Einstein's reply was, "I don't know. Why should I fill my brain with facts I can find in two minutes in any standard reference book?'

by David J. Schwartz from The Magic of Thinking Big

This is not from a book

In order to keep up with you demanding readers (we mean that as a compliment!) and maintain the quality of posts here, we’re moving from daily posts to a weekly one. It will be published on Mondays.

Also, from now on we’re inviting you to send us book extracts that you think are intriguing, boring, amazing, weird, cool or just...WORTH TO BE BLOGGED about. The invitation is open and ongoing so when you discover something...let us know and stay cool.

PRACTICAL INFO
The quote should be in English around 100 words long. We also need the name of the author and a title. If you want to send us a photo, please make sure it's royalty and copyright free or you have the permission to use it (if you don't have one we'll choose it for you!). It should be a jpg, gif, bmp or png image of 8 MB maximum size. Also, send us a link if you want one to be included in the post. The mailing address is bluzica at net.hr.

Surprise!

The person who once enquired of the younger Byron what he would like best in the world got the answer: "To be an incredibly beautiful prostitute with a sharp sting in my bottom."

by D.J. Taylor from Bright Young People

I thought you said you were satisfied

Just as those receiving blood transfusions run the viral risk of AIDS, so those receiving language transfusions run the viral risk of the contamination of meaning.

by Jean Baudrillard from Fragments

There's another post on language

Reality check

"What a terrifying spectacle is this of human vanity stretched to the verge of dementia. Someone should tell M. Pissarro forcibly that trees are never violet, that the sky is never the color of fresh butter, that nowhere on earth are things to be seen as he paints them." - Art critic in the French periodical Le Figaro critiquing the work of Camille Pissarro and other painters at the impressionist exhibition of 1876

by George Ochoa and Melinda Corey from The timeline book of The Arts

Now that we agree it's priceless...

"He's engaged to a very rich girl," said Billy's mother.
"That's good," said Rosewater. "Money can be a great comfort sometimes."
"It really can."
"Of course it can."
"It isn't much fun if you have to pinch every penny till it screams."
"It's nice to have a little breathing room."

by Kurt Vonnegut from Slaughterhouse 5

Knowing your options

You can go down stairs in a number of ways. On one leg, on two, on all fours, backwards, on your backside, and sliding down the banister.
Each method has its own advantages and drawbacks.

by Zvonimir Balog from Nice manners

No changes please! Ever!

The new entrance to the Paris Louvre had become almost as famous as the museum itself. The controversial, neomodern glass pyramid designed by Chinese-born American architect I.M. Pei still evoked scorn from traditionalists who felt it destroyed the dignity of the Renaissance courtyard. Goethe had described architecture as frozen music, and Pei's critics described pyramid as fingernails on a chalkboard.

by Dan Brown from The Da Vinci Code

The truth about you being my friend

To be a friend to many people, in the way of the perfect friendship, is not possible; just as you cannot be in love with many at once: it is, so to speak, a state of excess which naturally has but one object; and besides, it is not an easy thing for one man to be very much pleased with many people at the same time, not perhaps to find many really good.

by Aristotle from Nicomachean Ethics

Asking oneself

How would you like to be treated like that? How would you like the teensiest weensiest details of your lives to be known by everyone? How would you like the pressure and the stress of not ever being able to go out the front door without being followed, your every move documented, your every word printed? How would you like your pain to be turned into publicity and your grief into gossip.
But, no, you didn't think about that, did you?

by Toby Litt from Adventures in capitalism

The pleasure of being civilized

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "My dear fellow, medieval art is charming, but medieval emotions are out of date. One can use them in fiction, of course. But then the only things that one can use in fiction are the things that one has ceased to use in fact. Believe me, no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever knows what pleasure is."

by Oscar Wilde from The Picture of Dorian Gray

There's another Oscar Wilde related post

To be replaced with Smith

First of all there is Blue. Later there is White, and then there is Black, and before the beginning there is Brown. Brown broke him in, Brown taught him the ropes, and when Brown grew old, Blue took over. That is how it begins. The place is New York, the time is the present, and neither one will ever change. Blue goes to his office every day and sits at his desk, waiting for something to happen. For a long time nothing does, and then a man named White walks through the door, and that is how it begins.

by Paul Auster from The New York Trilogy

Help me Doc!

I CANNOT help being happy. I’ve struggled against it but no good. There is, I am well aware, no virtue whatever in this. It results from a combination of heredity, health, good fortune and shallow intellect.

ARTHUR MARSHALL, British broadcaster, 1910–89

from The Optimist’s / Pessimist’s Handbook by Niall Edworthy & Petra Cramsie

Love me in Latin

David Beckham did not study Latin at Chingford School in Essex. The subject had long been off the state school curriculum by the time he got there in the late 1980s. Still, when it comes to his body art, the footballer is a dedicated Latinist. Of the nine tattoos on his body, three are in Latin (and two of the others, “Victoria” and “Romeo”, are Latin-inspired names).

by Harry Mount from Amo, Amas, Amat…and All That

The paradox of perfection

The Marketing Problem
Oscar Wilde wrote: “The play was a great success but the audience was a total failure.” Some people tell me their business is fine – the problem is the customers!

by David Parrish from T-Shirts and Suits: A Guide to the Business of Creativity

Are we human?

Animal societies, for the most part are organised according to a strict hierarchy where rank relates directly to the psychical strength of each member. The most dominant male in the group is known as the alpha male, his nearest rival the beta male, and so on down to the weakest of the group, the omega male.

by Michel Houellebecq from Atomised