“Brussels sprouts seem to make people bloodthirsty, and those who live on lentils and artichokes are always calling for the gore of the aristocracy and for the severed heads of kings. Your vegetarianism has given you a wise apathy — so at least you told me once — but in the political sphere a diet of green beans seems dangerous.” – Oscar Wilde
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Epigram
noun
1. any witty, ingenious, or pointed saying tersely expressed.
2. a short, often satirical poem dealing concisely with a single subject and usually ending with a witty or ingenious turn of thought.
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Social media has given the epigram a new life. When added to a striking image, they can be powerful tools for promoting animal rights & plant-eating.
Apps such as Epigram Beta claim to bring – ~ group conversations to life with memes. ~
Inspirational Quote Meme Generators help you to create them for free – some go viral and are shared by millions.
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Drifting back –
Several authors are noted for their epigrams, including Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde.
One of Oscar Wilde’s epigrams is “I can resist everything except temptation.” – another – “We are all of us in the gutter. But some of us are looking at the stars.”
They keep reappearing!
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Now look at the people
In the streets, in the bars
We are all of us in the gutter
But some of us are looking at the stars
Look round the room Life is unkind
We fall but we keep gettin’ up
Over and over and over and over and over and over
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Martial
An Epigram meant, literally, an inscription; and some thing of the original significance of the term is discernible in Martial’s best work; whether it be epitaph, epithalamium or in the modern sense epigram, it produces on the mind the effect that a flawless inscription produces on the eye—clear-cut, appropriate, and concise. Of all later writers who have excelled in the production of witty, pointed and sententious verse there is not one who consciously, has not been indebted to Martial as his father and forerunner in the art. – Henry S. Salt
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From a 1911 publication of the London and Provincial Anti-Vivisection Society (LPAVS) in our Ernest Bell Library. Created by S. G. Trist (Sidney G. Trist).
Some crafty thief thy strongest box shall break
Or pitiless fire thy cherished home o’erthrow;
From wasted loans small profit shalt thou take,
Small harvest reap from seed that thou didst sow;
A mistress false shall make thy purse her prey;
Thy richest ships shall founder in the brine;
Naught can’st thou keep but what thou givest away:
That only, and beyond all chance, is thine.
Very similar to – “No one has ever become poor from giving.” – in – The Diary of Anne Frank (1952) – here.
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The Father of Epigram by Henry S. Salt
Essay in full – here.
Marcus Valerius Martialis as Martial, was a Latin poet of Spanish origins best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between 86 and 103 AD
Image source
……of Latin Epigrammatists by far the most distinguished was Marcus Valerius Martialis, known to us familiarly as Martial. Of the personal facts of his life little has been recorded, and such knowledge as we have is mainly derived from references in his own works; it is solely on his merits as a writer of short, terse, and pungent poems that his reputation is founded. Born at Bilbilis, in Spain, about A.D. 43, he came to Rome as a young man, and stayed there for fully thirty-five years, during which time he published all but the last of his twelve books of epigrams. He returned to Spain A.D. 100, and died there about four years later.
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An alternative translation – by Walter C. A. Ker, M.A. – from – here.
Eccentric Romans! – X would be 10. However, L represents 50 and if you have a larger number following a smaller one, you would subtract.
So, XL would be 40. II represents 1 each, which equals two. So, XLII represents 42.
A CUNNING thief will break your money-box and carry off your coin, cruel fire will lay low your ancestral home ; your debtor will repudiate interest alike and principal, your sterile crop will not return you the seed you have sown; a false mistress will despoil your treasurer, the wave will overwhelm your ships stored with merchandise. Beyond Fortune’s power is any gift made to your friends; only wealth bestowed will you possess always.
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Mark Twain
……to S. G. Trist (Sidney G. Trist) – a circa 1900 postcard.
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A minute with Oscar Wilde
……his epigrams are celebrated here.
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