S Library

24 Interesting Remarks Of Famous People

From Jacob M. Braude’s Complete Speaker’s and Toastmaster’s Library in 8 Volumes

24 Interesting Remarks Of Famous People:

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Proverbs, Epigrams, Aphorisms, Sayings and Bon Mots (7 Topics)

My first post from my toastmaster’s library was made during tropical storm Fay. See Origins and Firsts I didn’t know (and bet you didn’t either) if you missed it.

This post comes from another book in that volume.

From 7 topics of my choosing, here are a few Proverbs, Epigrams, Aphorism, Sayings and Bon Mots;

Quality
 

• There was never a good knife made of bad steel.
• Buying a cheap article to save money is like stopping the clock to save time.

The Obvious
 

• The obscure we see eventually. The completely apparent takes longer. 

Opportunity
 

• They wrong opportunity who say she knocks but once.
• When you are an anvil be patient; when a hammer, strike. 
• The doors of opportunity are marked “Push” and “Pull”.
• The trouble with opportunity is that it always comes disguised as hard work.

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Origins and Firsts I didn’t know (and bet you didn’t either)

Fay finally knocked out our electricity at 4:AM this morning and it’s still out as I write this post (pen and paper: gasp!) at 10:55AM. With no access to Google Reader, Friendfeed, Rejaw, Facebook, Youtube, or Pandora, I did the unimaginable; I grabbed a book from the bookcase and started reading; Yes, a real hardback with real paper pages and actual ink!

I love to read books in small chunks and often read 2 – 3 titles simultaneously in this way. This is likely why microblogging ala Friendfeed and Rejaw appeals to me so much. A friend at work recently lent me Jacob M. Braude’s Complete Speaker’s and Toastmaster’s Library in 8 VolumesI liked it so much that I bought a set of my own from Amazon. Today I pulled “Origins and Firsts” out and from that here are 5 origins and 5 firsts that I didn’t know (and bet you didn’t either):

ORIGINS

• Automobile Tire: An automobile tire is so named because in the early days it was considered “attire” or covering for a wheel.
• Bazooka: The rocket-projectile gun was so named because of its resemblance to the gaspipe musical instrument of Bob Burns, a popular radio comedian at the time. Bob probably named his instrument Bazooka because it looked like a bassoon and had a sounded like a bassoon and a kazoo.
• Coffee: Long before coffee was used as a drink it was known as a medicine. In France and England it was a cure-all for everything from drunkenness to smallpox. Doctors prescribed it to purify the body. It was also used as a gargle. In Turkey, coffee was so important that in the marriage ceremony a man had to promise never to permit his wife or wives to be without coffee beans. Author’s note: Sounds familiar [Learn how to roast your own coffee here]
• Handshaking: In earlier and less-civilized times, a shaking of hands was a way of proving thatneither “shaker” was concealing a knife or other lethal weapon.
• Kissing: Among the ancient Romans matrons and virgins, the use of wine was unheard of and the women whose breath smelled of wine were labeled as “immodest”. Pliny tells us that Cato was of the opinion that kissing first began between kinsmen and kinswomen, that they might know wether their wives, daughters, or nieces, had tasted of wine.

FIRSTS

• Book Matches: On September 27, 1892, Joshua Pusey of Lima, Pennsylvania, patented the the first book matches.
• Compulsory Automobile Insurance: Massachusetts adopted the first state compulsory insurance act in 1927
• Fingerprinting: The two pioneers in introducing the fingerprint system were Sir Francis Gayton (1822-1911) and Sir William Herschel (1833-1917). The latter introduced the system into the Bengal law courts, and then Sir Edward Henry introduced it into the Bengal police service. Henry systemized and codified the fingerprint system in his famous work, Classifications and Uses of Fingerprints, and it was he who founded the Fingerprint Bureau at New Scotland Yard in 1901.
• Gasoline Tax: On February 25, 1919, Oregon became the first state to tax gasoline. The rate was one percent of the cost of the gasoline and the funds went to the state.
• Vending Machine: The first vending machine goes back to 219 B.C. when Hero Ostebus, a Grecian high priest, invented a device for dispensing holy water at a drop of a (drachma) coin.