Running the Country III
Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.
Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
—James Madison, fourth US president (1751-1836)
Before you criticize a man, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, you will be a mile away and he won’t have any shoes.
— Unknown
How could I resist? After yesterday’s exhortation to embrace empathy, it seemed only fitting to also quote a brilliant variation on the old moccasins quote.
It turns out that the above quote is a perfect example of a paraprosdokian – a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe the first part. Other good examples include my previous post from Ellen DeGeneres or my all time favorite, “When I die I want to go peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather did . . . and not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.”
Every crowd has a silver lining.
— Phineas Taylor Barnum