A Quote by Bertrand Meyer
Careful as they may be, developers of Eiffel libraries will always run into cases in which, after releasing a library class, they suddenly experience what in French is called esprit de l'escalier or wit of the staircase: a great thought which unfortunately is an afterthought, like a clever reply that would have stunned all the other dinner guests - if only you had thought of it before walking down the stairs after the party is over.
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I never have wit until I am below stairs.
[Fr., Je n'ai jamais d'esprit qu'au bas de l'escalier.]
The other night I was walking down the stairs behind one of my daughters. I was tired, and she was goofing around, you know like kids do, doing all this stupid stuff on the stairs. And I was thinking, please just go down the stairs and let's get you to bed. It's after your bedtime. I've had enough for one day. And then I sort of caught myself. I snapped out of it. I was like, 'dude, you should be dancing down the stairs behind her'!
After the occupation of Paris, Hitler visited Paris, which of course was a great jewel for him, and he wanted to go up on the Eiffel Tower and gaze down upon the city of Paris, which he'd conquered. For some reason the elevators mysteriously stopped working that day. Some people say it might have had to do with the French resistance. So he couldn't go up.
I know all about violence and physical abuse because my first husband used to beat me severely when he got drunk. Once, I can remember coming home from a party and walking up our vast marble staircase at the Fifth Avenue house while he was striking me. I thought, If I just gave him one shove down the staircase I would be rid of him forever.
It's as though some poor devil were to set out for a large dinner party with the knowledge that the following morning he would be hearing exactly what each of the other guests thought of him.
I once hosted a dinner party where I had two guests with some serious food restrictions - one was vegan and the other didn't eat red meat... steak and fish were our dinner. Now I always serve family style with a variety of food groups - so there is something for everyone. Always ask your guests if they have any allergies.
Essentially Satori is a sudden experience, and it is often described as a "turning over" of the mind, just as a pair of scales will suddenly turn over when a sufficient amount of material has been poured into one pan to overbalance the weight in the other. Hence it is an experience which generally occurs after a long and concentrated effort to discover the meaning of Zen.
I've always thought - and I don't even know if I'd be right for the part - that Jean Seberg would make a great biopic. She was in Jean-Luc Godard's 'Breathless,' she played Joan of Arc. She had this eventful and traumatic adulthood, she thought the FBI was after her, and she became a darling of the French New Wave.
The half-hour before dinner has always been considered as the great ordeal through which the mistress, in giving a dinner-party, will either pass with flying colours, or lose many of her laurels.
By consequence, or train of thoughts, I understand that succession of one thought to another which is called, to distinguish it from discourse in words, mental discourse. When a man thinketh on anything whatsoever, his next thought after is not altogether so casual as it seems to be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently.
If you could only see the vision I have. I wish I had your bodies to do this work. I would run from house to house telling everyone of the gospel, and after I lost strength to run I would begin to walk, and after I collapsed from walking, I would begin to crawl, and after my knees were so bloody that I could not use them I would use my arms to drag myself, and once my muscle in my body was gone I would begin to yell…oh, only if you could see the vision as I have.
I love to have a dinner party. I love to have people over. I like the feeling it creates in my home - having guests laughing and telling their stories - and I put a lot of thought into it. I plan my menu kind of depending on whatever mood I'm in.
What makes a free thinker is not his beliefs, but the way in which he holds them. If he holds them because his elders told him they were true when he was young, or if he holds them because if he did not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; but if he holds them because, after careful thought, he finds a balance in their favor, then his thought is free, however odd his conclusions may seem.
The opposite of esprit d'escalier is the way that life's embarrassments come back to haunt us even after they're long past. I could remember every stupid thing I'd ever said or done, recall them with picture-perfect clarity. Any time I was feeling low, I'd naturally start to remember other times I felt that way, a hit parade of humiliations coming one after another to my mind.
From minute one, I thought that after I called a game, I said 'Man, I thought I would enjoy calling a game a little more than I probably did.' I thought I would enjoy that part of it. I didn't have the fulfillment that I thought I probably would.
By wit we search divine aspect above,
By wit we learn what secrets science yields,
By wit we speak, by wit the mind is rul'd,
By wit we govern all our actions;
Wit is the loadstar of each human thought,
Wit is the tool by which all things are wrought.
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