List of winged words / P
Pack your swimming trunks!
Pack your swimming trunks! was the hit title with which the child star Cornelia Froboess made her radio debut in 1950 . The hit was composed by her father Gerhard Froboess , the text is by Hans Bradtke . The chorus, which begins with the following verses, is particularly catchy:
Pack your swimming trunks, take your little sister
and then nothing like
going out to Wannsee Yes, we cycle like the wind through the Grunewald
and then we will soon be at the Wannsee
The hit quickly became popular and its title is a metaphor for beautiful summer weather. Where there was no Wannsee , they sang:
"And then nothing like going to the lido."
Cornelia had her first stage appearance in May 1951. Her father originally wrote the hit for the Schöneberg Boys' Choir . However, the song was rejected by those responsible and Cornelia became a child star.
Let's do it!
As a result of the 1973 oil crisis , a rethinking of the importance of energy conservation began. The oil company Esso believed that this question required a more serious symbol than a drawn tiger. The first commercial showing a real tiger was shown in Great Britain in 1975. At the same time, the group used a new slogan:
"There is a lot to do - let's do it!"
This replaced the well-known previous slogan from 1959:
"Put a Tiger in Your Tank."
"Put the tiger in the tank."
Together with the phrase “There is a lot to do”, this advertising slogan gained widespread use on television. As a parody of the new slogan, there were soon variants such as:
"There is a lot to do - let's let it rest!"
or
"There is much to do. Get started! "
Pacta sunt servanda.
The Latin legal principle Pacta sunt servanda means in German:
- "Contracts have to be kept."
It is the most important principle of both public and private contract law . The quote probably comes from the Roman lawyer Ulpian .
The sentence was often quoted by the Bavarian politician Franz Josef Strauss as the Union's candidate for chancellor in relation to Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt's policy on Germany . He wanted to express that he intended to keep the basic treaty with the GDR, which he had fought fiercely.
When Martin Bangemann asked in a TV discussion in January 1987 whether he wanted to go back to the Eastern Treaty, Strauss reiterated his word “pacta sunt servanda”.
Educational Province
This term, coined by Goethe in his educational novel Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre , stands for an exemplary educational community. Beyond the novel, the term is used to designate ideal pedagogical designs.
In the first chapter of the second book, Wilhelm places his son Felix in a pedagogical province, which at first glance makes the following impression:
- “The pilgrims had taken the route according to the instructions and happily found the border of the province, where they were to learn many strange things; As soon as they entered, they immediately saw the most fertile region, which favored agriculture on rolling hills, sheep-rearing on higher mountains, and cattle-breeding in wide valleys. It was shortly before the harvest and everything was in great abundance; What astonished them, however, was that they saw neither women nor men, but certainly boys and young men, busy preparing for a happy harvest, yes, even to find friendly arrangements for a happy harvest festival. "
Educational elements are music and choral singing. The superiors explain to Wilhelm which religion should be favored. In particular, the youth in the province are taught to be in awe of heaven and earth.
The term is used today as follows, for example:
- "Pedagogical Province - Interview with Ingrid Sund, Head of the Schloss Salem School"
- "The garden city of Hellerau as an educational province"
- "Pedagogical Province versus Ideological Breeding Institute"
Be more papal than the Pope
This phrase probably goes back to the French King Louis XVI. back who is said to have said the following:
- "Il ne faut pas être plus royaliste que le roi."
- "You don't have to be more royal than the king."
The Chancellor Otto von Bismarck changed this saying during the Kulturkampf to:
- "To be more catholic than the pope"
Bismarck saw the attempts by the Vatican to consolidate papal influence as an attack on the newly formed German nation-state. The dispute escalated when the Curia demanded that church critics be removed from school and university service.
This phrase is also documented in literature by Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina . There Princess Tverskaya says:
- "I cannot be more papal than the Pope."
Pardon will not be given!
Wilhelm II gave the so-called Huns speech on July 27, 1900 in Bremerhaven. The reason for this was the adoption of the German East Asian Expeditionary Corps to suppress the Boxer Rebellion in the Chinese Empire. The most famous quote from this speech is:
- “Pardon will not be given! Prisoners are not taken! "
This quote was often used during the First World War to confirm the conduct of the Germans, which was considered barbaric. In Great Britain, the speech coined the term “The huns” for the Germans, which also played a role in British war propaganda during the First World War. In this second, official version, the decisive passage has the following wording:
- “You know it well, you should fight against a crafty, brave, well-armed, cruel enemy. If you get to him, you know: pardon will not be given. Prisoners are not taken. Use your weapons in such a way that for a thousand years no Chinese will dare to look peevedly at a German. "
Part of the game
no na net, part of the game , in German: Of course, part of the game was spoken by Carinthia's deputy governor Uwe Scheuch in a personal conversation during the part-of-the-game affair in 2009 , which was recorded on tape. In doing so, he offered Austrian citizenship to a consultant for a possible Russian investor in Carinthia. The saying subsequently became a popular phrase to denounce corruption.
During the National Council election campaign in 2013, the phrase was picked up again when a mobile phone game called “Part of the Game - Game” came onto the market.
Paris is worth a fair.
This saying is attributed to the French King Henry IV , who converted from Calvinism to Catholicism for his accession to the throne . After lengthy battles with the French Catholics and the Habsburg Spaniards, he received communion and allegedly commented on his behavior afterwards with the following sentence:
- "Paris vaut bien une messe."
After Robert Merle , however, he never said this sentence himself. Like many other sayings, the French people put this statement into his mouth.
Parkinson's Law
The Parkinson's laws are two tenets of Cyril Northcote Parkinson were formulated in accordance with the following observations:
- Work expands to the extent that there is time to do it, not how complex it actually is. An example is given of a pensioner who takes half a day to write a birthday greeting to her grandson. First she goes to a greeting card shop, spends half an hour making the selection, then at home thinks about nice formulations for hours, then goes to the post office, where she only gives up the card after extensive advice on the current special stamps. The contrast is the busy manager doing the same task at his desk in three minutes.
- Discussions are the most extensive discussion of the topics that most participants know about - rather than the topics that are most important. When planning the construction of a nuclear power plant, it can happen that the actual construction of the reactor interior is ticked off relatively quickly because the managers and politicians present have little specialist knowledge, while afterwards everyone talks hotly about the color in which the bicycle shed for the bicycles of the employees is to be painted.
Party is organized opinion.
This definition comes from the British statesman Benjamin Disraeli , who said in English in the House of Commons on July 21, 1857 :
"Party is organized opinion."
Passive resistance
When the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Marched his troops into Berlin to intimidate the National Assembly in November 1848, the President of the National Assembly, Hans Victor von Unruh , rejected the armed protection of the vigilante groups with the following words:
"I would definitely be of the opinion that only passive resistance can be offered here."
The expression is older, but was more widely used by Unruh's saying.
Fits like chalk and cheese
The idiom is used in relation to a pairing that is perceived as particularly disadvantageous, for example for something that is actually particularly poorly suited (a rhyme, for example) or when the speaker wants to express his subjective disapproval.
In modern colloquial language, the expression is sometimes used as a positive superlative.
Patriotism is the virtue of the wicked
From Oscar Wilde 's statement "comes Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious ." In the context, the context of his statement becomes clear: "Patriotism is the virtue of the wicked (wicked / evil). I prefer people to principles, and people without principles are more to me than anything else in the world."
Patriotism is love for one's own; Nationalism is hatred of others.
This distinction between patriotism and nationalism comes from the former German President Richard von Weizsäcker . He takes up a formulation of the French-Jewish writer and diplomat Romain Gary , who had expressed it in Pour Sganarelle in 1965 as follows:
«Le patriotisme c'est l'amour des siens. Le nationalisme c'est la haine des autres. »
The original French quote is often wrongly attributed to the comparatively better-known writer Victor Hugo .
Paul, you are racing!
The Roman proconsul Porcius Festus said these words after the account in the Acts of the Apostles to the Apostle Paul of Tarsus when he made his enthusiastic confession of Jesus Christ :
“ 24 But since he made this responsible, Festus said in a loud voice: Paul, you are mad! The great art makes you mad. 25 But he said: My dear Festus, I do not rush, but speak true and reasonable words. "
Festus did not know what to do with the apostle Paul, who had been taken into protective custody by his predecessor Marcus Antonius Felix , and finally left it to the Jewish king Herod Agrippa II to find out what this mysterious Jesus Christ was all about. When Paul appealed to the Roman emperor Nero , Festus sent him to Rome.
The exuberant behavior of the Apostle Paul shows that the Christian Church began as a fervent sect . The motto can be found in a modified form in a poem by Heinrich Heine with the title An Edom! again, which has anti-Semitism as its theme:
You will allow me to breathe, I will allow
you to race.
Sometimes only, in dark times,
you
got strangely courageous, And you colored the dear little
bits with my blood.
Peccavi
Major General Charles James Napier is said to have telegraphed the conquest of Sindh ( homophone from "sinned") to London in 1843 with this one word (Latin for "I have sinned", English "I have sinned") . According to Bamber Gascoigne's (1993) Encyclopedia of Britain, the pun actually came from Catherine Winkworth . What is certain is that the newly founded magazine Punch published the following text on May 18, 1844:
“It is a common idea that the most laconic military despatch ever issued was that sent by Caesar to the Horse-Guards at Rome, containing the three memorable words ' Veni, Vidi, Vici ' and, perhaps, until our own day, no like instance of brevity has been found. The despatch of Sir CHARLES NAPIER, after the capture of Scinde, to Lord Ellenborough, both for brevity and thruth, is, however, far beyond it. The despatch consisted of one emphatic word - 'Peccavi,' ' I have Scinde,' ( sinned ). "
“It is a common thought that the most laconic military dispatch ever abandoned , sent by Caesar to the Horseguards in Rome, contained the three memorable words Veni, Vidi, Vici and, perhaps, did not become a similar example of brevity until our day found. Sir Charles Napier's despatch to Lord Ellenborough after the conquest of Sindh goes far beyond this in brevity and honesty. The despatch consisted of the emphatic word 'Peccavi,' ' I have Sindh,' ( sinned ). "
The pun referred not only to the conquest of Sindh, but also to Napier's orders not to conquer Sindh.
Pegasus in the yoke
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In Greek mythology, Mount Helikon with a spring emerged under the hoofbeat of the winged horse Pegasus . Those who drank from this spring became a poet. The winged horse therefore became a symbol of poetry. The expression Pegasus im Joche is the heading of a poem by Friedrich Schiller that begins with the following verses:
To a horse market - perhaps to Haymarket,
Where other things are still turning into commodities,
a hungry poet once brought
The Muses' Horse to negotiate.
The winged horse is harnessed to a plow together with an ox, for which it is of course not at all suitable. This poem demonstrates how genius must atrophy if the poet uses it for purposes other than art.
Per aspera ad astra.
This Latin quote (on rough roads to the stars) is a modification of a passage from the tragedy The Mad Hercules by the Roman poet Seneca . The original is as follows:
"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via."
"It is not a comfortable way from earth to the stars."
Perfidious Albion
Albion is the poetically used name for England . The name is possibly of Celtic origin, although the Romans associated it with albus ("white") based on the limestone cliffs near Dover .
The catchphrase of "perfidious Albion" ( vile England ) came up in France in 1793 (French: la perfidious Albion ) and was an expression of bitterness over England's accession to the European coalition against revolutionary France.
It comes from a poem by the Augustine Marquis de Ximenez. It also took Chateaubriand , Théodore de Banville , Edmond and Jules de Goncourt and Anatole France .
In the German-speaking world, the expression was used frequently, especially during the Wilhelmine era. In 1908 Lord Fisher recommended the British King Edward VII to "Copenhagenize the German fleet". After Admiral Bacon, Fisher assumed that if Germany ended its naval program (...) it would attack us; in September or October 1914 because of the completion of the Kiel Canal (...). The repetition of Copenhagen in 1801 would therefore be advisable: "Why should we wait and give Germany the advantage of determining the time of the attack?"
The king replied that this idea was contrary to common law.
Pearls mean tears.
In Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's play Emilia Galotti , the morning before the planned wedding with Count Appiani, Emilia tells of a dream in which the precious stones of a piece of jewelry that her future husband gave her were transformed into pearls:
- Emilia
- “No, my dear Count, not like that; not quite like that. But not much more splendid either, not much. - Hush, hush, and I'm done! - Nothing, absolutely nothing of the jewelery, the last gift of your lavish generosity! Nothing, nothing at all, which was only suitable for such jewelery! - I could be angry with him, this jewel, if it weren't for you. Because three times I dreamed of him - "
- Claudia
- "Now! I don't know anything about that. "
- Emilia
- “As if I were wearing it, and as if suddenly every stone of the same was turned into a pearl. - But pearls, my mother, pearls mean tears. "
- Claudia
- "Child! - The meaning is more dreamy than the dream. - Weren't you always a greater lover of pearls than of stones? - "
- Emilia
- "Of course, my mother, of course -"
- Appiani
- “(Thoughtful and melancholy). Mean tears - mean tears! "
The superstition that pearls given to you as a gift mean sorrow and suffering in the future can already be found in medieval dream books. This is attributed to the fact that many divers perished while collecting the pearls. That is why you should either buy them yourself or pay a small amount to the person who gives them so that they are no longer given, but bought.
Throw pearls in front of the swine
"Throwing pearls at the swine" means giving something valuable to people who do not appreciate it. The metaphor comes from the Gospel of Matthew (7, 6), where it says:
"Μὴ δῶτε τὸ ἅγιον τοῖς κυσὶ μηδὲ βάλητε τοὺς μαργαρίτας ὑμῶν ἔμπροσθεν τῶν χοίρων, μήποτε καταπατήσωσιν αὐτοὺς ἐν τοῖς ποσὶν αὐτῶν καὶ στραφέντες ῥήξωσιν ὑμᾶς."
"You are not to give the sanctuary to the dogs and you are not to throw your pearls in front of the swine, so that they do not trample them under their feet and turn and tear you."
The expression has entered many languages (with variants):
- English: "to cast pearls before swine"
- French: "thunder des perles aux pourceaux"
- Italian: "gettare perle ai porci"
- Modern Greek: " Ρίπτω τους μαργαρίτας εις τους χοίρους. "
Peter principle
The American educator and author Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) formulated the principle of the hierarchy of incapacity in 1969 . During his office sociological research he came to a conclusion which he summarizes in the Peter Principle as follows:
"In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."
"In a hierarchy, there is a tendency that every employee climbs up until he has reached his individual incompetence level."
This definition expresses that someone who is capable in his job is promoted until he reaches a position for which he is incompetent; then he stays there.
Stake in the flesh
This expression comes from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians . Here the apostle Paul of Tarsus says of himself:
"And so that I do not rise above the high revelations, a stake has been given to me in the flesh, namely the angel of Satan, who beats me with his fists so that I do not rise above myself."
Stake in the flesh is also a short text from Friedrich Schiller's Xenien und Votivtafeln :
- “Just don't name Lessing! The good man has suffered a lot,
and in the martyr's wreath you were a terrible thorn. "
The stake in the flesh today is the epitome of something that does not allow you to rest:
- "The stake in the flesh and against cowardice and prayer." ( Søren Kierkegaard )
- "The stake in the flesh" ( Jean-Paul Sartre )
- "Stake in the flesh of memory"
Mandatory! You great great name!
This quote comes from the philosopher Immanuel Kant , who described this key concept of his teaching as follows:
"Mandatory! You exalted great name, which you do not grasp in you anything popular, which has ingratiation with you, but demand submission, but also do not threaten anything that arouses and frightens natural aversion in the mind in order to move the will, but merely draws up a law, which finds its way into the mind by itself. "
To the desperation of his contemporaries (such as Friedrich Schiller), Kant revered duty . His lyrical ode to duty from 1788 is almost a counterpart to Schiller's poem An die Freude , which was published three years earlier. Schiller accused Kant of demanding that something should only be done out of duty, but not out of inclination, and wrote the following poem on this:
Scruples of conscience
I am happy to serve my friends, but unfortunately I do it with an inclination,
and so it often annoys me that I am not virtuous.
Decision
There is no other advice! You must seek to despise them,
and then do with disgust as the Phlicht commands you.
Phoenix from the ashes
The phoenix is a mythological bird that burns and is able to rise again from its ashes. This notion can still be found today in the saying “ Like a phoenix from the ashes ” for something that was believed to be lost but reappears in a new splendor.
During the Hellenistic period , the idea prevailed that the phoenix emerged from the ashes of Osiris and reached an old age of around 300–500 years. At the end of his life he builds a nest, sits in it and burns. After the flames have gone out, an egg remains from which a new phoenix hatches.
Examples:
- "Fashion in London - Like Phoenix from the ashes"
- "Berlin Palace: Phoenix from the ashes"
- "Zeppelins: Like a phoenix from the ashes"
Ping pong diplomacy
As ping-pong diplomacy referred to the political rapprochement between China and the US in the 1970s with the help of table tennis. Ping-pong politics was the headline of a short newspaper article in 1971 that reported the sensational entry of a table tennis delegation from the USA, Canada, Colombia, Great Britain and Nigeria to the People's Republic of China . With this action, after a five-year absence from international sporting events, China expressed its interest in friendly relations with the outside world. In Beijing, Prime Minister Zhou Enlai warmly welcomed the guests from the United States and said that this "opened a new page in the relationship between the Chinese and American people".
Ping pong was the name for table tennis when it was invented in England at the end of the 19th century. This name was protected as a commercial trademark in 1901 and has not been freely used since then. Only in China is the sport still officially called "Ping Pong Ball" 乒乓球.
Platonic love
Platonic love is love only on a spiritual level, which is traced back to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato . According to Plato, true love, love that is free of “sexual” interest and based solely on this attitude, is only possible among “equals”. “Equals” are individuals who (can) have the same rights and the same status; the z. B. are also full citizens of a community. Women in ancient Athens were not. Therefore, true love between a man and a woman would not be possible. Since Plato also rejected homosexuality, there was only platonic love between men.
According to today's meaning, platonic love denotes an intimate friendship and solidarity, a love based on emotional solidarity. In addition to erotically motivated love, Plato's symposium includes love as a form of spiritual bond. The renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) was the first to speak of this idea of love as "amor Platonicus" after Plato .
Wilhelm Busch commented:
"Platonic love seems to me like an eternal aim and never pressing."
Place in the sun
"A place in the sun" was the motto of the German ARD television lottery . The phrase goes back to a saying by the Imperial Chancellor, Prince Bernhard von Bülow , who justified the occupation of the Chinese coastal city of Jiaozhou before the Reichstag in 1897 by saying:
"We must demand that the German missionary and the German entrepreneur, the German goods, the German flag and the German ship are just as respected in China as those of other powers."
(Lively bravo.)
"We are finally ready to take the interests of other great powers into account in East Asia, with the sure foresight that our own interests will also be given due consideration."
(Bravo!)
"In a word: we don't want to overshadow anyone, but we also demand our place in the sun."
(Bravo!)
The quote is used today without any thought of colonialism:
- "Ice hockey: penguins take their place in the sun"
- "Electricity from the desert: a place in the sun"
- "Fight for a place in the sun: tens of thousands of school leavers hope in vain for an apprenticeship position."
Bankruptcies, bad luck and mishaps
Bankruptcies, bad luck and breakdowns was atelevision program moderated and conceivedby Max Schautzer on ARD, in which, to the amusement of the audience, mishaps documented on film were shown. Viewers received 400 DM for each video broadcast showing funny mishaps. The mascot of this program was a raven, the unlucky one .
The alliance of bankruptcies, bad luck and breakdowns is the epitome of things that have gone wrong and are often viewed with glee . The Netzwelt presents a selection of breakdown videos on the Internet under the heading Bankruptcies, Bad luck and Breakdowns: Funny Videos on the Net .
Open door policy
The policy of the open door (English: Open door policy ) is a special form of foreign and economic policy, which originally referred to the same trading conditions of the great powers in China . On this basis, the Unequal Treaties with China were able to give the great powers unhindered market access, treaty ports and missionary activity.
It was primarily British and Americans who called for "the open door for all nations' trade", as British Admiral Charles Beresford, 1st Baron Beresford put it.
Today the buzzword is commonly used for transparency about the goals of a government or a company.
Politics is the art of the possible.
On December 18, 1863 Otto von Bismarck said in the Prussian state parliament :
"Politics is not an exact science."
In the German Reichstag on March 15, 1884 he said:
“Politics is not a science, as many of the professors imagine, it is an art; it is no more a science than sculpting and painting. "
In the Prussian state parliament he said on January 29, 1886:
“A critic like Lessing has never flattered himself that even if he criticized Laocoon he would be able to be any sculptor. I can assure you that politics is not a science that can be learned, it is an art, and if you cannot do it, you will be better off! "
Politics is the entertainment division of business.
The American musician Frank Zappa said in English:
"What I always say is that politics is the entertainment branch of industry."
Another variant is:
"Government is the Entertainment Division of the military-industrial complex."
"Government is the entertainment department of the military-industrial complex."
Frank Zappa repeatedly made fun of the laws of the market and called his record company Bellende Kürbisse . For him, politicians were just "mutated used car sellers" who stuffed the country with drugs to calm the people down. In 1991, Zappa announced that he would run for the presidency of the United States, but was diagnosed with prostate cancer shortly afterwards.
The quote is always brought into play when the strong influence of business leaders on politics is to be criticized.
Politics spoils the character.
This statement comes from a prospectus that the paper founded by the publisher Bernhard Brigl sent out for the educated of all classes with the subtitle A newspaper for non-politicians on New Year's 1882. The prospectus, which was written by the later editor-in-chief of the Braunschweigische Landeszeitung Eugen Sierke , further stated:
"This claim of a famous statesman, which may sound paradoxical but has a grain of truth in it, has never been heard repeated so often before."
The idea was already widespread in the 1850s. The wife of Major Adolf von Lützow wrote in a letter to Seher's grandmother in August 1848:
"I live quietly in my garden room, see very little of the city and very reluctantly to hear about politics, which so thoroughly spoil life as well as the character of the people."
In Gustav Freytag's comedy The journalists from 1854, says Adelaide of Runeck:
“If I were ever to be able to make a man my master, I would only impose one condition on him, the wise rule of my old aunt's life: smoke tobacco, my husband, as much as you like, it only spoils the wallpaper, but don't dare to look at a newspaper, it spoils your character. "
Ludwig Marcuse sharpened the thought in an aphorism:
" Bismarck : 'Politics spoils the character.' Comment: Since he only understood foreign and domestic politics by politics, the sentence is far too narrow. All pragmatic behavior spoils the character. There are only two relationships between people: politics and friendship. "
Political well poisoning
The German Chancellor, Prince Otto von Bismarck, was not squeamish when dealing with political opponents, which shows his reaction to the distorting reproduction of his statements during the election campaign, which he described in a Reichstag speech in January 1882 as "political well poisoning ".
The term is still relevant today and is always used with great indignation. A message from the CDU parliamentary group in Saarland says:
“As 'political well poisoning', Peter Hans, the chairman of the CDU parliamentary group, described statements by the SPD party and parliamentary group leader Maas, according to which Prime Minister Peter Müller allegedly through electoral deception the discussion about the future of coal mining in the regions in the Saarland affected by mining damage have fueled. "
Well poisoning , as a special case of the argumentum ad hominem, is a rhetorical device , the name of which goes back to well poisoning , the deliberate contamination of drinking water. This was already considered a serious crime in ancient times. As an allegation, well poisoning is also an old stereotype used to defame certain ethnic groups. It wasattributed tothe Jews in the Middle Ages, especially during the spread of the plague (1347-1350) and triggered pogroms across Europe.
Political veteran
This metaphor was coined by the SPD politician Herbert Wehner on the former German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer .
The journalist Klaus Harpprecht wrote in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit in 1981 :
"Adenauer's ridicule inspired Herbert Wehner to the brilliant inspiration that followed him every step of the way through a thousand newspaper comments, radio programs and television reports until the term became identical with himself: he had said of the old man that he was from 'political veterans' shaped. A nice word. The federal society, speechless in such a talkative way, sucked it in greedily. Nobody stopped the fact that inflationary use turned it into a cliché. "
Wehner used the idea of a granite boulder that is practically immovable. A veteran is a rock that occurs in urwüchsig appearing formations. In a figurative sense, it is a person who has been established in their activity for many years:
- "Herbert Wehner, political veteran"
- " Müntefering - veteran and reformer"
Post festum
“Too late”: this Latin expression literally means “after the festival” and comes from the Latin translation of Gorgia's philosophical dialogue by Plato . There it is described how Socrates is on the way to a feast in the house of the rich Callicles; but he does not arrive until the famous speaker Gorgias has already given his speech, and therefore asks whether he and his companion had come too late.
Potemkin Villages
Potemkin villages (pronounced: Patjómkin villages, Russian: Потёмкинские деревни) is the expression for something that is only pretended, something that should seem more than it really is. Allegedly , after the conquest of the Crimea , Prince Gregor Alexandrowitsch Potemkin , the favorite of the Tsarina Catherine II , deceived the Tsarina, who was touring the newly acquired area, about its true condition by means of quickly built villages. Presumably this tale goes back to gossip by angry courtiers.
The historian Gerhard Prause wrote in Tratschke's lexicon for know-it-alls :
“This court gossip was spread by Potemkin's enemies in St. Petersburg. Neither the tsarina herself, who was far too clever to be deceived in such a clumsy way, nor other contemporaries ever believed in it. Only when a Saxon diplomat named Helbig spoke of it as an actual occurrence in his memoir, published in 1797, did this anecdote find its way into serious history books. "
Pre-stabilized harmony
The philosophical term pre-stabilized harmony was coined by the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and occupies a central position in his theory of monads . Leibniz uses it to designate the harmonious relationship of all things in space as determined by God.
In Leibniz's monadology, this idea leads to the thesis of the “best of all possible worlds”.
Primum non nocere
The Latin expression primum non nocere means as much as first of all not to harm (Greek: μὴ βλάπτειν ). This is a principle that the Hippocratic tradition places at the center of its concept of morally required medical action.
According to this ancient motto, in his endeavor to help the individual entrusted to him, the doctor should above all take care not to harm him, and was set up by the doctor Scribonius Largus at the court of Emperor Tiberius Claudius around the year 50 . In the strict sense, the motto Primum non nocere prohibits the use of any medicinal product, since none - whether of natural or artificial origin - is free from side effects .
Princess and the Pea
The Princess and the Pea (Danish: Prinsessen på ærten ) is a well-known fairy tale by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen .
The fairy tale is about a prince who is looking for a real princess to marry. A storm brings a young lady who claims to be a real princess to the castle. In order to dispel all doubts, the queen uses the following ruse: She places a pea on the floor of the bed, on which she places twenty mattresses and twenty eiderdown duvets. When the princess complained the next morning that she had slept on something hard, proof was given that she was a real princess.
The fairy tale title stands for pronounced sensitivity in everyday language. In a song text by German singer Eric Fish entitled Princess on the Pea it says:
"Princess and the pea, I can understand you well,
I also have a skin so thin
that I am battered like you.
But you will see - pain will pass!"
Principle of hope
The principle of hope is the main work of the German philosopher Ernst Bloch . It was written in exile in the United States between 1938 and 1947. Originally it was supposed to be called The dreams of a better life . It was published in the GDR between 1954 and 1959. Since then, the term “Hope Principle” has become a popular phrase in German feature pages. In the preface it says:
“It depends on learning to hope. His work does not renounce, she is in love with success instead of failure. "
Today the title is mostly quoted when it is intended to express that in a situation there is nothing more you can do than just hope, which, however, is in contrast to Bloch's idea of “hope” not as waiting for a favorable turn of phrase understood, but as an active influence.
Principle rider
See: Riding around on a principle
Pro domo
The Latin expression Pro domo means “for the house”. This is the title of the speech Oratio de domo sua (“Speech for his house”) by the Roman statesman Cicero , which he wrote after his house was destroyed during his exile. During Cicero's exile, his opponent Clodius consecrated part of Cicero's property on the Palatine Hill to the goddess Libertas . Cicero declares this dedication invalid and tried to obtain a return. His speech has the following title:
- "De domo sua ad pontifices"
- "About his own house, to the pontifical college"
Testing is above studying
This winged word goes back to the Latin proverb "Experĭentia est optĭma rerum magistra" (literally: "Experience is the best teacher") and would like to mean that acquired knowledge may be useful, but experience or experiment is also a suitable method Achieving a result can be.
Try it with coziness!
This is the beginning of a song that the bear Balu sings in the cartoon The Jungle Book for his human friend Mowgli, which begins as follows:
Try it with comfort with peace and comfort,
you chase away everyday life and worries.
And if you are always comfortable and something is appetizing,
then take it from
wherever you are
Stefan Raab changes the chorus in his song with the same title:
Try it with comfort,
with calm and comfort
and throw the stupid worries overboard.
(Throw it away, throw it away)
Forecasting is difficult, especially when it comes to the future.
It is not entirely clear who made this statement. They are attributed to the cabaret artist Karl Valentin , the writer Mark Twain or the natural scientist Niels Bohr .
An English version is:
"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future."
The Danish version attributed to the physicist Niels Bohr reads:
"Det er svært at spå, især om Fremdtiden."
Probably the bon mot comes from a Danish politician.
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
The Manifesto of the Communist Party of Karl Marx from 1847 begins with the dictum "A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of communism" and ends with the familiar call:
“The communists disdain to hide their views and intentions. They openly declare that their purposes can only be achieved through the violent overthrow of all previous social order. May the ruling classes tremble before a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose in it but their chains. You have a world to win.
' Workers of all countries, unite! '“
The English form Workers of all lands unite is also found on Karl Marx's tombstone in Highgate Cemetery in London .
Prophet on the right, prophet on the left, the world child in the middle
These are the closing verses of Goethe's poem Diner zu Coblenz in the summer of 1774 . On a trip along the Rhine, Goethe was having dinner with the popular philosopher Johann Bernhard Basedow and the Swiss theologian Johann Kaspar Lavater . While these two had a highly learned conversation, Goethe devoted himself exclusively to culinary delights.
According to Poetry and Truth , Goethe wrote these verses in Cologne in an album:
And, like after Emmaus, it went on
with steps of storm and fire:
Prophet on the right, prophet on the left,
the world child in the middle.
The quote is related to someone who does not care about the opinions of others who have no eye for the useful or the pleasant.
The connection with the walk to Emmaus ( Gospel according to Luke 24, 13) alludes to the fact that the risen Jesus met two disciples on the way to Emmaus who at first did not recognize him.
Psychoanalysis is the mental illness it believes to be therapy.
This derogatory assessment of psychoanalysis comes from the Austrian satirist Karl Kraus , from whom the following bon mot also comes:
“Most of them are sick. But few know that they can be imagined. These are the psychoanalysts. "
Kraus continued to polemic:
"Neurologists who pathologize genius to us should have their skulls broken in with the collected works."
Richard Schuberth wrote about this famous quote in 2006:
“In 1913 Karl Kraus etched this amusing meanness into the literary memory of the world, in terms of content for many a proof of his arrogance, formally the archetype of the successful aphorism. A paradoxical exaggeration that hardly misses its effect due to the nasty inversion of the attached relative clause. How much the readers of the torch might have laughed, how angry it might have struck the serious gentlemen of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, especially since they had to protect their young theorems in particularly stiff collars and irony-free academicism from the hostility of the prudish common sense. "
Schuberth notes that although Kraus had attended Sigmund Freud's lectures , he had only superficial knowledge of psychoanalysis. At first, Kraus treated Freud with respect and wrote in connection with homosexual trials:
"With Professor Sigmund Freud you have the insight and the courage to confess that homosexuals do not belong in prison or in the tower of fools."
After the two became estranged from each other, Freud wrote in a letter to the writer Arnold Zweig :
"I was very proud of the position you gave me, and then annoyed again that you could bow to Karl Kraus, who is one of the lowest on the scale of my respect."
Punctuality is the thief of time.
These words come from Oscar Wilde's novel The Portrait of Dorian Gray and characterize the cynical dandy Lord Henry Wotton, of whom the book says in English:
"He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time."
"In principle he was late because it was one of his principles that punctuality stole the time."
The background is probably a quote from the English poet Edward Young , which reads as follows:
"Procrastination is the thief of time."
"Procrastination is the thief of time."
Punctuality is the courtesy of kings.
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The banker Jacques Laffitte quotes the French King Louis XVIII in his memoirs . with the following saying:
«L'exactitude est la politesse des rois. »
With this quote someone is reprimanded today by showing them that punctuality is observed even by kings. Kings have no other way of showing their respect for their fellow citizens but by being punctual. That is why punctuality is the courtesy of kings. Today the phrase is used when a superior does not keep his subordinates waiting.
A similar saying comes from Napoleon Bonaparte , who said:
"There are thieves who are not punished by the law, although they steal the most precious thing from people: namely time."
Individual evidence
- ↑ Quoted from https://www.magistrix.de/lyrics/Conny%20Froboess/Pack-Die-Badehose-Ein-22818.html
- ^ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre in the Gutenberg-DE project
- ^ Leo Tolstoy : Anna Karenina , p. 358
- ↑ App Store (iOS) : The Part of the Game-Game , August 6, 2013
- ↑ Google Play : The Part of the Game-Game , August 6, 2013
- ↑ Faust. In: Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm (Hrsg.): German dictionary . tape 3 : E – research - (III). S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1862, Sp. 1381 ( woerterbuchnetz.de ). “It rhymes like a fist on the eye, d. i. bad, little "
- ↑ fit like a fist on the eye ( Wiktionary )
- ↑ Acts of the Apostles . 26.24. Quoted from: bibel-online.net
- ^ Byron Farwell: Queen Victoria's Little Wars. Wordsworth Editions Limited, Hertfordshire 1999, p. 30.
- ↑ "Peccavi"
- ↑ Mark Lemon, Henry Mayhew (Eds.): Punch or the London Charivari. London 1844. Volume VI, p. 207.
- ↑ Quoted from Pegasus im Joche on Wikisource
- ↑ Seneca: Hercules furens , line 437.
- ^ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing : Emilia Galotti . 2nd elevator. 5-7. Quoted from: courses.washington.edu
- ↑ Gospel according to Matthew 7.6; quoted from the Luther Bible of 1545
- ↑ 2nd Letter of Paul to the Corinthians . 12.7
- ↑ Quoted from: zeno.org
- ↑ Immanuel Kant : Critique of Practical Reason . VI, 355. Quoted from: textlog.de
- ↑ Quoted from: gavagai.de
- ^ Bernhard von Bülow : Reichstag speech of December 6, 1897. Quoted from Germany's place in the sun on Wikisource
- ↑ a b c Georg Büchmann : Winged words
- ↑ Frank Zappa . In: RockHEAD , Vol. 14, No. 4, Summer 1990
- ↑ Georg Büchmann : Winged words
- ↑ Ludwig Marcuse: Arguments and recipes. A word book for contemporaries . Szczesny, Munich 1967, p. 17.
- ↑ cdu-fraktion-saar.de ( Memento from June 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Klans Harpprecht: Many Social Democrats whisper behind closed doors: Herbert Wehner becomes a cross for his party. He lets the reins of the faction drag and causes strife in the leadership troika. Klaus Harpprecht, who calls himself a “loyal SPD member - since 1968 - with a certain inner independence”, expresses these anxieties. Not everyone will share Harpprecht's opinion, but she deserves a hearing: Herbert Wehner - we have to divorce . In: The time . No. 10 , 1981 ( online ).
- ^ Gerhard Prause : Tratschke's Lexicon for know-it-alls . Quoted from: sgipt.org
- ↑ Quoted from https://www.magistrix.de/lyrics/eric-fish-friends/Prinzessin-Auf-Der-Erbse-168736.html
- ↑ zeno.org
- ↑ from Mauthner: Dictionary of Philosophy
- ↑ Quoted from [1]
- ↑ Quoted from kohit.net ( Memento from October 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ politiken.dk
- ↑ Manifesto of the Communist Party . Quoted from the Communist Party Manifesto on Wikisource
- ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: From my life. Poetry and truth . 3rd part, book 14. Quoted from zum.de
- ↑ At night (time). In: G. Fieguth: German aphorisms . Reclam Verlag, Stuttgart 1978, p. 227
- ↑ Quoted from: literaturkritik.de
- ↑ a b c Quoted from: augustin.or.at