If I could remember the names of all these particles I'd be a botanist. - Enrico Fermi
Nothing is as old as yesterday's newspaper -- but Homer is new this morning!
(paraphrased from Charles Péguy : "Homer is new this morning and nothing is perhaps as old as today's newspaper.")
The War-Song of Dinas Vawr
The mountain sheep are sweeter
But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deem’d it meeter
To carry off the latter.
—Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866), The Misfortunes of Elphin
The Leaders of the Crowd
They must to keep their certainty accuse
All that are different of a base intent;
Pull down established honor; hawk for news
Whatever their loose fantasy invent
And murmur it with bated breath, as though
The abounding gutter had been Helicon
Or calumny a song. How can they know
Truth flourishes where the student's lamp has shone,
And there alone, that have no solitude?
So the crowd come they care not what may come.
They have loud music, hope every day renewed
And heartier loves; that lamp is from the tomb.—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)