The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise.
Miguel De CervantesRead
But do not give it to a lawyer's clerk to write, for they use a legal hand that Satan himself will not understand.
Interpretation
This quote humorously critiques the legibility of legal writing.
Miguel De Cervantes humorously suggests that legal documents are so poorly written that even a devil would struggle to comprehend them. This reflects a broader criticism of the legal profession, implying that legal language is often unnecessarily complex and inaccessible to the average person.
In practice
In a speech about legal reform, one might use this quote to lighten the mood.
The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise.
Patience and shuffle the cards.
It's up to brave hearts, sir, to be patient when things are going badly, as well as being happy when they're going well ... For I've heard that what they call fortune is a flighty woman who drinks too much, and, what's more, she's blind, so she can't see what she's doing, and she doesn't know who she's knocking over or who she's raising up.
When the head aches, all the members partake of the pain.
Though Gods attributes are equal, yet his mercy is more attractive and pleasing in our eyes than his justice.
If you are ambitious of climbing up to the difficult, and in a manner inaccessible, summit of the Temple of Fame, your surest way is to leave on one hand the narrow path of Poetry, and follow the narrower track of Knight-Errantry, which in a trice may raise you to an imperial throne.
When someone pitches a joke for a character that is just perfect, and you can imagine that actor reading that line at your table read or on the set, it's like the sound of a snap snapping into place.
A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
Ben Franklin was a little stout later in life and it was said that in Paris a young woman, tapping him on his protruding abdomen, said,"Dr. Franklin, if this were on a woman, we'd know what to think." And Franklin replied,"Half an hour ago, Mademoiselle, it was on a woman, and now what do you think?"
I'm going to take this God-given gift of being funny, and I'm going to spread it out like peanut butter on everything I do.
The New York papers have long known that no large question is ever really settled until I have been consulted.
If compliments were food, I'd have starved to death 28 years ago.
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