Vulgar words in A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (Page 1)
This book at a glance
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THE STORY OF BURIDAN'S ASS.
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[13] Buridan[14] (died about 1358) is the creator of the famous ass which, as _Burdin's_[15] ass, was current in Burgundy, perhaps is, as a vulgar proverb.
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Spinoza[16] says it was a jenny ass, and that a man would not have been so foolish; but whether the compliment is paid to human or to masculine character does not appear--perhaps to both in one.
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An ass is _equally_ pressed by hunger and by thirst; a bundle of hay is on one side, a pail of water on the other.
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Surely, you will say, he will not be ass enough to die for want of food or drink; he will then make a choice--that is, will choose between alternatives of equal force.
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It is difficult to restore Buteo; for not only now is _butor_ a blockhead as well as a bird, but we really cannot know what kind of bird Buteo stood for.
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Take some _labeled_ characters out of our humorists, let them be put together into one piece, to speak only as labeled: let there be a Dominie with nothing but "Prodigious!" a Dick Swiveller with nothing but adapted quotations; a Dr. Folliott with nothing but sneers at Lord Brougham;[432] and the whole will pack up into one of Miss Burney's novels.
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Up and down the world then he went in quest of this new language: visited all the universities, and all {217} the schools, and all the courts of law, and all the play-houses, and all the prisons; never was poor devil so fagged.
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All this has been sufficiently discussed elsewhere: "but, masters, remember that I am an ass."
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I was to have been a Director, but my name got no further than ink, and not so far as official notification of the honor, partly owing to my having communicated to the _Mechanic's Magazine_ information privately given to me, which gave premature publicity, and knocked up the plan.
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Lagrange[788] gets mellow with Laplace,[789] And both are wont to say, sir, The _philosophe_ who's not an ass Will drink his bottle a day, sir!