"Trouble rather the tiger"; Source?
David C Kifer
here long ago. I still haven't found an *original* source, if there is
one beyond the one I have. I did find a somewhat different version that
I could believe inspired the first one, but I can't find a source for
it, either, other than "attributed to". Everyone with better Google
skills than mine, help!
"Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage amongst his books.
For to you Kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but
to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned by the flicking
of a finger."
-- This appears as the epigraph to _Tactics of Mistake_ by Gordon R.
Dickson (1971), and is attributed "Lessons: Anonymous".
also attributed elsewhere as Chinese proverb
Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair, Than the Sage among his Books, For
all the Empires and Kingdoms, The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment, To be turned over with the
Flick of a Finger, And the Turning of a Page.
--attributed to Rudyard Kipling
It is not in his poetry that I could find, but I could believe RK wrote
it. Dickson was known for both quoting Kipling and other poets and
writers, and for finding inspiration for his own writing among them.
--
Dave
"Tam multi libri, tam breve tempus!"
(Et brevis pecunia.) [Et breve spatium.]
libreria
> Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair, Than the Sage among his Books, For
> all the Empires and Kingdoms, The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
> Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment, To be turned over with the
> Flick of a Finger, And the Turning of a Page.
> --attributed to Rudyard Kipling
>
> It is not in his poetry that I could find, but I could believe RK wrote
> it. Dickson was known for both quoting Kipling and other poets and
> writers, and for finding inspiration for his own writing among them.
___________________________________________
The fact it appears nowhere credited to the real (and well-documented)
Kipling one would think "no" -it would be too good to miss, surely?!
...
He that has but ever so little examined the Citations of Writers, cannot
doubt how little Credit the Quotations deserve, where the Originals are
wanting; and consequently how much less Quotations of Quotations can be
relied on.
~ John Locke 1632-1704, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
--
//libreria
Pics of AL
http://aussieladiesofaq.blogspot.com
______________________________
David C Kifer
> On 15/06/2010 5:02 AM, David C Kifer wrote:
>
>> Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair, Than the Sage among his Books, For
>> all the Empires and Kingdoms, The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
>> Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment, To be turned over with the
>> Flick of a Finger, And the Turning of a Page.
>> --attributed to Rudyard Kipling
>>
>> It is not in his poetry that I could find, but I could believe RK wrote
>> it. Dickson was known for both quoting Kipling and other poets and
>> writers, and for finding inspiration for his own writing among them.
> ___________________________________________
>
> The fact it appears nowhere credited to the real (and well-documented)
> Kipling one would think "no" -it would be too good to miss, surely?!
That's why I was hoping someone with better Google skillz than I could
find the REAL source of it!
;-)>
Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ignar DePointe
> On 15/06/2010 5:02 AM, David C Kifer wrote:
>
> > Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair, Than the Sage among his Books, For
> > all the Empires and Kingdoms, The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
> > Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment, To be turned over with the
> > Flick of a Finger, And the Turning of a Page.
> > --attributed to Rudyard Kipling
> The fact it appears nowhere credited to the real (and well-documented)
> Kipling one would think "no" -it would be too good to miss, surely?!
..............
I think it sounds a bit like Omar K. ......
But then again...
"Omar Khayyam had become an everyman's poet. Eminent
men of letters, like Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain and
Arthur Quiller Couch, had borrowed FitzGerald's quatrains
in order to turn them into parodies. After them
countless versifiers made their own Robāʿiyāt,
in which almost every subject that moved people
could be parodied (Biegstraaten, p. 33). The Omar
Khayyam craze began to fade away in the 1920s."
http://www.iranica.com/articles/khayyam-xi
-- Ignar
David C Kifer
I tried again with Omar, but it doesn't seem to be him either. I guess
I'll have to keep attributing it to Gordon Dickson. Another writer,
Jerry Pournelle, borrowed the same quote from Dickson for Niven &
Pournelle's book, _Lucifer's Hammer_ (1977), six years after Dickson's
book, and he wrote in 2001:
As to that quote about the sage at his books, I first saw it in an old
Gordon Dickson story, used as a chapter aphorism just as we used it, and
I am not sure Gordy didn't make it up, because I have myself searched
for the source for a long time. All SF fans seem to know it, but I don't
know of anyone who knows a source other than Dickson...
--Jerry Pournelle, CHAOS MANOR MAIL Mail 134 January 1 - 7, 2001
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2mail/mail134.html
SteveMR200
<hv603...@news4.newsguy.com>:
>Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
>Than the Sage among his Books,
>For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
>The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
>Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
>To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
>And the Turning of a Page.
>--attributed to Rudyard Kipling
A wise man is a school for the magnates,
and those who are aware of his knowledge
do not attack him.
--The Teaching for Merikare (c. 2135-2040 BC)
--
Steve