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.
It is hard enough to be good at all, but to be good in comedy speaks for your character.
There was always another side to a joke, the side of the victim.
Nothing is so aggravating as calmness. There is something positively brutal about the good temper of most modern men.
I think the big lesson I've learned is that it's very hard to write satire in America because almost immediately, whatever you've thought of turns out to come true, or sometimes it already was true.
Before I had a double mastectomy, I was already pretty flat-chested, and I made so many jokes over the years about how small my chest was that I started to think that maybe my boobs overheard me... and were just like, 'You know what? We're sick of this. Let's kill her.'
I don't perceive my role as a newsman at all. I'm a comedian from stem to stern. You can cut me open and count the rings of jokes.
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