“Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.” - Flaubert
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A wonderful quote!
Isn’t it? Came across it again rereading Carl Sagan’s “Contact”. I know I read the quote in college (likely in French) because it is from Madame Bovary. The actual quote is:
“La parole humaine est comme un chaudron fêlé où nous battons des mélodies à faire danser les ours, quand on voudrait attendrir les étoiles."
I wanted to look it up since I’ve read different translations of the latter half. Note that in French the bit after the comma is much shorter, and there is no mention of making music. “Attendrir” by itself means “to touch”, so you could translate it as “to touch the stars”, which is poetic as it is. “Voudrait attendrir” returns a web translation of “would like to tenderize”…so = melt. The accepted translation extends the musical metaphor he’s started with the kettle and bears.
Beef with mallet in hand: "Je voudrais attendrir this here steak"
(apologies for the Forum abuse)
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“All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike - and yet it is the most precious thing we have.”
- Albert Einstein
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Well, this is getting monotonous being the only poster here at the moment, but I keep seeing quoteable things from Carl.
Carl Sagan, writing in 1996. Apologies for the length. Excerpts from “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as A Candle in the Dark”, his takedown of pseudo-science and call for skepticism and critical thinking.
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Boiled down to it’s essence by Sowell:
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You do not even hurt its feelings.
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Thats a couple of good ones.
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Prescient.
Uh huh…
Attributed to Arthur C. Clarke:
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
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Imagine having a Bic lighter a couple hundred years ago.
Exactly; or a flashlight during the middle ages…
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I’ve always wanted to play Mozart a recording of his music on a good stereo. Wonder what he would think.
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It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance. …
Thomas Sowell
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“I know nothing!”
Sgt. Schultz
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He’d say that Piano sounds little like the one I wrote that piece to be played on for starters.
That’s for sure 
. Probably wouldn’t like the picture of the temperament either:man_shrugging:t2:
EDIT: now that I’m not on my phone: “pitch or the” not “picture of the”. Can’t recall what Concert Pitch was popular in his day. May not have been A440. @Elk ?
And piano vs. pianoforte, etc. tuning? Fuggettaboutit.
But just would love to see this brilliant visionary musician with a direct line to the Infinite react to a fully realized version of one of his pieces Played Back to him - bearing in mind that recording was a century or so in the Future. No one ever heard his music in his time except from a live group/human singer/player.
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