PEARLS BEFORE PIGS

W o r d s O f W i s d o m A n d P l e a s a n t r y

If there should be any doubt: the headline is meant ironically. On the menu we have words of wisdom, quotes and play on words. We even have an anecdote or two, and also a few favorite jokes which couldn't be kept out. Those who feel like turning in disgust from this debrise of jest and seriousness cannot possibly have studied Piet Hein, who wrote:

He who takes a joke to be just a joke and seriousness to be just serious, has grasped both things equally bad.

PART 1

Chapter 1 - 5(upd.160106)247

Chapter 1 On athletics(57)

Chapter 2 On other sports and training(54)

Chapter 3 On fist-fights and similar social activities(35)

Chapter 4 On amusing oneself royally(55)

Chapter 5 On success(46)?

PART 2

Chapter 6 - 10(upd.230505)350

Chapter 6 On self-confidence(42)

Chapter 7 On bad fortune and misunderstandings(88)

Chapter 8 On wisdom(83)

Chapter 9 On character(82)

Chapter 10 On optimists and pessimists(55)

PART 3

Chapter 11 - 15(upd.241205)487

Chapter 11 On culture and religion(112)

Chapter 12 On eating and drinking(63)

Chapter 13 On politics and politicians(156)

Chapter 14 On women(77)

Chapter 15 On love and sexuality(79)

PART 4

Chapter 16 - 20(upd.250106)366

Chapter 16 On parents and children(88)

Chapter 17 On nature and wildlife(78)

Chapter 18 On science, discoveries and statistics(65)

Chapter 19 On past and future(82)

Chapter 20 On death(53)

PART 5

Chapter 21 - 25(upd.250106)(422)

Chapter 21 On good and bad custom(118)

Chapter 22 On patriotism and local characteristics(70)

Chapter 23 On lies, crimes and punishment(66)

Chapter 24 On the weather, the seasons, the sun and the stars(61)

Chapter 25 On friendship and solidarity(107)

PART 1

Chapter 1 On athletics(upd. 141105)

Please remember, folks, that these people are our guests.

-Speaker Bill Henry to the public when the Finn Lehtinen interfered an American and won 5000 m in L.A. 1932

That girl has muscles on places where other girls do not even have places.

-Norwegian athletics magazine, Friidrett, on Jarmila Kratochvilova

He was - during his prime - one of Norway's worst medium distance runners.

-Kristian Rakvåg

Grete Waitz was only beaten by five gentlemen. And such people call them selves gentlemen!

-Trollhaugens Tass, funny corner in Aftenposten, Norwegian newspaper

To be an athletics magazine editor some times make me feel like a relay runner, coming dead tired

to the finish line after a tough leg, just to detect that he is going to leave the beton to him self,

because he is scheduled to run the next leg also.

-American

At an athletics meeting in Bucuresti Anisoara Cusmir has been jumping 7.43 m i LJ. And that is just a

little bit shorter than it was between the high lights when the Norwegian regional country match was

hold this weekend, as we soon will see.

-Elegant change of subject in the Sports review, Norwegian TV June 1983

I am going to go out a winner if I have to find a high school race to win my last race.

-Johnny Gray

No one is useless. They can always serve as a bad example.

-Brian Oldfield smoking cigarettes between his shot puts

When someone like Brian Oldfield can beat me, I will retire.

-Randy Matson after loosing the OG-qualification 1972

I cannot have survival as my only goal. That would be too boring. My goal is to come back

in my best running form. It is good to have that goal; it will help me.

-Ludmila Engquist, WC-bronze winner after cancer-treatment, in 1999

Owens the nigger is sprinting,/ the Aryans tasting defeat.

The blond arena is musing,/ Der Führer frowns in his seat.

But more cheerfully they may consider/ all the Jewish women and men

who ran for their lives in the streets -/ with them they caught up in the end.

-The sprinters, antiracistic poem by Nordahl Grieg, Norway

(English translation by Lars Finsen)

When I came back, after all those stories about Hitler and his snub, I came back to my native country, and I could not ride in the front of the

bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. Now what's the difference?

-Jesse Owens, after Berlin 1936

I always loved running...it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as

you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs.

-Jesse Owens

It's like having a pet dog for a long time. You get attached to it, and when it dies you miss it.

-Jesse Owens on his WR's being beaten

The black fist is a meaningless symbol. When you open it, you have nothing but fingers - weak, empty fingers. The only time the black fist has 

significance is when there's money inside. There's where the power lies.

-Jesse Owens to Tommie Smith and John Carlos, American sprinters who had given the Black Power salute while receiving their Olympic medals

In the stadion I'm the fastest man in the world, outside I'm just a dirty nigger.

-Tommie Smith, Mexico City 1968

Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must move faster than the lion or it will not survive. Every morning a lion wakes up and

know it must move faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn't matter if you are the lion or the gazelle, when the sun comes up,

you better be moving.

-Maurice Greene

The gun goes off and everything changes... the world changes... and nothing else really matters.

-Patti Sue Plummer

No negative thoughts cross my mind on race day. When I look into their eyes, I know I'm going to beat them.

-Danny Harris

Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world.

King Gustav V at the Olympic Games' closing ceremonies in Stockholm to Jim Thorpe

Doctors and scientists said that breaking the four-minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt. Thus, when I got up from the track 

after collapsing at the finish line, I figured I was dead.

-Roger Bannister after becoming the first person to break the four minute mile in 1954 

I have always felt that long, slow distances produces long, slow runners.

-Sebastian Coe

The difference between the mile and the marathon is the difference between burning your fingers with a match and being slowly roasted over hot 

coals.

-Hal Higdon

You have to forget your last marathon before you try another. Your mind can't know what's coming.

-Frank Shorter

If you want to win something, run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, run a marathon.

-Emil Zatopek

We can't all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.

-Will Rogers

Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people

stop and say, 'I've never seen anyone run like that before.' It's more than just a race, it's a style. It's doing something better than anyone else.

It's being creative.

-Steve Prefontaine

To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.

-Steve Prefontaine

Success is results achieved minus results expected.

-Marius Bakken

The big Cuban opened his legs and showed his class.

-David Coleman commenting Alberto Juantorena at the Montreal Olympics, 1976 
 

Ordinary persons achieve ordinary results - extraordinary persons achieve extraordinary results.

-Steinar Hoen

The training is my secret and if I told you what it was, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore! I keep the secret in my heart.

-Wilson Kipketer, when asked about his training before the World Indoor Champs, 1997

Learn to run when feeling the pain; then push harder.

-William Sigei

Ask yourself, 'can I give more?' The answer is usually 'Yes.'

-Paul Tergat

The will to win means nothing if you haven't got the will to prepare.

-Juma Ikangaa 1989 NYC Marathon winner

Nils Nilsen was the winner of the high jump competition today on 2.05 m, which is a new personal record.

The old one he was holding him self.

-Jan Hemsvik, Bislett speaker

When the outsider Thor Helland started his finish in the last curve, the favorite Esso-Larsson got a parking fine.

-From a sensational 5000 m race in a Nordic country match 1964

The first time Ricky Bruch came into the annuals of world records, was when he equalled Jay Silvester's result.

But why didn't you trow the implement a few cm longer, then the record would be your alone? the speaker asked afterwards.

Because then Silvester would have become so sad, the big Swede answered to the audience's great pleasure.

A prisoner escaped from a jail in Oslo. He jumped over the fence by help of a bamboo stick, and so he stole a Volvo. Soon he was followed

by three cars, trying to reach him. In the first one sat two wardens, in the second two police men. In the last car sat the selection committee for

the athletics country team.

-Joke from the eighties, not too many PV talents in Norway

The national record in triple jump in St Helena has been decleared not valid because it was accomplished by a foreigner. The foreigner's name

was something like Napoleon Bonaparte.This info have made many know-it-alls send me detailed and serious responses: it is not very

probable that there were enough plain fields in the island at that time to make a record; Napoleon was in his late forties when he came there, he

was of short growth and so on. I really have to laugh every time somebody believes this bluff. And a good laugh prolongs life, or, eventually,

it may shorten it. But that's only if one laughs oneself to death.

-Kristian Rakvåg

3000 m steeple chase for women is in Norway a stillborn anachronism.

-Kristian Rakvåg

Why do you always jump so far over the steeple that you never even touch the water? 

Because I am used to having crocodiles in the water back home in Kenya!

-Amos Biwott, Kenya's first olympic steeple champ after winning in Mexico City

Do not jump so high that you may not land on a soft spot.

-Unknown

Before the Olympics in Munich I was asked to try blood stimulants. OK, fill me up, I answered. The effects were fantastic.

-Mikko Ala Leppilampi, Finnish steeplechaser

EC Helsinki 1971: The British runner David Bedford was the highly profiled favourite in long distance. He arrived in Helsinki and hold a press

conference. He was asked to name his most formidable competitors, and answered Emiel Puttemans, among others. What about Juha

Väätääinen? a Finnish jounalist wanted to know. Juha Väätääinen, who is that?

When JV passed the resigned DB on the second last home strech of the 10 000 m, the former turned his head and declared:

I am Juha Väätääinen!

Whereupon he spurted ahead to clear victory.

-Peter Prydz, Norway

The Finnish runners have a strong finish.

Comment on Lasse Viren

At the end of his career Brendan Foster was asked who was the greatest runner he had met.

That's Lasse Viren, you can't argue with four olympic gold medals

Soon the javelins will fly far again.

-Finnish proverb

You probably expect me to provide inofficial hand time for the winner, but due to an uprecedented state of muscular anarchy,

I accidentally enganged the microphone rather than the stop watch when the gun went.

-Speaker Jo Nesse as the winner of the women's 400 meter crossed the finishing line during the Norwegian junior

championships in 1991.

During the Bislett Games opening ceremony of some years ago, five parachuters were supposed to land infield.When only four

of them actually touched ground, I had to calm down the public by saying that the parachute most likely had opened also for

the fifth parachuter, or he would certainly have been here quite a while ago.

-Bislett speaker Jo Nesse

The leap into the year 2000.

-Knut Bjørnsen, NRK-TV on Bob Beamon's 8.90 in 1968

Sigurd H.H. was the best runner in Volda, Norway before the war. One evening, a light-footed apple-thief outran him in his own garden. A few days later, 

this advertisement was found in the local newspaper, Møre:

To him who stole apples from my garden last Tuesday evening. Please come to the stadium this Friday at 1800. We are conducting our elimination 

races for the Volda Relay Race, and we would like to have you on our team.      On behalf of the sports club, S.H. Halkjelsvik

Ask any athlete: We all hurt at times. I'm asking my body to go through seven different tasks. To ask it not to ache would be too much.

-Jackie Joyner-Kersee

By a strange twist of fate, we were both born on the 19th September 1922. Imagine if it  happpened that we should also be married on one and 

the same day!

-Emil Zatopek when he proposed to Dana - later they also won OL gold on the same day, in Helsingfors 1952.

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the 

mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

-Longterm aim in training work from Paul in 1. Corinthians 

He throws it 'out', like one often does, and to the right of the imagined throwing sector - which comes naturally if you are right-handed - and still it 

is a magnificent throw, he gets a great pull on the platter - suddenly, the wind is extremely favourable - Jonas can see the discus flow away, further 

than he has ever thrown before, over the fence, for the good throws are always like that; infinitely slow, you can follow the disc the whole way, 

you are there with the discus in the air, as if it also carried a hope, the longing for total freedom

-Jan Kjærstad, Norway

 Chapter 2 - On other sports and training (upd.160106)

It has become too much competation of it rather than recreation and training; too much records and show-off. A skier is just a man jumping

so and so many metres. This developes the body, perhaps; but the mind should also be included.

-Fridtjof Nansen, before 1930

The shots that caused so much commotion in Sarajevo were planned and executed by Eirik Kvalfoss.

-Kristian Rakvåg, on winter-OG 1984

I would have made it this time if it had not been for that false stroke I did when the gun went off.

- Speed skater Sverre Haugli after a horrible false start on an attempt to qualify for the A-level 500 m.

Another was Myhren in number 17 who was quiet as a mouse, but who suddenly, when he heard one morning that Jonny Nilsson had beaten 

Kupper`n (Knut Johannesen) and set a new world record for 5000 meters during the speedskating world championship in Japan, threw all Swedish  

products owned by the family out of the window; an Electrolux vacuum cleaner, a Stiga ice hockey game and the complete works of  Selma 

Lagerløf.  If you wished to prove yourself a man when Jonas were growing up, you had to creep up to Myhren`s door and shout 'Jonny Nilsson!' 

through the keyhole.

-Jan Kjærstad, Norwegian writer

Silver medals are the solace of the poor.

-Knut Johannesen, olympic speed skating champ

When skating on thin ice, speed is your secret.

-Unknown

There will always be those who try to skate uphill.

-From the movie Blade

Fotball is not a matter of life and death. It is  more important than that.

-Bill Shankly

Lord Nelson! Lord Beaverbrook! Sir Winston Churchill! Sir Anthony Eden! Clement Attlee! Henry Cooper! Lady Diana! Maggie Thatcher - can you hear me, Maggie 

Thatcher! Your boys took one hell of a beating! Your boys took one hell of a beating!

 -Bjørge Lillelien when Norway beat England 2-1 in Oslo in a World Cup qualifier in Sept. 1981 

Ole Gunnar Solskjær has been going through the most difficult period of his life. It is hard counting money while you are wearing out the

bench.

-Darwin P.Erlandsen, Dagbladet, Oslo

The Norwegian football player Egil Østenstad and the Titanic have something in common. Neither of them should have left Southampton.

-Kjell Kristian Rike

Fotball is a game where two 11-men teams play against another and Germany wins.

-Gary Lineker

No surprise that France became the winner of their football-WC 1998. It's not so many years since they had a president named Charles de Goal.

-Kristian Rakvåg

The match ended 0 - 0, but considering play and chances, the result could have been the other wayaround.

-Norwegian newspaper

Said by a Norwegian fotball coach where Sweden was leading 8 - 1 in the middle of the second period:

Come on boys! Let's go for a draw.

Ido not know what's greatest: A free kick right under the cross bar from 40 meters or sleeping with Miss World. I have done both.

-George Best

Kjetil Rekdal is the born football coach. He probably discussed tactics with the midwife as his navel string was cut.

-Jan Åge Fjørtoft commenting for Norwegian TV

And now to the second episode of the football match.

-Slip of the tongue by Norwegian TV hostess

In the good old days, the football ground weren't at all as well-groomed and cared for as today. I remember once I took a penalty, I wanted to

set up a good kicking pace and started my run all the way back from my own defense field. And when I finally made the kick, I happened to hit

a tussock, which darted in the direction of the top right corner of the goal in a mighty speed. The goalie flung himself to his utmost reach and

only just managed to fist the tussock across the corner line, while the ball, unnoticed, slowly rolled into the net.

-Asbjørn Holst, Molde

The Norwegian football club Sør-Gossen in the 60s had a spell of ugly defeats in the 5th division.When they were beaten 22 to 0 by Bud, the

newspaper reported: It was a well-matched game, 11 to 0 in both halves.

I want a divorce from my mother and father, because they beat me, said the boy. So I plan to move into the clubhouse of the

football club Brann here in Bergen, because they don't beat anybody at all.

-Story from local newspaper in a weak Brann period

Is there anything you need?

A pistol to shoot myself.

-The Aussie Jane Saville after being disqualified from winnig the walking gold  pretty close the finish line in Sydney 2000

In a shooting competation the man at lane eight unfortunately used his neighbour's target.

Is he using a shot gun, that guy at target seven? the controller wondered afterwards.

-Norwegian joke

Baseball has great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.

-George Bernard Shaw

I'm going through some serious basketball with drawl here.

-Unknown

...will we have to move because we don't have room for his medals?

-Steve Redgrave's nine year old daughter to her mother after her father's historic win in Sydney

A spray 65-year-old stood on the starting line for the second orienteering race he was run in his lifetime - his first race had been on the same

course when he was about 15. The goal was to set a new personal record, but he fell just short of equalling the time.

50 years of hard training down the drain, he signed afterwards.

-NRK TV

You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She's 97 today and we don't know where

the hell she is.

-Ellen DeGeneris

Golf is a good walk spoiled.

-Mark Twain

Treat the youth of today to tobacco and alcohol before sports gets hold of them.

-Per Inge Torkelsen, Norwegian clown

A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.

-Wayne Gretzky

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

-Wayne Gretzky

When the birds see me flying, they decide to start walking.

-Ernst Vettori, Austrian ski jumper

If you are going to try cross country skiing, start with a small country.

-Steven Wright

It's not difficult to beat Oddvar Brå when he is in top form, it's impossible.

-Svend Åke Lundbäck, Swedish skier

The Swedish cross-country skier Thomas Wassberg won so many important competitions that he was accused of being in too much luck.

The harder I train, the more luck I become, he answered.

Sture Sivertsen has this winter had a great international breakdown.

-Slip of the tongue by Norwegian TV's cross-country reporter Terje Dalby 1990

I go as far as the ski sticks go down.

-Tor Håkon Holte, Norwegian cross country skier in troble

Why Lasse Kjus became the winner of the down hill competation? He just hurried down the hill as fast as he could.

-Harald Eia/Bård Tufte Johansen

Said by an optimistic diver climbing out of the pool: Did you see that elegant swan(svale?) dive, boys? It must have been worth at least 9.0.

Well, if that is the cause, then you must be talking about Richter's scale, said Gretar Svanberg in Bergen, Norway

Look at this everybody!

Opening comment from the former olympic cross country champ Håkon Brusveen at Beitostølen, instructing a group of blind people on the art

of waxing skis.

A man grows most tired while standing still.

-Chinese proverb

He who thinks too much about every step he takes will stay on one leg all his life.

-Chinese proverb

At first I lay in training camp at Skeikampen for two weeks. Then I got up.

-Knut Borge, Norway

Stick your tongue out and shake loose.

-Rolv Wesenlund, Norwegian comedian

The most dangerous thing in the world is to try to leap a chasm in two jumps.

-David Lloyd George

I am so fast that I can hit the switch in my sleeping room and be in bed before the light is out.

-Muhammed Ali

Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them - a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to

have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.

-Muhammed Ali

The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strenght of it.

-Woodrow Wilson

One should start from the bottom, but not when you are learning to swim.

-Robert Storm-Petersen, Danish humorist

Olaf Tufte showed his competitors his back, and became world champion.

-Newspaper comment on rowing-WC

(Very good to winn WC with such a poor start.)

A sociologist is someone who goes to a football match to look at the spectators.

-Gesualdo Bufalino

Nobody is practicing elite sports for the sake of their health.

-Anne Lise Hammer

Trygve was of course never a great dancer. After all, he appears in bound form. One of his enemies said: That is not dance, that is a labour movement.»

-Roy Jacobsen on Trygve Bratteli

(Trygve Bratteli was Prime Minister of Norway twice, representing the Norwegian Labour Party)

Chapter 3 - On fist-fights and simular social activities(upd.050504)

Where there is no struggle, there can be no victory.

-Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

How could you, Ingemar Johansson? - our greatest Swedish sports hero who won a world championship in boxing at Nya Ullevi - how could

you instigate a common street brawl?

Yes, but honorourable Judge, you must understand that my income is unfortunately no longer so good that I can afford to rent the largest

concert hall in the country every time I feel like punching a guy in the mouth!

Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up.

-Muhammed Ali

It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I just beat people up.

-Muhammed Ali

I can fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee.

-Muhammed Ali

Suddenly Ali looks very tired indeed, in fact Ali, at times now, looks as though he can barely lift his arms up... Oh he's got him with a right hand! He's got him! 

Oh you can't believe it. And I don't think Foreman's going to get up. He's trying to beat the count. And he's out! OH MY GOD he's won the title back at 32! 

Muhammad Ali!

-Harry Carpenter when Muhammad Ali beat George Foreman in Oct. 1974

They never came back.

-On boxing champs

My toughest fight was with my first wife.

-Muhammed Ali

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.

-Blaise Pascal

I would not say that I was overly drunk, but I was in very good mood.

-Norwegian populist politician Dag Hovelsen, charged for maltreatment of his wife

Never go to bed at a rising quarrel.

-Torkjell Berulfsen

I will show yoy who is the boss in the house, said the husband, as he was sitting under the table and refused to come out, because

his wife was going to beat him up.

-Danish proverb

When two are beating one, the devil laughs.

-Danish proverb

Tomorrow I'll begin a new and better life - I think. No more getting drunk, cutting people with a knife - I think.

-Initial lines of the poem After a spree, by Jakob Sande, Norway

You get a boot between your eyes - smile anyway.

-Jan Erik Vold, Norwegian poet

Figuring percentages is not my strongest side, but I am guaranteed to cause at least three fights per bottle sold.

-Norwegian 'moonshine' salesman

Don't hit at all if it can be avoided, but never hit softly.

-Theodore Roosevelt

The Spartans do not enquire how many the enemy are, but where they are.

Agis 2., 427 B.C.

Another victory like that and we are done for.

-King Pyrrhus

You have 100 000 of these excellent marksmen , but what would you do if I came with 200 000 Preussian soldiers?  enquired Kaiser Wilhelm 2. on a 

visit to Switzerland.  

A  brigadier  replied:  Then we would shoot twice

That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind.

-Mahatma Gandhi

We are not retreating - we are advancing in another direction.

-General Douglas MacArthur

Only small children and great nations resort to violence as a solution to their problems.

-Unknown

If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten.

-George Carlin

Some times I get out and about in order to meet old enemies and gain new.

-Rallar Jens, Norwegian cartoon character

A small, skinny but hot-tempered cowboy came out of the saloon and found his horse painted blue:

Who in the hell has done this? I will knock his teeth out! he shouted.

It was me who did it, said a big cowboy coming around the corner.

Surveying his large opponent the first cowboy stuttered:

Well......well.....I.....I just ...wanted to let you know... that the first coat is dry.

-Scandinavian joke

Alternative ending:

Why did you paint it blue? Don't you know that pastel green is in this year?

-Kristian Rakvåg

By the aid of fistfights and other similar social activities, Olav the Sacred accomplished the most effective campaign of

evangelisation in the history of the Norwegian kingdom.

-Kristian Rakvåg

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.

-Blaise Pascal

I came, I saw, I conquered.

-Julius Caesar

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

-George S. Patton

I like a man who grins when he fights.

-Sir Winston Churchill

The beauty of war is that each leader of a band of assassins has his flag blessed and invokes God before setting off to exterminate his neighbors.

-Voltaire

When you bury the battle axe, you should not mark the place.

-Proverb

Every cock fights best on his own dunghill.

-Seneca

I shall fight you to the very end; I shall fight in the hall, I shall fight in the living room, I shall fight in the kitchen, I shall fight in the bedroom; I 

shall never surrender.

-Churchill-inspirated credo for private use from one of  Jan Kjærstad's books

Goddamn, Trygve. Are you in strong pain? 

Take it easy, boys. Things often sound worse than they are. 

-Trygve Bratteli after being beaten badly by a furious SS-soldier in a Nazi consentration camp  

Chapter 4 - On amusing oneself royally (upd. 240904)

A woman who wants to amuse herself, needs a husband as an excuse.

-Queen Kristina of Sweden

If the devil has taken all the goats, he could just as well have taken the he-goat too.

-Swedish king Karl X Gustav's comment on the info of a totaly military defeat where his whole army taken as prisoners

My goodness - have we really done all that?

-Fredrik I of Sweden when he was praised by a speaker for many good things he did not know that he had done

King Gustav V. of Sweden was travelling through Nykøing and wished to chat to the people there.  

He looks old and dishevelled now,  remarked a lady to her friend as they stood some distance away.  

That may be, but nevertheless, his hearing is quite good,answered the King.

Even though he has a neck like an ox, he's going to lose it.

-Christian II of Denmark/Norway when Torben Oxe was found not guilty in having poisoned the king's mistress

Christian X of Denmark rang to a friend who was not in, and came to a lady who could take a message.   

Tell him the King sends his regards. 

Who?

The King.  

She then asked in an irritated voice, 

Excuse me, but may I have your number?  

Yes, I am the tenth..

Please remember, Your Majesty, we are after all only living in the middle ages.

-Alleged line from Norwegian historical novel

That Olav Kyrre was the first Norwegian king who knew how to read and write, was only due to the fact that Olav Trygvason was dyslectic.

-Kristian Rakvåg.

The former Prince - now King - Harald of Norway's comment to a confused waiter who forgot to bring him the dry Martini he had ordered:

That was certainly the dryest Martini I ever tasted.

Would you regard Queen Sonja to be unfaithful if she were to suck on a King of Denmark?

-Freddy Kjensmo, Norwegian stand-up comedian

When you pass thirty, you have to realize that you can't place your bets on as many horses as before.

-Linda Eide, Norwegian journalist advising princess Märtha Louise on her birthday.

Mette-Marit is a great chick, -just like me. She's wearing sneakers and doesn't remember anything from the period -93 to -97.

-Norwegian entertaineress Anne-Kath. Hærland.

The parties at the royal Norwegian castle won't be the same since Mette-Marit and Ari Behn came into the family.

-From NRK-TV

Fear not!  If he were to kill you, he would be hanged a quarter of an hour afterwards, said Henri 1. of France to the court jester, whose life had

been threatened by a nobleman on account of some cheeky verses. 

 Oh, Your Majesty,  couldn`t you rather hang him a quarter of an hour beforehand?

Heaven deprives me of a wife who never caused me any other grief than that of her death.

-King Louis 14.th of France  

I am the State.

-Louis 14.th

Why are those people so angry with us?

Because the people have no bread.

Then they can eat cake.

-France's anti-socially engaged queen Marie Anoinette, while still having her head intact.

I have seen three emperors in their nakedness, and that sight was not inspiring.

-Otto von Bismarck

There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.

-Lady Diana

She is so active, so outdoor life interested. She loves nature, in spite of what it has done to her.

-Bette Midler on Princess Anne

I have as much privacy as a goldfish in a bowl.

-Princess Margaret

As Princess Anne of Great Britain was to check in at an Oslo hotel, there was going out a message from the management

saying that all elevator text displays was to be covered with non-transparent tape. When moving, the dispays would say:

'I FART'. (I FART in Norwegian means 'IN SPEED')

-Erling, Volda - Norway

The mother: Who do you think you are?

The daughter: The Queen, mom.

-From a passiar between Elizabeth Angela Marguerite and her oldest daughter Elizabeth 2.

An English queen caused in her days international attention during a gala dinner because of her unintended belching sounds.

After the first raptus the French embassador rose up and excused himself for what he had not done. The second round was won by the

Spanish one. Awaiting the third start shot , the German host, retired Admiral von Stankelbein, committed a blatant false start. He rose

laboriously, clapped his heels together and issued the following common statement:

Das gross-Deutches Reich takes the responsibility for the next one!

I feel sure that no girl would go to the alter if she knew all.

-Queen Victoria

Kings are not born; they are made by universal hallucination.

-George Bernard Shaw

Britain has always been at her best when ruled by queens.

-Sir Winston Churchill

At every crisis the Kaiser crumpled. In defeat he fled; in revolution he abdicated; in exile he remarried.

-Sir Winston Churchill

God shave the Queen!

-Sex Pistols

...if you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue or walk with kings nor lose the common touch....

From Rudyard Kipling's If

We are born princes and the civilizing process makes us frogs.

-Eric Berne

Every one is born a king, and most people die in exile, like most kings.

-Oscar Wilde

Oliver Cromwell had coins minted with 'God is with us' on one side and the Coat of Arms of the republic of England on the other.   

I am pleased to see that God and the republic are not on the same side, commented a supporter of the Royalist party.

Paris should be a mass worth.

-Henry de Navarra (the later Henry IV) when he converted to catholisism in 1593

I want there to be no peasant in my realm so poor that he will not have a chicken in his pot every Sunday.

-Henry IV of France

By fistfights and similar social activities, king Olav Haraldson accomplished the most effective evangelization campaign in the Norwegian

history.

-Kristian Rakvåg  

In 1905, when Haakon 7th. had just arrived in Norway, he received an elderly decorated  artisan in audience.   Neither of them could think of what to

say, and the situation became somewhat awkward.  

The audience seeker:  Your Majesty must excuse me, this is my first audience.   

Haakon 7th:  Mine too.

King Haakon 7th. and his small son Olav were at an opera in London.  The singer sang loudly and penetratingly, but unfortunately not quite in tune. 

Olav:  Is it true, father, that she sometimes sings for people in prison?  

Haakon 7th:   Yes, think about that, my son, should you ever be tempted to do anything unlawful.

When I was racing King Haakon, the king accidentally ran over my pump when it fell off on our way down the slope. I was not scolded at work 

when I told them who did it.

 -Einar Gerhardsen

Until 1961, permission from the the Council of State, headed by the King, was needed for a widow to marry her stepson. Such a case presented 

itself during the reign of King Haakon. A man had died, and his widow wanted to marry his son, who was thus her own stepson. It was then that 

King Haakon in his dry, witty way remarked: Let's hope he died from natural causes.

-Einar Gerhardsen, former Norwegian Prime Minister

The Crown Prince and the Crown Princess are going to Finnmark (the northernmost part of Norway) for their Easter holiday. They must be allowed 

to do that.; they can afford it. His Royal Highness receives subsidies from the state worth NKr 960 a week. That is about the same amount as 

breadwinners earn each year, providing that they work every week of the year.

 -Trygve Bratteli as a young and radical editor in 1934++

A competing newspaper commented on the error Bratteli had made in forgetting that the Crown Prince's income was doubled by the family 

allowance upon his marriage 5 years earlier, and a couple of days later the correction came. 

We were so unfortunate as to reduced the Crown Prince's income by 50% in last Saturday's edition. Sadly, implementing this is not in our power.

In 1982, there was some doubt about who were to represent Norway in Brezhnev's funeral - the royal family or the Minister of Foreign Affairs. This 

was very noticeable in the behaviour of the young Norwegian-speaking Russian who accompanied Crown Prince Harald through the halls of the 

Kremlin. At every door that he opened, he bowed and said: Please enter, Crown Prince Stray.

(Svenn Stray was Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway in 1981-1986.)

Victor Borge was on the podium with the guests of honour during a formal brunch in Minneapolis, where Governor Quie proposed a toast. I saw 

that Crown Prince Harald was on the verge of bursting out laughing. Afterwards I asked him: What did Viktor Borge say? 

Say? He didn't say anything. He gargled with champagne!

-Lars Roar Langslet, Norwegian Minister

Theodore Heuss, former President of the BDR, visited London in the 1950s, and was greeted by a cheering crowd on his way to Buckingham 

Palace with Queen Elizabeth.

A journalist commented: It must feel wonderful for a German president to be received so warmly by a British audience. 

It does - but I do know that 80% were cheering for the beautiful horses, 10% for the Queen - and the remaining 10% cheering for me were Germans.

At an EFTA ministerial meeting in Bergen the acting Swiss President Hans Schaffner was to propose a toast for the Norwegian head of state. In a 

rather pompous manner he proposed a toast to 'His Majesty, the king of Denmark.' The room was so quiet you could head a pin drop.

At the nest meeting, his self-irony was in place as it was his turn to speak: When it comes to blunders, you can always trust in me.

-Kåre Willoch

John Lyng to Olav 5.th: I must express my deepest recognition to your Majesty for an achievement that I myself have dreamt of for years, but 

never accomplished: To discompose Kåre Willoch for a moment.

The background was that K.W.'s face took on a for him rather unusual shade of red when, on the king's request in a meeting of the Council of 

State, he had to produce a document which had arrived so late that he had not had time to read through it.

To be honest I am a social democrat, but I am not a republican.

-Asserted said by King Haakon 7.th to Alfred Madsen

King Christian I had to mortgage the Orkney Islands and was unable to redeem them. If only he'd had a few empty bottles.

-Kristian Rakvåg

You call me a pirate because I have only one ship. Had I - as Thou, my King - gone plundering with a whole armada, I would have been a 

conquerer.

-Pirate to Alexander the Great

Chapter 5 - On success(190303)

The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.

-Don Kendall

A successful man is who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.

-Sidney Greenburg

A successful leader is one who can delegate all the responsability, direct all critique to others and reserve all honour for himself.

-Ronald Reagan

If you are successful, you will get some false friends and some true enemies.

-Unknown

She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong.

-Mae West

The ladder of success has no rail.

-Storm P., Danish humorist

The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.

-Unknown

Coming together is a beginning keeping together is progress working together is success.

-Henry Ford

Man can climb up at the highest peaks, but he can not be staying there for a long time.

-George Bernard Shaw

Behind each successful man there stands an amazed woman.

-Unknown

Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.

-Sir Winston Churchill

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.

-George Bernard Shaw

Each success is only a postponement of defeat.

-Graham Greene

Success has always been a great liar.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

-Lana Turner

A good leader understand how to make himself redundant.

-Gerhard Schwarz

That world is still young which breeds such sons.

-Fridtjof Nansen in the funeral of Roald Amundsen

Everyone who knew him liked him, and those who did not like him, knew him not.

-Alexander Kielland

Now we have everything, but that is also all that we have.

-Ole Paus, Norwegian artist

Everyone detests me because I am so popular.

-Peter de Vries

Fortune's favourite is a jester.

-Old Roman

One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

-Oscar Wilde

Don't do anything great if you can't manage the congratulators.

-Nicol(e)

Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities. 

-Frank Lloyd Wright

If A equal success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y and Z, with X being work, Y play, and Z keeping your mouth shut.

-Albert Einstein

Greatness requires the mystical. The familiar rarely invites admiration.

-Charles de Gaulle

What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?

-Robert Schuller

Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for doing it.

-Katherine Whitehorn

Happiness is good health and a bad memory.

-Ingrid Bergmann

Recognation is a plant most frequently growing on graves.

-Robert E. Lembke

I would rather that it later be asked, why I didn't receive a statue, than why I did receive one.

-Marcus Porcius

Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on someone without getting some on yourself.

-Emerson

Many people live happily without knowing it.

-Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues

Oh, what a bitter thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.

-William Shakespeare

A fool always finds a greater fool who will admire him.

-Nicolas Boileau

And than there was Simo i Støa - getting on in years, bow legged and fat. He raced death to the barn and won by less than a second.

- From humour poem by Jakob Sande, Norway

Whether you believe it or not, there is someone who is furious because of you - The Director of Highways in Hordaland. Each time you have

been out and about, you are the cause overtime and excessive expenditures in the Department. Why?

Because wherever you go flowers grow in your footprints.

-Kristian Rakvåg

No matter how well off you are there is always someone who is doing better.

-Kristian Rakvåg

A person with a wooden head can never drown.

-Finnish proverb

A celebrity is a person who works hard his entire life to be recognized, and then buys sunglasses in order not to be recognized.

-Fred Allen

You can own too much. A man with one watch knows what time it is, but a man with two watches are never certain.

-Lee Segall

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence - and then success is sure.

-Mark Twain

Let us be thankful for fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.

-Mark Twain

Make happy those who are near, and those who are far away will come.

-Chinese proverb

If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or

Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a

great streetsweeper who did his job well.

-Martin Luther King Jr.

In our golden years, there is no better consolation than the knowledge that through one's youth, one has achieved something

that does not age along with its author.

-A. Schopenhauer

PART 2