FAMOUS PROVERBIAL QUOTE: “Nature abhors a vacuum.” François Rabelais (c. 1494-1553) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1534) Quoting an old Latin proverb (“Natura abhorret vacuum.”) |
WILLIAMS COUNTERQUOTE: BRICK: “Well, they say nature hates a vacuum, Big Daddy.” BIG DADDY: “That’s what they say, but sometimes I think that a vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with.” Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) American playwright Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) |
MENCKEN COUNTERQUOTE: “Nature abhors a moron.” H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American journalist, critic and curmudgeon Chrestomathy (1949) |
THOREAU COUNTERQUOTE: “Most men are engaged in business the greater part of their lives, because the soul abhors a vacuum, and they have not discovered any continuous employment for man’s nobler faculties.” Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American writer and philosopher Entry in his Journal, April 27, 1854 |
PARKER COUNTERQUOTE: “They seldom hear, when they are spoken to; It’s because their heads are so full Of little gems of old-world philosophy — You know the old crack: Nietzsche abhors a vacuum.” Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer and wit In her poem “College Boys: A Hymn of Hate” The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker (2001) |
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