"Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”– from Macbeth and Trump memes, to Slackers and Superman…

SHAKESPEARE’S FAMOUS QUOTATION: “Life’s but a walking shadow...a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”        William Shakespeare        Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5        Even if you’re not a Shakespeare fan you’ve probably seen or heard things or people described as “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” These words are spoken by Macbeth near the end of The Bard’s play about him, first performed in 1606. They reflect Macbeth’s realization that all the scheming he’d done and the murders he’d committed to become the King of Scotland had ultimately led him to a joyless, grim and meaningless end. Macbeth says the lines after being told that his wife is dead. Soon after, so is he.        The phrase “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” turned into a common way of saying that something, or some person, is loud or attention-getting but essentially inconsequential or irrelevant.         Author William Faulkner helped make “sound and fury” an an especially common phrase by titling what would become his most famous novel The Sound and the Fury (first published in 1929).        By the way, if you are a Shakespeare fan like me, I highly recommend two modern adaptations of Macbeth that you can stream on Amazon: the 2010 PBS “Great Performances” adaptation starring Patrick Stewart as Macbeth in a fascist-style realm, and the visually-stunning 2015 film starring Michael Fassbender in the title role.

TRUMP APPLICATION #1 – THAT WAS THEN... “AN IDIOT, FULL OF SOUND AND FURY, SIGNIFYING NOTHING”          One of the many snarky internet memes about candidate Donald Trump posted on Facebook prior to his victory in the November 8, 2016 presidential election, a result that was widely dismissed as unlikely or even impossible before it happened.

TRUMP APPLICATION #2 – THIS IS NOW... “Whatever reactions the protesters have, they need to face the facts that Clinton’s large margin in popular votes didn’t translate into an electoral victory. Their protests are mostly ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’ more than profound disappointment.”        Mitch Edelman        American journalist        In his column about the post-election anti-Trump on the Carroll County News site, November 14, 2016

MOVIE QUOTE #1: “I’m what, a slacker?...I’m in that white space where consumer terror meets irony and pessimism, where Scooby Doo and Dr. Faustus hold equal sway over the mind, where the Butthole Surfers provide the background volume, where we choose what is not obvious over what is easy. It goes on...like TV channel-cruising, no plot, no tragic flaws, no resolution, just mastering the moment, pushing forward, full of sound and fury, full of life signifying everything on any given day.”        Richard Linklater        American filmmaker, screenwriter and actor         In his book Slacker (1992), about the making of his 1991 movie Slacker

MOVIE QUOTE #2: “Sitting there at that moment I thought of something else Shakespeare said. He said, ‘Hey, life is pretty stupid, with lots of hubbub to keep you busy but really not amounting to much.’ Of course I'm paraphrasing.”        Steve Martin as the character Harris K. Telemacher        In the movie L.A. Story (1991)

MOVIE BASHING QUOTE #1: “Once you get past all the sound and fury, what you’re left with is basically emptiness.”        Allison Shoemaker        Staff writer for the Consequence of Sound entertainment website        In her review of Tim Burton's 2016 film Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children

MOVIE BASHING QUOTE #2: “‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ is a rancid brew of silence, sound and fury, signifying the absolute worst the comic book movie genre has to offer.”         Alex Biese        American entertainment journalist and reviewer        In his review of the film for the Asbury Park Press, March 28, 2016        NOTE: For some other uses and variations of “full of sound and fury…” see the previous QuoteCounterquote.com post at this link.

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“Living well is the best revenge.”

THE OLD PROVERBIAL SAW: “Living well is the best revenge.”         Generally attributed to George Herbert (1593-1633)        English clergyman and poet        A saying included in his collection of proverbs, first published in Outlandish Proverbs (1640)        Many books and websites credit “Living well is the best revenge” to Herbert. It’s one of hundreds of common proverbs from various languages that he collected and translated as a scholarly hobby, and as grist for sermons he gave as an Anglican priest. Seven years after Herbert died, 1,032 of the sayings he collected were assembled into a book published under the name Outlandish Proverbs. This was republished with some additional entries in 1651, with the title Jacula Prudentum (Latin for “javelins of the wise”). It’s likely that Herbert heard and recorded “Living well is the best revenge,” rather than coining it. But its inclusion in his widely-read, pioneering collection of proverbs certainly helped popularize this old saying.

CYNDI LAUPER'S VARIATION: “I don’t think I have ever achieved greatness despite everything I’ve done, but it’s not so much greatness, it’s happiness you need to focus on. Enjoying life is the best revenge. You have to stay connected to life and the things that excite you. Life is for learning.”        Cyndi Lauper        American singer, songwriter and actress        In an interview posted on the Music News website and others in November 2016

THE HAPPY LOSERS ANTHEM: “Everybody join the club, Failure is the best revenge. FAILURE! Only one way of doing things right,    but a thousand ways wrong. So join the fight    in showing the winners we don’t play their games An army of losers, retarded and lame.”        The Vandals        American punk rock band        Lyrics from their song “Failure Is The Best Revenge,” on their album The Quickening (1996)

THE HAPPY WINNERS QUIP: “That’s the best revenge of all: happiness. Nothing drives people crazier than seeing someone have a good fucking life.”         Chuck Palahniuk        American novelist and journalist, best known for his novel Fight Club (1996)        This quip is widely attributed to Palahniuk, though an old discussion thread on the biggest fan site for the author suggests he may not have said it.

GOSSIP GIRL’S POISON PEN VERSION: “Sticks and stones may break bones, but a poison pen is the best revenge.”        Kristen Bell, as the voice of the unseen blogger “Gossip Girl”        In a voiceover in the “You've Got Yale!” episode of the TV series Gossip Girl (Season 2, Episode 16, first aired January 19, 2009)

A CARTOONIST’S CAUSTIC PEN VERSION: “Living well is the best revenge...and by living well, I mean seeing my enemies die in agony.”        Mike Stivers        American cartoonist         Word bubbles in a cartoon created by Stivers in 2003

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“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

THE OLD SIXTIES SLOGAN: “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”        Charles Dederich (1914-1997)        Founder of Synanon, the 1960s drug rehabilitation organization that morphed into a cult         Most sources credit Charles Dederich with coining this well-known self-help mantra in the 1960s, around the time he founded Synanon. Clearly, it’s use by Dederich and Synanon as a slogan for recovering drug addicts helped popularize the saying. However, Dederich may or may not have created it. It’s one of those sayings that just seem to have been floating around in the 1960s. Many websites and books say it was coined by the legendary Hippie activist/theater group called The Diggers. It was also used by Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman in his 1968 book Revolution for the Hell of It (1968), as the title of a song in the obscure 1968 musical Love Match, and on on everything from head shop posters and greeting cards. I suspect that’s why some sources simply (and perhaps rightly) credit it to “Anonymous.” (Related post: “One day at a time”)

STEVE MARTIN’S COUNTERTWEET: “I thought yesterday was the first day of the rest of my life but it turns out today is.”        Steve Martin        American actor, comedian, musician and writer        A tweet from his Twitter feed

THE “OLD” OPTIMIST’S VARIATION: “Do something outrageous, bold, unlike yourself. If the bathing suit doesn’t fit, skinny-dip. The clock ticketh. To adapt an old philosophy: Today is the youngest day of the rest of your life.”        Susan Swartz        California-based journalist, author and public radio commentator        Advice in her book Juicy Tomatoes: Plain Truths, Dumb Lies, and Sisterly Advice about Life After 50 (2000)

THE AGELESS PESSIMIST’S VARIATION: “Today today is the first day of the rest of your life...and it too will suck.”         T-shirt slogan (on Zazzle.com)

THE WALKING WOUNDED VERSION: “Remember those posters that said, ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life’? Well, that’s true of every day but one — the day you die.”        Kevin Spacey, as the character Lester Burnham        A poignant quote from the 1999 film American Beauty, spoken as a voiceover by Lester not long before he commits suicide.

THE WALKING DEAD VERSION: “To our newest undead recruits. Good moaning. Today is the first day of the rest of your afterlife.”        Virginia Reynolds (a.k.a. “MsCadavreExquis”)        American author alleged to be the “love child of Marcel Duchamp and Victoria Woodhull”        From the "Deadication" of her book The Art of War for Zombies: Ancient Chinese Secrets of World Domination (2011)

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“Life is unfair…”

JFK’S FAMED OBSERVATION: “Life is unfair.”        President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)        American Democratic politician who served as the 35th President of the United States               This famous pithy quote comes from comments Kennedy made in a press conference on March 21, 1962. It’s one of JFK’s most widely-cited quotations, though few people today are aware of the context. It was part of his response to a question about U.S. Army reservists who had publicly objected to being called up to serve as “military advisors” in Vietnam. Kennedy had recently increased the American military presence in Vietnam to nearly 10,000 troops. Some reservists had expressed their opposition by holding public demonstrations.        When asked about those protests, Kennedy responded: “Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded, and some men never leave the country, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco. It’s very hard in military or in personal life to assure complete equality. Life is unfair.”        For more background see the entry about this quote on my ThisDayinQuotes.com site and Garson O’Toole’s post about it on his great QuoteInvestigator.com site.

SCALZI’S CLARIFICATION: “There’s a difference between the fact that the universe is inherently unfair on a cosmic level, and the fact that life is unfair because people are actively making it so.”        John Scalzi        American science fiction author         A comment Scalzi made in a post on his blog about homophobia. As he notes in the next sentence in that post: “There’s not much one can do about the former, but the latter is fixable.”

MARABOLI’S MAXIM: “The only thing that makes life unfair is the delusion that it should be fair.”        Steve Maraboli        American behavioral scientist, motivational speaker and author         From his book Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

USTINOV’S UNCONFIRMED QUIP: “Life is unfair but remember sometimes it is unfair in your favor.”        Attributed to Peter Ustinov (1921-2004)        British actor and writer         This quip is attributed to Ustinov by hundreds of posts on the Internet, but none that I found gave any source. If you can confirm that it’s a real quote by Ustinov and know the source, please shoot me an email and let me know.

LOWE’S COUNTERQUOTE: “Nothing in life is unfair. It’s just life.”        Rob Lowe        American actor        In his autobiography Stories I Only Tell My Friends

A THOUGHT ABOUT MARILYN: “At her death the world looked for villains. It found only the troubling truths that life is unfair and cruel, that we see human despair too late, that courage is not always enough.”         From the narration for the classic 1966 documentary film The Legend of Marilyn Monroe, produced shortly after Marilyn’s death.        Script by Theodore Strauss and Terry Sanders (who also directed the film). Actor John Huston is the narrator.

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Faith, hope & charity – from the Bible, to American politics, to Dale Evans & Roy Rogers...

THE FAMILIAR BIBLE VERSE: “And now abideth faith, hope, charity these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”         Saint Paul (c. 5 A.D. - c. 67 A.D.)         I Corinthians 13:13 (i.e., Chapter 13, Verse 13)         I Corinthians, usually referred to as First Corinthians or the First Epistle to the Corinthians is a book in the Bible based on a letter written around 53 A.D. by Paul, an Apostle of Jesus (though not one of the first twelve). Much of the letter provides stern guidance to the congregation of Christians Paul established in Corinth, Greece. He’d heard they were violating some of the rules for followers of the new Christian faith that he helped create. So in his letter, he warned them about various sinful things, such as getting drunk, fornicating (which he mentions many times) and allowing women to go around without covering their head (a strange rule that Muslims and early Christians had in common).        One of the less Puritanical and more inspiring parts of I Corinthians comes in Book 13. In that, Paul discusses the importance of being charitable. It ends with the line that includes the familiar triumvirate “faith, hope, charity” – of which, Paul says, the greatest is charity.         This line is preceded by two that include other famous Bible quotes about putting away childish things (Chap. 13, Verse 11) and seeing through a glass darkly (Chap. 13, Verse 12):        When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.        For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.        And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

F.D.R.’S POLITICAL VARIATION: “We are poor indeed if this Nation cannot afford to lift from every recess of American life the dread fear of the unemployed that they are not needed in the world...In the place of the palace of privilege we seek to build a temple out of faith and hope and charity.”        Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)        American Democratic politician elected to serve three terms as President of the United States        In his acceptance speech after receiving the Democratic nomination for his second term as president, at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 27, 1936.

GOLDWATER’S POLITICAL VARIATION: “Freedom has been the watchword of my political life...I believe in faith, hope, and charity. But none of these is possible without freedom.”        Barry Goldwater (1909-1998)        Republican politician who served U.S. Senator from Arizona for many years and was the Republican Party's nominee for President in 1964         The quote is from his autobiography Goldwater, first published in 1988

POLITICAL VARIATION #3: “America's greatness and variety, its perpetual newness and variety, its bedrock of faith, hope and charity is all too easy to forget. Yet it is always there, rising above the cloud banks of cheap and easy rhetoric like the Rockies above the fruited plain.”        Paul Greenberg        Pulitzer Prize-winning political commentator        Commenting on the uniquely bizarre 2016 presidential campaign in an editorial originally published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, May 27, 2016

ORWELL’S TYPICALLY PESSIMISTIC VERSION: “Now abideth faith, hope, money; but the greatest of these is money.”        George Orwell (1903-1950)        English novelist, essayist and journalist        One of his lines from the epigraph he wrote that appears at the beginning of his novel Keep The Aspidistra Flying (1936)

DALE EVANS’ TYPICALLY OPTIMISTIC VERSION: “Have faith, hope and charity That's the way to live successfully How do I know, the Bible tells me so.”        Dale Evans (1912-2001)        Lyrics from the song “The Bible Tells Me So”        Words and music by Dale Evans        Evans wrote the song to perform with her husband Roy Rogers on The Roy Rogers Show. They sang it as a duet in the episode “Ginger Horse,” which originally aired on March 27, 1955. That year it was recorded and further popularized by singer Nick Noble and bandleader Don Cornell. It eventually became one of Dale’s signature songs.

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