You Can Quote Me

I bring up the "What's Opera, Doc?" episode of Loony Tunes because I think there is a whole generation of people who have been introduced to classical music and theme's and they don't know it. I had no idea, watching Elmer Fudd sing, "Kill the Rabbit!" that his song was anything but original. It is funnier now that I see it with my adult eyes. (And just as appealing to my boy's who went around all day singing "Kill the rabbit" in Elmer's voice to the tune of Wagner.)
I first read through the Bible the summer I turned 16. I can't tell you how much I found in there I thought were just American sayings. "The truth will set you free." Didn't Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Say that first? No? I was amazed at all the little phrases that were apart of our language. They actually came out of the Bible! This same thing happened during a Shakespeare movie. I have read and heard these proverbs/cliches all my life, and had no idea they came from classic literature.
Do you know which is Shakespeare and which is from the Bible?
It is a wise father that knows his own child.
In the twinkling of an eye.
All that gitters is not gold.
Wisdom is better than rubies.
A pound of flesh...
In all labor there is profit.
But love is blind...




  1. This is almost a trick question because there are over 1600 citations or allusions to Scripture in Sheakspeare's works. Naughty, naughty Poppins.

    Here's my guesses:
    1. Sheakspeare
    2. Scripture (I know that one)
    3. Sheakspeare (but isn't it "glitters"?)
    4. Sheakspeare
    5. Scripture (I know that one too)
    6. Sheakspeare
    7. Scripture
    8. Scripture
    9. Sheakspeare

    Oh, and it's "Kill the Wabbit".

  2. I don't know anything about classical music except for what I'm learning with my kids and baby einstein. I can't get the Gilligan's island ones out of my head....

    I didn't realize old Bugs had them too!

  3. Tom and Jerry is also full of great classics....the original cartoons that is.

  4. The old Looney Toons are great. My Oldest can't get enough of them.

    I am not even going to try the list of quotes because I am too lazy, but King Jaymz is right; a lot of Shakespeare quotes are from the Bible! :)

    I wanted to know something ever since I have seen you lurking around blogdom---or ever since you have seen me lurking around blogdom---are you a fan of Victorian Literature? I am a HUGE fan. When I see your site I think of Thomas Hardy or George Eliot.

  5. your highness, I think you got one wrong. maybe.

    emma- my favorite tom and jerry is the one where they get stuck in the automated house...i can hear that music in my head

    r-I have read all of Jane Austin's books, the Bronte sisters, and I am a sucker for Masterpiece theatre. I have heard of Hardy and Eliot, but haven't tackled them yet. They are in the Dickens pile...

  6. Austen is not quite Victorian, but Bronte is. I am not a big fan of Austen. Bronte is alright.

    You need to pick up the Collins, Dickens, Hardy and Eliot! Hardy and Eliot will give you a real taste of pastoral life....

  7. Anonymous5:09 AM

    Very interesting! I can only say that I find it very unusual how much Hollywood uses the Bible quotes. I so often wonder if they even have a clue that it's the Bible they are quoting. That's the part that breaks my heart.

    Nice to see you stopping by my site to check out the waffles :)

  8. Anonymous9:33 AM


    I'm culturally challenged for sure, do they allow handicapped parking for that?

  9. I recognize a couple from Merchant of Venice and a couple from Proverbs.

    On the others, I'd be guessing.

  10. "It's clear from a little research that Shakespeare used or adapted a long-known proverb of the time. As can be seen below, it had already started to be misquoted less that 100 years later by the late C17th.

    Alanus De Insulis (c. 1280) "Non teneas aurum totum quod splendet ut aurum." (Do not hold everything as gold which shines like gold)

    Freire Cordelier (c. 1300) "Que tout n'est pas or c'on voit luire." (Everything is not gold that one sees shining)

    Chaucer (c. 1380) "But all thing which that schyneth as the gold / Ne is no gold, as I have herd it told."

    Chaucer again "Hyt is not al golde that glareth."

    Lydgate (c. 1430) "All is not golde that outward shewith bright."

    Spenser (c. 1580) "Gold all is not that doth golden seem."

    Googe (1563), Shakespeare (1596) "All that glisters is not gold."

    Bacon (1596) "All is not gold that glisters."

    Cervantes (1615) "All is not gold that glistreth."

    Middleton (c. 1616) "All is not gold that glisteneth."

    Herbert (c. 1630) "All is not gold that glisters."

    Dryden (1687) "All, as they say, that glitters is not gold."

    and then there is tolkien who turns the statement on it's head;

    "All that is gold does not glitter,
    Not all those who wander are lost;
    The old that is strong does not wither,
    Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
    From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
    A light from the shadows shall spring;
    Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
    The crownless again shall be king.
    The poem appears twice in the The Lord of the Rings' first book, The Fellowship of the Ring. Firstly, it appears in Gandalf's letter to the hobbits in Bree, before they know that Strider (Aragorn) is the subject of the verse. It is repeated by Bilbo at the Council of Elrond. He whispers to Frodo that he wrote it many years before, when Aragorn first revealed who he was."

