Related:

• There is an enormous oyster here with its shell tightly closed.
  Interesting. Interesting. There seems to be something written on the underside of the oyster....
• We are bound to our bodies like an oyster is to its shell. -- Plato (428-348? B.C.)
• Within the oyster's shell uncouth The purest pearl may hide, Trust me you'll find a heart of truth Within that rough inside.
  -- Mrs. Osgood...
• A mind not to be chang'd by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
  What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be, all but less than he Whom thunder hath made greater?...
• Discipline, like the bridle in the hand of a good rider, should exercise its influence without appearing to do so
  hould be ever active, both as a support and as a restraint, yet seem to lie easily in hand....
• Were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginnings, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults.
  -- Ben Franklin, "Autobiography...
• A "practical joker" deserves applause for his wit according to its quality.
  Bastinado is about right. For exceptional wit one might grant keelhauling....
• PHILISTINE, n. One whose mind is the creature of its environment, following the fashion in thought, feeling and sentiment.
  He is sometimes learned, frequently prosperous, commonly clean and always solemn....
• Every new generation needs to redefine 'right' and 'wrong' in its own terms and according to the conditions of its own time.