>>>It is only insulting if I intend to insult. Can we agree that it is provocative?!
>>
>>Peter, provocative is when you voice an idea that may be controversial but is based on an observation that is either clever or has some merit and causes the hearer to think ... something other than "My God, this man is an idiot."
>
>You tell me, is that remark meant provocative or is it an insult?
No, that was an insult. Or at least an insult of your comment ( you seem like a nice enough fellow. I learned long ago to be able to distinguish between fuzzy thinking and bad character <g> )
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.