Called Tom Thumb

Famous quotes containing the words called, tom and/or thumb:

    ‘A thing is called by a certain name because it instantiates a certain universal’ is obviously circular when particularized, but it looks imposing when left in this general form. And it looks imposing in this general form largely because of the inveterate philosophical habit of treating the shadows cast by words and sentences as if they were separately identifiable. Universals, like facts and propositions, are such shadows.
    David Pears (b. 1921)

    The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
    And proves by thumps upon your back
    How he esteems your merit,
    Is such a friend, that one had need
    Be very much his friend indeed
    To pardon or to bear it.
    William Cowper (1731–1800)

    Give a lift to a tomato, you expect her to be nice, don’t ya? After all, what kind of dames thumb rides, Sunday school teachers?
    Martin Goldsmith, and Edgar G. Ulmer. Charles Haskell, Jr. (Edmund MacDonald)