Language desk
< March 17	<< Feb \| March \| Apr >>	March 19 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

March 18[edit]

Author of a famous quote[edit]

Who originally said, "What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve."?

Napolean Hill, the famous motivational author, had said something similar to this.

Is this quote one of those authorless truisms that has been around forever?

71.198.134.17 21:05, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like Napolean Hill himself was the originator of the quote. --Ptcamn 21:32, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The quote is: "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. See Napoleon Hill. -- JackofOz 01:06, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Map of the world[edit]

Lately I've heard the same expression in two different songs by different artists but I don't know what it means. "Suddenly I See" by KT Tunstall has the line "Her face is a map of the world..." and also "From Yesterday" by 30 Seconds to Mars has "On his face is a map of the world...". I've never heard this before though, what does it mean? Something akin to having a look like the person has had a lot of experiences and isn't naive? Dismas|^(talk) 00:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds right. Also, they don't sound very attractive. StuRat 02:14, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... Funny that you say that though as the next line of the KT Tunstall song is "You can see she's a beautiful girl, a beautiful girl..." Dismas|^(talk) 08:13, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand why that's funny, unless you are insinuating that KT Tunstall has a cartography fetish. Capuchin 09:07, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I meant funny as in ironic since Stu mentioned that they don't sound very attractive and yet the next line of the song says the opposite. Dismas|^(talk) 19:31, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would go with your interpretation, the experience thing. Or perhaps the analogy would go more like her face:beauty/ her personality/her soul/beauty in general/etc::map:world. That would probably only work for the first one though. Recury 19:00, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On Cyrano de Bergerac's face is a map of Mount Everest. Clarityfiend 02:32, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]