Warren Buffett's interview clichés examiner.com Take a look at an interesting article we found.
What do you think Ben meant? sln.fi.edu Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Vatican admits to love of Wilde it dared not speak Sydney Morning Herald Take a look at an interesting article we found.
It's National Cheesecake Day and it's time to pay homage to, perhaps, the most famous cake in history.
July 31, 2009
Aesop said, “Appearances are often deceiving."
That utterance morphed into:
“You can’t judge a book by its cover.”
(Although nobody knows who said it.)
Noted contrarian Oscar Wilde, recently embraced by the Vatican, just turned it around:
“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.”
Maxims or aphorisms aren't as much written, as rewritten.
In the “World in a Phrase," James Geary makes the point that in ancient times, when few could read and write, the culture of the world was oral. A wise saying was passed on down the generational line until it became an aphorism.
Anyone wanting to write or rewrite a few should keep in mind the basic rules:
Keep it short, definitive and personal. It should have a twist, some hidden meaning or surprise. And it must be philosophical, forcing you to contemplate how universal truths are hidden in the particulars of daily life.
Buddha, still, is one the best quotes:
“A dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker. A man is not considered a good man because he is a good talker.”
Bernard Baruch, quite a few years later, just made it more succinct:
“Successful people all do more listening than talking.”
Motto: "If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism; if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition."
I believe that was Charles Caleb Colton.
This from Ayn Rand, who, sort of admits, as a "genius," she stole this thought, and others, from someone else:
“A genius is an intellectual scavenger and a greedy hoarder of the ideas which rightfully belong to society, from which he (or she) stole them.”
Abraham Lincoln said: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
Did he get it from George Eliot who said:
“Better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
Or Benjamin Franklin?
“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. "
Mark Twain just made it folksier:
"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. "
All succeeding in claiming it for posterity.
Who said it first doesn't seem to matter anymore.
As long as you say it.
A point, I'm sure, somebody has made before.
Tags: Maxims, Aphorisms, Buddha,
History of the English Language englishclub.com/ Take a look at an interesting article we found.
Heart of a Buddha: Aphorisms from the Amitabha Buddhist Society philosophyblog.com Take a look at an interesting article we found.
The 25 Best Aphorisms of the Millennium bigempire.com Take a look at an interesting article we found.
I always come into these discussions too late in the day. *coughs and titters politely* If no one...
Jul. 31, 2009 5:57 PM
Favorite Aphorist?
18% 15% 19% 17% 19% 12%
Many years ago, in a moment of true cynicism while ensconced in the hallowed walls of one of the many European seats of higher education, I observed that
"The great disadvantage of living in the 21st century is that somebody has already said everything."
I was proved right a moment later when a friend informed me that Douglas Adams had said much the same thing some years before.
He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.
Lao Tzu
He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
Samuel Johnson
He who knows not and knows not he knows not: he is a fool - shun him.
He who knows not and knows he knows not: he is simple - teach him.
He who knows and knows not he knows: he is asleep - wake him.
He who knows and knows he knows: he is wise - follow him.
Var.; Confucius
He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.
George Orwell
Who he?
Hooey!
Alfred E. Newman
Friday's prognosis is excellent. Not only we do have a fertile topic, but Park4 has supplied some cheesecake, of the pinup variety..
Benjamin Franklin is probably my favorite for Quips, if for no other reason than that he usually made sense ...
Ben Said, "In Wine there is Truth, in Beer there is Comfort, and in Water there is Bacteria ..." and "Beer is proof positive that God wants us to be Happy ..." Both of those make perfect sense to me, but make me think that there might be more than a little truth in the Story that ends with Mrs. Franklin's telling Ben to Go Fly a Kite .......
And then of course, and a few years later, there came Oscar LeVant whose most memorable maxim has never been credited to him ... Uttered at Saratoga, on an overcast afternoon, after an early morning's rain ... "Please Lord Let Me Break Even ... I need The Money ..." The impetus for his many mangled maxims and malapropisms was his constant companion and Employer, Joe E. Lewis, who was known to fling(as he put it) a Bum Mot of his own ....... But he was good to his Mudder .......
As Wilde said:
"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about." I guess it doesn't matter if YOU say something that's been said, only that people say they heard you say it.
"outward hearing should not penetrate further than the ear; the intellect should not seek to lead a separate existence, thus the soul can become empty and absorb the whole world. it is tao that fills this emptiness" if you have insight, says chuang-tzu, "you use your inner eye, your inner ear, to pierce to the heart of things, and have no need of intellectual knowledge."
"this taoistic view is typical of chinese thinking. it is, whenever possible, a thinking in terms of the whole, a point also brought out by marcel granet, the eminent authority on chinese psychololgy. this peculiarity can be seen in ordinary conversation with the chinese: what seems to us a perfectly straightforward, precise question about some detail evokes from the chinese thinker an unexpectedly elaborate answer, as though one had asked him for a blade of grass and got a whole meadow in return."
c g jung
*****
Having coffee; maybe I'll actually have some thoughts once it does its work.
there is no try
do
or do not
(((master yoda)))
"One generation passes away, and another generation comes; But the earth abides forever. The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, And hastens to the place where it arose. The wind goes toward the south, And turns around to the north; The wind whirls about continually, And comes again on its circuit. All the rivers run into the sea, Yet the sea is not full; To the place from which the rivers come, There they return again. All things are full of labor; Man cannot express it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor the ear filled with hearing. That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun."Ecclesiastes 1:4-10
There is nothing new under the sun.
If you really think sbout it this even walks hand in hand with the laws of physics.
E = mc2
This should not make us feel our efforts are futile, rather this sould help us see our places in the big picture.
We live in a synergistic system.
And as the lyrics to the song say
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devils bargain
And weve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6CQJqKNS-c
http://www.philosopherslounge.com/sounds/hgg_wearephil.wav
http://www.philosopherslounge.com/sounds/hgg_philstrike.wav
it is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.
Albert Einstein
There was genius long before the spoken word;that is why we have the spoken word,to express such thought as we have here.
"Right now, I need aphorisms like I need holes in my heads." -- Zaphod Beeblebrox
Aphorism sounds like the name of a bug.
"Watch where you're walking! This place is infested with aphorisms!"
When it rains, eat soup.
Fridays are meant for pizza, movies, and someone you love.
Remember: flowers are pretty, animals are cute, bute women are beautiful.
Miss Blue~ wonderful thoughts
RoadYacht~ amen brother
OMG Dread PirateRoberts
does this make us semi cousins?
and Happy Belated Birthday
Thanks DanielZev
I love Bible names....I'm married to a Joshua and have a Rachel
"It is better to have loved a short man/woman than to have never loved a tall."
A is phor ism
B is for bonnet
C is for cookie...
"The theatre's not what it used to be... but then, it never was." -- Noel Coward
"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bushes." I think VP Cheney said this one.
A wonderful man, former Dean of the USC School of Film, once told me: "The more I watch student films, the more I love music." Now deceased, I miss him dearly!
Hello all - Returning today after being away a spell, I am once again reminded how much fun it is to be among clever knowledge junkies. You all rock!
OFF TOPIC: I am having great difficulty getting access to my email, and it seems not to matter if I stay with Windows, or if I go to an alternative search engine, like Yahoo. Recently there was a big stink about some sort of a virus or spider. Wonder if the net is just busy with people surfing the web, or if the problem is greater than that. between 11:00 and 02:00 is when access is being denied. Naturally this happens when I actually felt especially comfortable with the daily topic...rats!
My favourite has been Will Rogers:
"I want to die peqacefully in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car".
a few more, the first several from the 2004 Page-a-day Zen calendar:
"Please do not get caught in that place where you think you know."
"To know that you do not know is the best. To pretend to know when you do not is a disease [of puffed-up college professors]." Lao-Tzu {and Profrayne}
"God offers every mind its choide between truth and repose." Ralph Waldo Emerson
And also:"A mind filled with compassion for all living beings will find divine wisdom."
And finally: "Forget not the gratitude due to the teacher."
Both of the above from the 2005 Page-a-day Mandalas calendar
that would be "choice" of course
If you want something done right, do it yourself.
So today I'm cleaning the shower, especially the door.
Thank God for Lime Away.
The rest of that bath will wait till tomorrow.
"All maxims have their antagonist maxims; proverbs should be sold in pairs, a single one being but a half truth." ~ William Matthews
"Either this wallpaper goes, or I do." Oscar Wilde's last words, allegedly. I've always liked it because it sounds like something I would say. With last words you need a carefully crafted aphorism because, like, this is it. Of all the bon mots you've said in all your many years, here you are, flat on your back, and you get one more chance for your best quote ever, and you better not blow your line this time. And then after having been quoted and quotable and being generally stylish word-wise all your life long, the curtain rises for Your Last Words.... And out of your mouth comes something about that god-awful bedroom wallpaper you'd planned on replacing. I hope I don't reference the Sherwin Williams paint in our bedroom that was a mistake, when my turn comes, but you just never know.
"Aphorisms are an attempt to substitute convenience for accuracy, brevity for thoroughgoing argument, and cleverness for truth."
--some idiot on a blog comment.
for giggles, follow each aphorism with "in bed".
Throwing down the velvet gauntlet here, I must ask "When do aphorisms beome trite? I ask for a very personal reason. Four years into being "an ol' widdah woman", I am just now beginning to wend my way through the mine field that is today's dating world. I throw myself at your feet now, asking for your critical feedback on my initial attempt at an "In My Own Words" personal introduction. Attempting to intelligently inform strangers, humorously encourage further reading and graciously retain any semblance of humility is much more difficult a task than I first believed. Please be firm, but kind.....
________
A clever, compassionate and cheeky miss, I love seeing what's just around the corner. I've rocked out at Stones concerts, scaled Machu Picchu and vacuumed my living room rug. Intrepid, but not imprudent, I have remained in the good graces of law enforcement. I'm a novice at duplicate bridge, and accomplished at trivia. I savor being softly feminine, but know when to be a tough cookie. And even when Caller ID tells him it's me, my son always answers his phone anyway.
A curious knowledge junkie, I read voraciously, observe intently and listen carefully. I do not require, nor do I enjoy, being constantly entertained. After a successful 28 year marriage, I retain only small carry-on baggage and can appreciate a resulting drama-free life. I'm fiscally responsible and adventurously irresponsible. Sorry, but I just can't seem to delight in the zen of motorcycle worship.
My kind of man cranks up the volume to wait for the drum riff on "In the Air Tonight" but also enjoys Scheherazade at the ASO. He is hot-blooded, cool-tempered and expects the same from me. He misses "The Far Side" cartoons and has probably completed a New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. He knows his business. He's straight-up honest and demands I have that same virtue. Once in a relationship, he expects a reciprocally expressive and committed personal connection. He's spunky and fun, travels internationally and lovingly desires a tender, curious and lively woman with whom he can share the view.
My late husband's career as a pilot allowed me to live around the world, but for four years now I've been traveling as a single. I'd prefer to share my continuing path with an interesting and confident man. Who knows where our initial activity partnership might lead?
I don't cook, but let's see what we can cook up together!
Have we morphed into a dating site?
damn, i hope so...lol
naturally my computer problems come up while all the hot women are complaining they cannot find eligible men.....
No, korthal. No morphing here! I was just asking for feedback from all your very intelligent minds. I enjoy maxims, puns, and the succinct creative expression of ideas (aphorism?). I believed this very eclectic group would be just the right anonymous crowd to let me know if I "jumped the shark" in my profile or not. I'll put you in the "Yes, she jumped" column.
.......Adding to my frustrations is the "no show/no call" status of my last appointment. Does anybody else have email down, or am I the only one? I feel like I am drifting on an iceberg, with "global warming" closing in fast, and 3 polar bears are heading this way who look at me at though I were a nice afternoon snack...
The 70/30 rule: 70% of the trouble is caused by 30% of the people.
The 98/2 rule: 98% of the money is held by 2% of the people. And then there is this: http://www.heraldonline.com/120/story/1506934.html
COMFORTABLE1:
I was just asking.
I wouldn't say you "jumped the shark", I would just like in on that action.
OK, korthal. You are forgiven! :)
comfortable1 - From this woman's point of view, I think what you wrote is perfect. It is a reflection of your personality and your heart's desires. Your own opinion is the only one that truly counts. I wish you the best of luck in finding the relationship you want and deserve. Pam
"The human heart, at whatever age, opens only to the heart that opens in return."
~ Marie Edgeworth
KINDLEE:
The problem is finding the heart that returns the openness.
And sometimes being open after much stress.
i don't understand what's really being asked, of me. it could be that i'm a woman. maybe men need only reply. i just can't relate, and it's all relative. as kindlee, so kindly replied, " your opinion is the only one that counts".
sincere reply to comfortable1.
COMFORTABLR1:
THANKS!*
*(that a big thanks)
or COMFORTABLE1
Comfortable1, if I may, even smart men want less information. Sparkle in person, but give them facts, not lyricism in the ads. And, on that topic, remember what Garrison Keillor said about dating into and past middle age: The odds are good, but the goods are odd. And, since I have grabbed the floor, let me plead with you to bring to your new dating experience all that you have learned since you dated last, too. I am embroiled at present with someone whose emotional maturity, or maybe just her "couples intelligence", seems to have stopped growing when she married, over 20 years ago. She is plenty smart, but she conducts much of her romantic life as if she were about 21, inexperienced, and entitled to girlish indulgence. If I wanted that I would have stuck with 21 year olds.
comfortable! I think you've found him -- me! I crank up the volume to wait for the riff on "In the Air Tonight." Always. I'm on the ready and when I know it's coming UP goes the volume and for miles around people talk about that unusually loud sonic boom... ...so there you go. Me! Alas, as we both know, this isn't what you have in mind.Me either, just to set the record straight and all... ...anyhow, I like it. The guy who answers will be one lucky fella. That I know for sure.
P4
.......FINALLY the "Day From Hell" is over, I stagger into the house, crank up the computer, and......YES!!!!!! Email is back, important because regardless of topic we all need the capacity to send AND receive discreet questions, comments, answers. So you all must now consider yourselves WARNED, this man's "Far Side" sense of humor has been silent too long. And all I did today is deal with people for whom it seems that somehow a styrofoam spacer has replaced what god had intended to be a brain. Damn, I really really missed all of you rascals, even {especially?} the ones with whom I often agree to disagree. Over the weekend, I plan to catch up, so I sure hope that Fearless Leader {remember Boris Badernoff from Rocky & Bullwinkle?} comes up with Saturday and Sunday topics that challenge but do not threaten. Spent the day waiting with "Semilegal-Paralegal," her 20 year old daughter got a lump removed from her breast, now of course the wait for the forensics to tell us if it is benign or malignant. I hate traditional hospitals, there are no family-friendly areas where your posse of relatives and friends can fly in a holding pattern until the situation shakes out.
I always come into these discussions too late in the day. *coughs and titters politely* If no one minds a thought about the original conversation, a few of my favorite quips, aphorisms, clever things that other people said: "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put!" -Winston Churchill, when asked about the decline of respect for the language among the day's youth (I have a feeling he'd tear us modern whippersnappers a new one) "Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggie' until you can find a rock" -Will Rogers "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ." -Gandhi (No offense here to the faithful in this conversation; Mr. Gandhi can hardly be blamed, not having seen too many of the better angels of Westerners in action)
more on the honor rollComfortable1: Just read today's posts in detail. Just so you know, what you did today took a lot of courage. The fear of rejection partially imprisons us all, while at the same time we know that low-grade depression leads to lethargy, and nothing happens. Moving forward after the loss of a spouse has to be difficult, no matter how many adult kids of family friends you have. None of them want you to be sitting around, my guess is that you have a lot to offer. We are some of the higher-functioning mammals on the internet, and in the brief time I have visited here I have seen genuine acts of random kindness, and moral support for anyone in trouble who is willing to share.
Hmm, Willie Trask. I am taking your insightful comments to heart and rewriting as we speak. Fear not, rabble, I will not post the edited material! :)
Lady Comrade, I liked both of those. Will Rogers is always so well, he's so Will Rogers. The dog and the rock was excellent, I hope I remember it. And Mahatma, he's had a lot of witty things attributed to him, I love the "Christ" quote. ... I have one allegedly said by Ghandi, equally sharp in both spirit and point: In response to a reporter's question "Have you made your peace with God?" he replied, "I didn't know I had a quarrel with him."
Lady Comrade: Winston Churchill, often unappreciated even in times of dynamic crisis management, what courage under fire. The Battle of Britain, and he basically tells Hitler to go suck eggs. It was Churchill who convinced Royal Air Force pilots to take on the Luftwaffe when outnumbered 10 to one, and then come back, refuel & rearm, and go right back up again. Nice choice of a man to quote.
No offense taken, Gandhi mastered the art of passive resistance. Most of us Yanks, me included, are way to keen to let our testosterone do our decision-making for our brains. Us more if you get the chance about your appreciation for those two men that I may not resemble but nevertheless find to be inspirational.
I have a collection of my favorite poems and quotes, attached to my bulletin board, surrounding my computer desk. One of them is from Winston Churchill:
"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
Churchill was quite the character. Are there any leaders of his ilk in this day and age?
You should go to a pear tree for pears, not to an elm.
Publilius Syrus (~100 BC)
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge." --Unknown I've always liked this one...
Oy, on Firefox (sans formatting).
Kindlee: I am not optomistic about the odds that another man or woman of Churchill's stature will come along anytime soon. Eisenhower, Churchill's peer, talked after the war about the threat posed by the "military-industrial complex." Now it seems that for anyone to achieve serious power they must first enter into a series of compromising unholy alliances, thereby leaving but the illusion of what had been a great man or woman. I have seen in South America the best and the brightest either get compromised or get themselves killed. It happens everywhere, just not with such a bright splash of color......but damn, I hope that I am wrong. Call me old-fashioned, but I need something more than a roof over my head and food in the pantry....my soul needs something resembling virtue to believe in. The way things are need not be the way that things must be.
ooops...."optimistic"
"Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love."
--Mr. W. Shakespeare's Hamlet
Bert, I don't want to splash water on your wonderful reveries and thoughts of Great Men; I liked those men too, admired them. But I have to believe that Churchill made choices he didn't like, and in so doing, he compromised his ethics and keen sense of what is right and moral "for the greater good." He and FDR could not have been so much masters of their own souls as well as leaders of others to have maneuvered our countries through the minefields of WWII without making some deals with the devils. I don't think it was possible then, as it's not possible now, to get cooperation from some corners without offering something in returns. And tens of centuries and recorded history has shown us that while the situations facing Great Men are different, those who seek to destroy what the leaders strive to protect, are the same kinds of people, driven by the same desires, and quieted by the same bribes and other offerings. So bert other great men will come along I think; actually they're already here, just harder to find in all the 21st century noise. But don't lose hope: keep your eyes peeled and you just might spot the next one sometime soon. That's what I hope anyway, and I'm afraid to wallow in doubt.
-30-
Penn, that is just lovely. Thank you, dear lady.
Park4: There was a recent children's movie about Deveraux, a little mouse with big dreams. He took a sewing needle, made it a sword, and took on the forces that every peer said were too tough to beat. Just a story for children who aren't ready for the truth? I think not. You are correct, it is impossible to operate at all without tradeoffs. But I personally try to keep my eyes on the prize. Never trade off personal integrity, my friend. When evrything shakes out, all we have are friends, family, and personal integrity {not necessarily in that order}. Do high-profile criminal defense, and you deal with the devil every day....and sometimes, as Pogo said, "I have seen the enemy...and he is US." The waltz of the encounter is often bittersweet, but your soul escapes when the dollar sign or the lure of fame take away your foundational values.
Comfortable - I'm a guy who met his wife through a dating site. Let your writing reflect you. I thought it was fine the way it was. If someone doesn't like the way you express yourself in your ad then the two of you aren't really going to click. Polish it if you feel you must, but too much "improvement" will make it sound contrived. Someone who answers your ad with the hope of changing you to his way of thinking is not going to be your soul mate.
Correction, I think the mouse was named "Despereaux." Long day, glad it's Friday.
I hate to do it (kidding), but Jalopkin is right: Ben Franklin is one of the best Quippers in history. Anyone who can title a book "Fart Proudly" has figured out a few things about life.
~three came home~
No one has begun to drift off to other languages yet! Here are a few dichos, proverbios, and refranes in Spanish: "¡En la boca cerrada no entran moscas!" "¡A la cama no irás sin aprender una cosa mas!"
Doc, I barely speak English, please don't make me learn new words!
Welcome to all newbies and beenaways!
Comfy1-stealing your profile for my next dating adventure mwa ah ah...
You did good.
Here are some more (from a book of them!): http://www.amazon.com/Dichos-Proverbs-Sayings-Charles-Aranda/dp/0913270474#reader
Now who's going to launch the ship into the mother lode: East Texas ? I won't even dare to start quoting THEM!
And the folks in Centerville, Nacogdoches, Carthage, Palestine, Paris, and other mysterious cities hidden in the pine trees speak a dialect of English!
But back to Spanish (and these are translated!): http://www.spanishpronto.com/spanishpronto/spanishsayings.html
U.S. Ambassador to Laos during the IndoChina/Vietnam War, talking to reporters:
"If you understand what's going on, you just don't get it. No one knows what's going on! If anyone tells you he knows the truth, he's a liar! If you continue to ask different people questions, you will continue to get different answers! There is no truth, only lies and the idiots who continue to ask questions!"
This is a second-hand aphorism, courtesy of the dear departed (this long time) EXPAT, in an email to yours truly.
Ah, war aphorisms! From my Southeast Asia days: "Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see!"
Anyone who has ever heard a 'debrief' after fighter pilots came back after a mission knows that you can truly never believe what each man says, and that they all saw a different aerial encounter....
A good friend just sent me this cute joke, so I'm passing it on. I'm just a conduit today...
Sunday Morning Sex -
Upon hearing that her elderly grandfather had just passed away,
Katie went straight to her grandparents' house to visit her 95-year-
old grandmother and comfort her. When she asked how her grandfather
had died, her grandmother replied, "He had a heart attack while we
were making love on Sunday morning."
Horrified, Katie told her grandmother that 2 people nearly 100 years
old having sex would surely be asking for trouble.
"Oh no, my dear," replied granny. "Many years ago, realizing our
advanced age, we figured out the best time to do it was when the
church bells would start to ring. It was just the right rhythm. Nice
and slow and even. Nothing too strenuous, simply in on the Ding and
out on the Dong." She paused to wipe away a tear, and continued,
"He'd still be alive if the ice cream truck hadn't come along!"
Not a bad way to go!
OK, Keeping with the Spanish topic, how about a little Pablo Neruda? "I want to do with you, what spring does to the cherry trees."
Others clearly know more than I do about Churchill, but I admire his interest in doing his own brick masonry as a form of meditation. I was told the "up with which I will not put" remark came about after someone edited his prose to avoid a preposition at the end of a sentence. That is, he found the idea of altering regular speech to conform to an imperfect rule silly and he coined a particularly silly phrase to illustrate his thought. I heard a man say on the radio just today that "If you can't print your mission statement on the back of your business card, it isn't much good." On the other hand, I have long been fond of "My philosophy won't fit on one bumper sticker." I have spent some time on personals ads and, while I think a certain amount of cleverness is good, I think one should remember three things: 1) It is only an introduction. 2) fairly or not, many people pay much more attention to the picture than to the words, and 3) few genres of writing have been so frequently and savagely parodied.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVdhZwK7cS8
I am embarrrassed to see the post-o-meter has gone over 1000 for me. I never intended to be so prolix. However, I would suggest any of my fellow eyesters would learn more about me, really, by our spending a weekend or two together than can be gathered from all of those posts together.
The effort of catching a falling object will cause more destruction than if the object had been allowed to fall in the first place....
Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he knows what it is....
The overwhelming prerequisite of the greatness of an artist is that artist's death....
If you're wondering if you need to pick up bread and eggs on the way home, you do.
The Three Least Credible Sentences in the English Language:
1...The check is in the mail.
2...Of course I'll respect you in the morning.
3...I'm from the government and I'm here to help you.
Kindlee,
I like your notion of the importance of anti-maxims to go with the maxims and always selling them in pairs. I submit the following:
"Many helpers make light work... but too many cooks spoil the broth."
"Haste makes waste... but he who hesitates is lost."
"It has always been true that in the United States, the people who ought to read books write them." - Gore Vidal
Penn, your Neruda reminded me of one that Woody Allen put in Annie Hall "I wanted to do to her what the President had been doing to the country."
Einstein said,"if you can't explain it easily to a child, you don't understand it"
"He who excuses himself, accuses himself"
Not sure who said this, maybe Charley Chan, but I think there is some truth to it.
"He Who Excuses Himself, Accuses Himself ..." Gabriel Meurier
You can't rollerskate in a buffalo herd.
Thanks Jalopkin!!
Tiberius! Great to see you! Where've ya been, friend?
RoadYacht,
Very VERY true. I have never trusted those who claim to understand that which they cannot articulate. These are usually the same people who accuse me of being too literal and over-analytical.
Lots of people are good talkers, but there are very few good listeners who really pay attention to what you are saying. Most people are busy formulating what they want to say next and are just waiting to say it!