A man can only attain knowledge
With the help of
Those who possess it
One must learn from him who knows
Without Other People’s Words
To make me understand…see
I would be bereft, at sea, confused
They explain to me and best
They articulate what I know
But have no words for
I don’t understand it because I can’t explain
They explain it, make its
Structure -- meaning -- clear
I can better behave
I need the words of others
Their take on life
The way they see
To justify me
Educate me
Bring me
To the surface
I love them because it is a joy
To find thoughts one might have expressed
With much authority
By someone recognizably wiser
Than oneself
It is tempting to quote authors
When they express
Our very own thoughts
With a clarity and
Psychological accuracy
We cannot match
They know us better
Than we know ourselves
Their words remind us of
Who we are
What is shy & confused in us
Is succinctly & elegantly
Phrased in them
Thought needs words
It runs on them like a long wire
An EPIGRAM is
A half truth so stated
As to irritate
A person who believes the other half.
I probably own more books of quotations than any other human being in the world. I read them, underline the ones I love, copy some of them into my notebooks -- and now is the time to admit that I almost NEVER copy down the “author” of the quotation.
Who said it is nowhere near as important as what they said. I mean no disrespect, but I need to focus on “essentials.” I need to memorize the words -- so I “splash” the words on the pages of my notebook. “Splashing” the words -- given certain words a line of their own -- accentuates the meaning. The author’s name gets in the way of this “splashing” process -- so I omit the author’s name.
Again, I mean no disrespect. Long ago I found people stealing my words -- and not giving me credit. At first I was angry, then I was immensely pleased. They are uttering my words, thinking what I made them think. I don’t need “credit.” I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams: I got them to mouth my thoughts (often word-for-word), thereby internalizing my idea -- and they think they thought of it!
What more could I want? Credit? Giving me credit detracts from the power of the idea. They need to think they thought of it. That is the ultimate power of an idea: the person uttering it thinks they thought of it. They believe it more strongly because they thought of it!
So I apologize for not giving proper credit, but I pass on to you the great thoughts that were passed on to me, thoughts that have shaped my life (and some thoughts that merely made me laugh).
And here is a second introduction to my list of quotations -- which consists of the opening lines of one of my radio columns on quotations, and one whole radio column on quotations. Both are taken from my “Quotations” columns that can be found in “Radio Talks” which appear elsewhere on this web site.
Over & over & over I tell you how much I love quotations. And here is a quotation that in part explains my love of quotations: “A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who posses it. One must learn from him who knows.”
A quotation cannot help you learn what you don’t already half know, but a quotation can help you articulate to yourself & to others what you half know but cannot quite explain -- either to yourself or to others.
Carriages of the Past
I have said this to you over & over & over, but if something is worth saying, it is worth saying over & over & over.
We live our life inside our head. What goes on in there determines how we live, what we do. Recently I have regretted some major decisions I made in the past few years. My regret is massive. I wish I hadn’t done what I did. I go down that path once every few months, sometimes a few times in a few days. If only I hadn’t made that decision. My life would be so different now. I should have thought harder. I should have… I should have… And then a quotation pops into my mind: “One can ride nowhere in the carriages of the past.” That is so succinct, so true. It is ridiculous to waste time thinking about what would have been if I had not. One can ride nowhere in the carriages of the past. That carriage is no longer available. Thinking about what would have been if I had not…is useless. It a waste of time. What happened, happened. Move on. You did that, now what.
Another example. I am badly overweight. In the past five years I’ve eaten too much, exercised too little. I used to be thin, fast, healthy. I am growing old, I am fat, my back is a problem, I recently pinched a nerve, a sciatic nerve. I should eat less. I wish I were younger. Then I remember a quotation I read: If a man of sixty eats only a piece of toast for lunch, he can do everything a man of thirty can do.
Of course it is almost impossible to eat nothing all day but a piece of toast for lunch, but the quotation pointed to a great truth. When I ate very, very little, I felt, at thirty, at forty, at fifty, that I hadn’t lost a step. I was as fit, as fast, as healthy, as I was at twenty or thirty, perhaps even fitter. I was fat in my twenties, lost weight in my early thirties, and kept that weight off for twenty five years. And I was a heck of a tennis player. I played twice a day. I was a speed demon on the court. I was terrifically healthy. If a man of sixty eats only a piece of bread for lunch, he can do all that a man of thirty can do.
We live life inside our head. I read quotations voraciously. Quotations, for me, are the wisdom of the world encapsulated into few witty, wise, words -- and these few words are easy to remember: I can store them in my head for use later on, when I need those words to shape my life. One can ride nowhere in the carriages of…. When those words pop into my mind I stop thinking about what I should have done in the past. That was in the past. The past cannot be changed. That’s gone, irretrievable, unchangeable. Now, what should I do? My pinched sciatic nerve is driving me nuts: it seems a permanent injury. I will never be the same, fast & fluid on the tennis court, and it happened, my pinched nerve, my back problems, because I am old, fat, overweight. I wish I could stop growing old. If a man of sixty eats only a piece of toast for lunch.
Our life is lead inside our heads. If we can fill that cavity with the right thoughts, the right words, we can change the life we lead. I quickly stop thinking about the past when the quotation “We can ride nowhere…” I am on a diet now “If a man of sixty…” These thoughts are shaping, changing my life. No regrets, please. Focus on what you can do. You cannot change the past, but you can work on present problems. Focus on what you should do in the present & the future. I’ve said it over & over & over: quotations have changed my life.
I know my heading for this list of quotations is “Life Changing” quotations, and of course that is not true of many of the quotations that follow. But I have chosen to start with a few quotations that I have memorized word for word. They are deeply rooted in my mind. They have truly changed the way I live my life.
Who I choose to spend time with (who you are in the presence of others)
How long I tolerate the presence of a person in a bad mood (pollution)
How much time I spend worrying (most of my life)
How much I worry about past decisions (one can ride nowhere)
What I eat (If a man of sixty)
How long I argue with a stupid person (people might not)
How I diet (Reestablish purpose)
Happiness? (Competence)
It is not who you are that matters
But who you are in the presence of others
A Bad Mood is A form of Pollution
Most of my life I worried
About things
That never happened
Never Argue with a fool
People might not
Know the difference
To get thin
Reestablish
A purpose in your life
Highest Happiness? Competence.
(I have divided the quotations into 4 Chapters in case you find it daunting to tackle the whole lot in one sitting.)
Top
The Quotations
Society drives people crazy with lusts
And calls it advertising
We read advertisements to discover and enlarge our desires
If men are to respect each other
For what they are
They must cease to respect each other
For what they own
The only infallible criterion of wisdom
To vulgar minds: Success
Success? To be able To spend your life
Your Own Way
(Definition of Retirement?)
Westerners have Aggressive Problem solving Minds
Africans Experience People
Most conversations are monologues
Delivered in the presence of witnesses
We are the product of Editing
Rather than Authorship
There is a sublime thieving In all giving
Someone gives us all he has And We are His
All the Gods are dead Except The God of War
A respectable person? One who conforms to custom
People are called good When They do as others do
Reward for conformity
Everyone likes you except yourself
Liberty Conforming to Majority
Writers don’t give prescriptions
They give headaches
What I cannot create
I do not understand
The mind is a Museum
To be looted at night
I am a Thief I Steal from The Best
Never show me anything
Except you expect me To Steal it
People gave up the Luxury of Time
In favor of the Luxury of Stuff
Violence: Reparte of the illiterate
Expensive objects can feel like
Possible solutions to needs
We don’t understand
Objects mimic in A material dimension
What we require In a psychological one
We buy a cashmere cardigan
A substitute for the counsel of friends
One of the greatest joys known to man
Is to take flight into ignorance
In search of knowledge
We’re drowning in information
Starving for knowledge
Majority Opinion of least able
Enthusiasm Greatest Asset in the world
Beats Money and Power and Influence
Know yourself -- Socrates
Control yourself -- Cicero
Give yourself -- Christ
Ultimate Freedom is To Discipline Yourself
Growth Demands a
Temporary
Surrender of security
God will not look for medals, diplomas
But scars
You are remembered for
The rules you break
Maturity -- Capacity to
Endure Uncertainty
Representative owes you
His judgment.
He betrays you, instead of serving you,
If he sacrifices it
To your opinion
Public Opinion Polls:
Voluntary submission to Unnecessary Tyranny
Antisemite: A person who hates you
More than is absolutely necessary
Orator: Making deep noises from the chest
Sound like Important messages from the brain
Half of all failures Arise
From pulling in one’s horse
As he is leaping
In America Sports Is the opiate of the masses
Civilization: Process of setting man free from men
OR Civilization: Progress towards a
Society of Privacy
A savage’s whole existence is public
Ruled by the laws of his tribe
Patriots: Arbitrary Veneration
Of Real Estate Above principles
Nationalism: Infantile disease
The measles of mankind
Patriotism: Love for your own people
Comes first
Nationalism: Hate for people other than your own
Comes first
Patriotism: Collective responsibility
Nationalism: Silly Cock Crowing on a Dunghill
The less justified a man is
For claiming excellence for self
The readier he is to
Claim excellence for his nation
Chaos often breeds life
Order breeds habit
Place where optimism most flourishes
Is the lunatic asylum
Those who never retract their opinions
Love themselves more than the truth
Tact A kind of mind reading
Good manners Petty sacrifices
Life Short
Art Long
Opportunity Fleeting
Experience Treacherous
Judgment Difficult
Education
Replace an Empty Mind
With an Open One
Man’s Responsibility Increases
As God’s Decreases
Shortcut to Riches -- Subtract Desires
Competition
Brings out the best in product
The worst in people
Basic Law of Capitalism
You OR I
Not Both You And I
Worry
The interest paid by
Those who borrow trouble
What have I in common with Jews?
I have hardly anything in common
With myself
Superior Man -- distressed by
His lack of ability
Religions number in their ledgers
More murderers
Than the bloodiest tyrannies
Degrees of a person’s intelligence
Reflected by the
Number of conflicting attitudes
She
Can bring to bear on the same topic
Freedom A By product of
Economic surplus
We who value freedom of speech
Above life itself
Have nothing to talk about
But the weather
Hero Someone who understands
The degree of Responsibility
That comes with his freedom
Only one step from
Insecticide to Genocide
Even the poorest Italian has two egos
Even the richest Englishman has none
Someone who knows too much
Finds it hard
Not to lie
You’re only given a little
Spark of Madness
You mustn’t lose it
The World would be a far better place
If
More men wanted to become women
Than women wanted to become men
The Direct use of force
Is A
Poor solution to any problem
Used by
Children & Large Nations
Really happy man?
Enjoys the scenery
On a detour
There is only one rule of living
Live Alone
Aim of Medicine -- to rescue men
From the consequences of
Their vices
Russia: Everything forbidden
Germany: Everything forbidden, unless permitted
Britain: Everything permitted, unless forbidden
Italy: Everything permitted, forbidden or not
England:
All Permitted that is not Expressly Prohibited
Germany:
All Prohibited that is not Expressly Permitted
France:
All Permitted that is Expressly Prohibited
European Common Market:
No one knows what is Permitted
And it all costs more
Like so many Americans
Trying to construct a life that made sense
From things found in gift shops
English history:
Syphilitic hunchbacked lunatic dwarfs
Basic solution to all problems
Including humidity
Was to have someone’s head cut off
(Henry VIII barely got through a day
Without beheading a wife)
WAR: God’s way of teaching us Geography
This is a youth oriented society
The joke is on them
Youth is a disease
From which we all recover
Universities choose Professors
The way some men
Choose wives
They want the ones others will admire
Women need a reason to have sex
Men need a place
Children are Innocent
And Love Justice
Adults are Wicked
And prefer Mercy
Marriage
Makes a life of deception
Absolutely necessary
For both parties
My notion of a wife at forty
Is that a man should be able
To change her
Like a bank note For two twenties
When a couple decides to divorce
They should tell the parents
Who
May be willing to pitch in
With comments criticism
Malicious gossip
To help the divorce along
One friend in a lifetime
Is much
Two are many
Three are hardly possible
Friendship needs a certain parallelism
Of life
A community of thought
A rivalry of aim
When the character of a man
Is not clear to you
Look at his friends
The brook would
Lose its song if
We removed the rocks
I like a teacher who
Gives you something
To take home
To think about
Besides
Homework
Education
Should include
Knowledge of what to do with it
Education -- transmission of knowledge
Individual's total development
Lags behind
One learns more from
A scholar in a rage
Than from a score of
Lucid & laborious drudges
Teaching: Assisting discovery
A good teacher:
How many questions
He inspires them to ask
Which he finds hard to answer
Between twelve & seventeen
A parent ages
As much as twenty years
Trust is the basis
Of civilization
Old Age -- A plane
Flying through a Storm
Once you are aboard
Nothing you can do about it
My mechanical ineptness
Is so fertile
It borders on creativity
Jewish boys don’t try to fix things
We hire someone
Because you could hurt yourself
There is no harder work I can think of
Than taking myself off to somewhere pleasant
Where I am forced to stay for hours
And “have fun”
Remove respect from friendship
And you have taken away
The most splendid
Ornament it possesses
In a friend you find
A second self
A country A piece of land
Surrounded by boundaries
Usually unnatural.
America:
A land whose center is nowhere
England:
A land whose center is everywhere
I fee like a fugitive
From the law of averages
Consumer society
Prisoner of Addiction
Prisoner of Envy
Art
Pattern informed by sensibility
Life Inclusion and Confusion
Art All Discrimination
Things won are done
Joy’s soul
Lies in doing
(Process is happiness)
A beautiful face A mute recommendation
Love
The attempt to form
A friendship
Inspired by beauty
I never forgive
I always forget
Dinner party chatter
Communicative equivalent
of
Roaming around shopping malls
Positive Conception of Liberty
Not
Freedom from
But
Freedom to
Few New Truths have ever won
Against the resistance of
Established ideas
Save by being overstated
Listening to a speech by Chamberlain
Like paying a visit to Woolworths
Everything in its place
Nothing above sixpence
Guidelines for Bureaucrats
When in Charge Ponder
When in Trouble Delegate
When in Doubt Mumble
Cinema is the secular temple
Of modern life
Like a Chapel
One is alone with one’s soul
A gorgeous figure
Caught my attention
Sorry to have been so superficial
But there it is
They that can give up
Essential liberty
To obtain a little
Temporary Safety
Deserve neither
Liberty or Safety
Security is a denial Of Life (Germaine Greer)
Neutral Men? The Devil’s allies
Those who want much
Are much in need
The weak can never forgive
Forgiveness attribute of strong
Spirit of Liberty
Spirit which is not
Too sure it is right
(1955!!)
We have gone completely overboard
On Security
Ultimate in security Is Jail
I have never understood
Why one’s affection must
Be confined
As once with women
To a single country
We pay dearly over many years
To learn about ourselves
What strangers can see at a glance
Pearls of wisdom from him
Were rare
He did not view speech
As the vehicle
For expressing his inner thoughts
He treated speech as a wholly
Social medium
Brooklyn-Jewish expectations of conversation:
Mixture of confiding anecdotes
Analytical delving
Intellectual disputation
Writing History:
Drinking an Ocean
Pissing a Cupful
AMERICA
What matters to us is
Hearth & Home
The outside does not matter
It is
Excess Space
It is
To be Traversed Endured
Reigning Metaphor of “the good life”
Modest dwelling all our own
Isolated from
Problems of other people
Great Open Spaces Promised
The ability to be left alone
To minimize relations with
Larger Community
And
Its bothersome agencies
Self Esteem Derives from
Individual effort and achievement
A single new freeway interchange
Can cost $600,000,000
Same as
Building Equipping
20 Mile Long
Electric Trolley Line
Cities: Made by General Motors
On order from
Sears Roebuck
NEW ENVIRONMENT
The Place We Live & Play
Designed Primarily for
1) Convenience of Motorist
2) Assist Corporations in moving
Vast volumes of merchandise via cars (& trucks)
3) For ease of maintenance
Leastly
For spiritual Fulfillment
Of People
Midwest High School?
Where the Band Practices
They go forth with
Well Developed Bodies
Fairly Developed Minds
Undeveloped Hearts
Learning Connects with Earning
Freedom in this culture
Means
Whatever makes you happy is okay
That is
Freedom of fourteen year old child
Freedom to eat a whole box of doughnuts at one sitting
Freedom to make a mess
Freedom to be loud
Freedom to be obnoxious
Freedom to blow things up
Freedom From
Uncivilized Society
Pay those whom they entrust
The minds of their children
A smaller wage than
Is paid to
Those whom they entrust
The care of their plumbing
Top
Frustrate a
Frenchman: He will Drink himself to death
Dane: shoot himself
Irishman: Die of angry hypertension
American: Get drunk -- Shoot You,
Establish a million dollar
Aid program for your relatives
Then
He will die of an ulcer
When I was young
I admired
Clever people
Now that I am old
I admire
Kind people
Approach Goat from back
Horse from front
Fool from no direction whatsoever
What is important
Not Luxury but Love
Not Wealth but Wisdom
Not Gold but Goodness
Life a Paradise for
Those who
Love things with a Passion
Time more precious
Than money
Cannot Accumulate Time
Cannot Borrow Time
Cannot Ever Tell
How much time you have left
Time Is Life
Unpardonable Sin?
To be an
Unpleasant Person
Fountain of Contentment?
Springs in the mind
Do not seek happiness by changing
Anything but
Your own disposition
Happiness not absence of problems
But the
Ability to cope with them
Suffering from lack of self worth?
Maybe
You are not doing anything worth while!
The only people to
Get even with?
Those who have helped you
He who angers you Conquers you
The rules of the
Game of life
Is for
The winners to give some of it
Back to the losers
Those who want much are much in need
What is spent In One Hour in Gulf War
Is spent In One Year
For Research & Development
Of non nuclear alternative to fuel
Middle Ages Tourists Because of Religion
Now Tourism is their Religion
4 M’s of Management
Male Middle Class Middle-Aged Mediocre
Drug Neither Moral or Immoral
It is a Chemical Compound
Compound not a menace
Until humans decide consumption
Gives license to act
Like an asshole
Not enough Jails
Not enough Policemen
Not enough Courts
To Enforce A Law
Not
Supported by the People
Death Most Convenient time
To Tax Rich People
Dead Waiter: Bye & Bye God caught his eye
Photography Point of View
Of Paralyzed Cyclops For a Split Second
This was the kind of war
Which existed
To produce Victory Parades
To respond to Evil by committing
Another Evil
Does not eliminate Evil
But allows it to go on forever
You think you are dying for your country
You are dying for industrialists
Cars Today Great Gothic Cathedrals
Supreme Creation of an Era
Conceived with passion by Unknown Artists
Consumed in image (& usage) by a whole population
Which
Appropriates them as Magical Objects
He looked at me as if
I was a side dish
He hadn’t ordered
England Two Classes in Good Society
Equestrian Classes Neurotic Classes
Best way to kill an idea?
Take it to a Meeting
National Dish of America?
Menus
Credulity Greatest about things we know nothing about
Since we know least
About Ourselves
Ready to believe all that is said
About us
Hence Mysterious Power Of
Flattery & Calumny
Man Shies Away from
Rendezvous with Self
Hence Entertainment Industry
Everything that irritates us
About Others
Can lead to an understanding
Of Ourselves
Our Opinion of People Depends Less
Upon
What we see in them
Than
What they make us see in Ourselves
Self Respect Fruit of discipline
Sense of Dignity Grows with
Ability to say No to Oneself
Imagination Intelligence Having Fun
If you can play Golf Bridge Tennis
As if it were a game You are
About
As well adjusted as you will ever be
Test of a Man’s Conscience
Willingness to sacrifice something today
For Future Generations
Whose Words of thanks will never be heard
Wise Question Self
Fools Question Others
Wisdom? Anticipating Consequences
Maturity
Do Job Unsupervised
Carry Money Without Spending It
Bear Injustice Without wanting to get even
Your Face Your biography
The Mask Given Time Becomes the Face
Old Friends Help us grow old
New Friends Help us stay young
I love you not only
For what you are
But
For what I am when I am with you
Married life teaches one invaluable lesson
To think of things far enough ahead
Not to say them
You can measure a man by
The opposition it takes to
Discourage him
How you play Reveals some of your character
How you lose Reveals all of your character
Measure people? How they behave when
Something is offered for free
Every Society Honors
Live Conformists Dead Troublemakers
Literature of Escape? In part
A revolt against tyranny of clocks
Only in fetters Is Liberty
Without its banks Can a River Be?
Your enthusiasm Infectious
Stimulating Attractive to others
They will love you for it
Go for you and with you
Modern-Basic Extended Family
You
Ex husband or wife
Your ex’s new mate
Your new mate
Possibly your new mate’s ex
And any new mate your new mate’s ex has acquired
It used to be that
Parents had many children
Now
Children have many parents
Neat house? Uninteresting Person
In it
Nice guys don’t finish last
They are winners before the game starts
To those who are not
The enthusiastic
Are something of a trial
Rules are Made
For people who are not
Ready to make their own
First Rate Men Hire First Rate Men
Second Rate Men Hire Third Rate Men
America: Thrill of arriving at Sunset
See citizens evacuating downtown
Locking their doors for the night
Midwestern town
Aging collection of small homes
On straight streets
Arranged around a 2-block downtown
Where the brightest light after 9 p.m.
Coca-cola machine down by Standard Oil Station
Chief danger in Life
You may take too many precautions
Fools Regret their Words
Wise Men Regret their Silence
Silence is Wise if we are foolish
Silence is Foolish if we are wise
Public wishes to be managed
Like a woman
One should say nothing to it
That it does not wish
To hear
The News:
A strange Assembly That Swoops Down
On one’s life
Like cousins from Oslo one has never seen before
Will never see again
Who between planes thought they’d call & say hello
I prefer Neurotic People
I like to hear rumblings
Beneath the surface
Public opinion No Substitute
For Thought
The world is populated
In the main
By people
Who should not exist
Originality? Stealing With Good Judgment
Ability to forget True token
Of Greatness
Without Education Danger of
Taking educated people seriously
Sports Toy Department of Life
Writers: Women of easy virtue
First for Pleasure
Later for pleasure of others
Finally for money
A man learns to skate By
Staggering around making a fool of himself
He progresses in all things
By making a fool of himself
Bad temper Sign of Inferiority
Exaggerated Sensitivity Feeling of Inferiority
Essentials of Happiness
Something to do
Something to hope for
Something to Love
Complete Equality = Universal Irresponsibility
Tomato of Tomorrow
Can withstand Direct Mortar Fire
Cannot be penetrated by any known
Kitchen implement
Except
Vegeo-Matic Home Laser Slicer
(Not sold in stores)
First Drug?
Reading Blocks Out World
Be as courteous to man as
To a picture
Give it the advantage of
A Good Light
Never Attack Whole bodies
Of any kind
Individuals forgive sometimes
Bodies & Societies never do
Amusement Happiness for those
Who cannot think
Often less danger in thing you fear
Than in thing you desire
Mind of a bigot like
Pupil of an eye
The more light you pour upon it
The more it will contract
Woman’s Beauty Like Men’s Wit
Fatal to owner
White-Run Barbecue
Gentile Internist
Might turn out All Right But
You haven’t attempted to
Take advantage of Percentages
We trust God is on our side
What is more important is
That we are on God’s side
TV
Gold Goose lays scrambled eggs
Experience Worst teacher
Gives test Before presenting lesson
Travel by Sea
Bliss of babyhood
Feed you Rock you gently to sleep
When you wake up they take care of you
And feed you again
Cats find humans Useful domestic animals
Dogs an employee Cat freelances
Politicians like ships
Noisiest when lost in fog
Remedy for Wrongs? Forget ‘em
Violence in the voice?
Death rattle of reason
In the throat
Small nations Indecently attired Women
Tempt Evil Minded
If you want to get rich
You son of a bitch
I’ll tell you what to do
Never sit down with a tear or a frown
And paddle your own canoe
Expensive objects
Can feel like
Plausible solutions
To needs
We don’t understand
Objects mimic in
A material dimension
What we require in
A psychological one
We need to rearrange
Our minds
We are lured to
New shelves
We buy a cashmere
Cardigan
A substitute for the
Counsel of friends
Only the male intellect
Clouded by sexual impulse
Could call the
Undersized, narrow-shouldered
Broad-hipped, short legged
Sex
The Fair sex
Majority -- Opinion of least able
Man wins friends by
The passion of his prejudices
Gifts Are Hooks
He that
Jokes Confesses
Place where optimism most flourishes
Is the lunatic asylum
FOR
Creating a good impression on others
Nothing beats
Being totally & catastrophically wrong
Love:
One begins by deceiving oneself
Always ends by deceiving others
All that we need
To make us really happy
Is
Something to be enthusiastic about
Abashed in the presence of
Expensive Merchandise
We recognize ourselves
Suppliants admitted to a Shrine
Truth has only one face
That of
A violent contradiction
Naps should have the status
Daily Exercise
(ALL bad moods can be lessened
With a nap
The “problem” diminishes
In the eye of the beholder
The worrier
After A NAP)
Life shrinks or Expands
In proportion
To one’s courage
How do you expect mankind
To be happy in pairs
When it is miserable separately
American Approach to Life:
Hard use Quick turnover
Lonely fantasies Eternal change
Impatience with communal restraints
Life of childish joys
Excellence in sports Requires
Streaks of Self-absorption
And Nastiness
The most wounded among us
Inflict pain on others
Jews don’t drink much
Because
It interferes with their suffering
After winning an argument
With his wife
The wisest thing a man can do
Is apologize
The citizen who criticizes
His country
Is paying it an
Implied tribute
Politics: the art of preventing people
From taking part in affairs
Which properly concern them
To be without some of
The things you want
Is an indispensable
Part of happiness
The best things
In life
Aren’t things
Sanity -- madness put to good use
Reality -- The ultimate illusion
Reality Leaves a Lot
To the Imagination
Money --- Coined Liberty
An idea that is
Not dangerous
Is not worthy of being
Called an idea
At all
In Mexico an air-conditioner
Is called a politician
Because it makes a lot of noise
But doesn’t work very well
I learned in business that
You had to be very careful
When you told someone that’s
Working for you
To do something
Because the chances were
Very high he’d do it
In government you don’t
Have to worry
About that
To accept a Favor
Is to
Sell one’s freedom
Christmas is a time when
Kids tell Santa
What they want and
Adults pay for it
Deficits are when adults
Tell the government
What they want
And
Their kids pay for it
If we insist that
Public Life
Be reserved for those
Whose
Personal History
Is Pristine
We are not going to get
Paragons of virtue
Running our affairs
We will get
The very rich
Who contract out
The messy things in life
The dull who
Have nothing to hide
And
The very devious
Expert at covering their tracks
Ambitious enough
To risk their discovery
The job of the press
Is to encourage debate
Not to supply the public
With information
You are done for
A Living Dead Man
Not when you stop loving
But
When you stop hating
No culture on earth outside of
Suburban America
Has ever deployed one woman per child
Without simultaneously assigning her
Such major productive activities as
Weaving Farming Gathering
Temple Maintenance & Tent building
The reason is that
Full time
One-on-one child-raising
Is not good
For
Women or Children
To be busy
Is
Man’s Only Happiness
Football: Violence punctuated by
Committee Meetings
We Americans have no
Commission from God
To police the whole world
Those who mean to do ill
Never fail to find a reason
People who are much too sensitive to demand
Of cripples that they run races
Ask of the poor
That they get up and act
Just like everyone else in society
A man can never tell you anything
Until
You contradict him
Vandal -- Destroys works of man
Sportsman -- Destroys works of God
Christianity: A very powerful
And convincing mistake
Every single religion that
Has a monotheistic God
Ends up
Persecuting other people
Killing them
Because they don’t accept him
We learn what’s good
and what’s bad
What’s generous & unselfish
What’s cruel & mean
From Fiction
Thou Shalt Not might
Reach the Head
It takes Once Upon A Time
To Reach the Heart
The literary school of Morals
Is inherently
Ambiguous Dynamic Democratic
A conversation
Faith
In a holy cause
Is to a considerable extent
A substitute for lost
Faith in ourselves
Great Modern Cities
Mess left over
From people getting rich
Never
Go out to meet trouble
Nine times out of ten
Someone will intercept it
Before it reaches you
Free Country
Share your privacy
In a public space
House unkept
Less distressing
Than Life Unled
Reality?
For people who can’t
Face Drugs
Resign yourself to being
A nuisance
If you want to get anything done
MAN
Animal that makes bargains
Dogs don’t exchange bones
Happiness
Have something to be
Enthusiastic about
Preposition
What made you pick this book
I didn’t want to be
Read to Out of Up for?
If you have no enemies
It means
You are a failure
Revenge --- Its own execution
Price we pay for money
Our Freedom
WAR: A coward’s way of
Avoiding problems
Caused by Peace
Behind Every great fortune
Is
A great crime
Keeping your temper -- Increases theirs
Beauty The Promise of Happiness
Bad officials Elected by citizens
Who don’t vote
Unhappy people fear change most
Love your neighbor but choose your neighborhood
Small minds troubled by
Small things
Danger Makes People Devout
Rob me of the price
But not of the quality
He who does not mind his belly
Will
Hardly mind anything else
Books: Embalmed Minds
Not Position
But Disposition
That makes people happy
Build Orphanages next to
Homes for elderly
If
Someone’s sitting in a rocker
Soon a kid will be in his lap
Better
Errors of enthusiasm
Than
Indifference of wisdom
Envy
The sincerest form of flattery
Seriousness
The only refuge
Of the shallowTop
Copyright © 2006
Henry Morgenstein
