Mysterical-E

The Hell You Say

Aphorisms

The following aphorisms must have come loose from mossy rocks-----
I found them stuck to my toes as I returned from a pretty-much unsuccessful
How to Walk on Water lesson

    Some people divert suspicion from themselves by roaring about the wickedness of people who do what they, themselves, do. When they can’t attack practitioners of the so-called vice, they go after people who defend them. So, in self-defense, when somebody tells you somebody else does bad stuff, you might prefer to keep your reaction down to shaking your head and saying “tsk, tsk.”

    We needn't try to deal with a problem until it become so dangerous it can’t be solved. Right now we don’t think we can afford solving problems, so it’s best to deny that we have any (unless, of course, somebody offers to pay for the solution).

    One of my friends has taken up playing bridge. He says the idea is to make sure none of his time is ever wasted.

    If you know nearly enough to write a book, start writing, immediately! Why? Well, you will learn more about the subject during the writing, and if you wait until you already know enough, you can’t finish before you actually know more than you are to write. Then you’re stuck with deciding what to leave out: a total impossibility at that stage of ignorance. It may be years before you know enough to make a wise choice — if you ever do. So start writing! Hurry!

    We never have to admit making a stupid blunder. That’s because our language contains such lovely euphemisms as "oversight."

    Though ineffective procedures tend to be painful, they can often be employed mindlessly. Which explains primitive magic, wordy intellectualism, drug cults, the war on drugs that ensues, totalitarian antipathy to dissent, supply-side economics (by whatever new name), political correctness and the popularity of talk-show hosts (and other celebrities).

    Once I explained a delicate point of ethics to a friend, using a parable to help make my point. The person I was talking to waxed indignant. He assured me he is no dunce, and doesn't need to have things simplified in order to understand them. (To see why that was silly, you need to know that he gets most of his information from the web and the rest from television. What? You can't see why that was silly? Oh-oh.)

    Early to bed and early to rise are signs, respectively, of fatigue and insomnia.

    Never use emotional arguments! Admittedly I use them myself at times, but, that’s okay, since I am right. Shucks, if you were right you could do the same — but in that case we wouldn't be arguing, would we?


    The cloth for the "emperor's new clothes" was woven on an heirloom, and the weavers were punished.

    Thank goodness I'm not tired. In fact, I'm so tired that if I were tired, I'd really be tired.

    Wickedness consists not in the mere non-possession of virtues, but, specifically, of my virtues. (Ask anybody.)

    How come, if they're really “vices,” we can't seem to get over being jealous of the ones other people have that we don't?

    The vices we share, you and I, are certainly forgivable. The ones I have that you don’t help me to feel like I’m better than you.

    A Miss can’t possibly be as good as a Mlle.
                — Old French saying.

    It seems we can accept virtues in our enemies that we could never tolerate in our friends.

    I hope the "golden robes" we're promised in the hereafter turn out — just in case — to be flame-proof.

    The kind of Bible-prophecy-people who bother me are the ones who, say that in the "last days" there'll be all kinds of trouble, and who are sure they can rush God along by causing all kinds of trouble.

    Some crimes are so wicked we should make laws against them.

    Government regulation of crime is a gross interference with individual enterprise. Let the free market regulate crime.

    When taxes are outlawed, only outlaws will pay taxes.

    A friend is anybody who can forgive you for not following his good advice.

    The preservation of humankind is more important than the preservation of any individual. Wait, though: who is the individual? Not me, I hope!

    The reason for not giving advice is simple: why take the blame?

    The reason for giving advice is simple: if the other person's mistakes prove even stupider than your own the result could be cataclysmic.

    The problem isn’t that your friends won't forgive and forget your bad behavior. It's that you won't be able to believe they did.

    Would a friend keep avoiding a subject you want to talk about?

    Would a friend keep talking about a subject you want to avoid?

    A friend is anybody who can forget he or she was acting on your bad advice.

    A friend may or may not be too embarrassed to talk about his or her own problems, but is not too embarrassed to listen when you want to talk about yours.

    A friend is anybody who doesn’t pretend to throw up when you pretend to sing.

    Anybody might suggest that you send your life story to a magazine. As a true friend, however, I must remind you to enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope.


    To try to tell all you know is a fool's errand.

    Let's never permit anybody to talk against absolutely free speech.

    So, ah, you say all the world loves a lover? What does all the world have to say about a hater?

    I never ever lie. (If I appear to do so, it must be that absolute truth has changed.)

    The call of duty always deserves an answer. (But remember that you can answer, "Sorry. Not right now.")

    Finding the meaning, if it has one, of this saying, if it is one, is left as an exercise, whatever that means.

    Your teacher’s most important task is not to “to teach you what you need to know." Teachers are for helping you learn to find out for yourself what you need to know.

    Shoulding have is not the same as coulding have. And vice versa.

    When you state an opinion, you don't have to begin by saying "It is my opinion that . . . ” because everybody knows that when you say something, you are really only revealing what you believe, not what you know for certain.

    Don't ride with anybody who brags about his driving. All he means is that he often gets away with taking unnecessary risks. (Whaddya mean why the masculine pronoun? Wanna make somethin' out of it?)

    If a poet's index of first lines looks like it might be one of the poems, go on to the next poet.

    The great technological improvements have reduced drudgery much less than was hoped. That's because as a little more becomes possible to us, a lot more comes to be expected of us.

    When a decision must be made by two or more participants and the foolish ones refuse to yield, it’s up to the wise to resolve the impasse, even if it requires yielding.

    To refuse to forgive in yourself a weakness that you forgive freely in others is ultimate arrogance.

    The geological record shows that the earth has passed through many catastrophes — each probably due to another life-form's reaching a stage where it couldn’t control its military-industrial complex.

    The poor fool you recently argued with will need time to assimilate the great truths you presented. However, years from now you may see him or her expounding some of your opinions as his or her own. (Some of your present opinions, that is. Don't forget: he or she may find you expounding some of his or hers.)

    Whatever destination you decide on had better be reachable from wherever you are when you decide.

    When I said that I can't seem to live intellectually and dispassionately, my friends angrily denounced me as an emotional fool. Should I have reacted coolly?

    Pride in one's great work is surely a virtue. Even better — though much rarer — is justifiable pride in one's great work. Best of the pride family — but reserved for the honest — is justifiable pride in one's imperfect work.


    Each political party stands for "the rights of the individual." Unfortunately, each party seems to be talking about a different individual. Even more unfortunately, the individual they have in mind never seems to be me.

    Some argue that government buildings should be tall and slim, to save on land costs. Others push for short, spread-out buildings, to save such costs as elevators. So the government tries to please both sides: the buildings are made tall and thin, but with no elevators. The expenses prove to be those of short, spread-out buildings chock-full of elevators, but that's no problem, because public opinion, will regard the administrators as economical and deserving of reappointment, the builders as successful entrepreneurs who deserve to control our destinies in place of the politicians, and the people who go to work every day in the building as blood-sucking parasites, who deserve to starve to death.

    It’s true that if you want to read, you should to read something worthwhile, but why not choose something worthwhile that you like?

    To completely understand John or Jane Doe's world, just notice who they say deserves what — and why.

    If you are right, for once, after a long history of being wrong, nobody will notice. If you are wrong, for once, after a long history of being right, you can lead lemmings into the sea.

    He's married to his prejudices, all right. And can you say, “polygyny”?

    Well, of course youth has changed! Youth always responds to changes in the older generation.

    When liberals see a problem, they try to solve it. The attempted solution creates new problems, which liberals try to solve. The attempts create new problems; and so on forever. The conservative approach is entirely different. When conservatives see a problem, they both deny it exists and also blame it on liberals and big government, thus disposing of it forever.

    When you present an opinion, your audience may include people who forget skepticism and act on your opinion as if it were absolute truth. Don't worry about them. If they hadn't made themselves trouble by believing your errors, they would have done so by believing somebody else's.

    If wisdom is power, how come so few powerful people are wise? Does slyness mean the same thing as wisdom?

    How long would you expect it to take to repair a world that was put together in only six days?

    Yep — she says she has a really deep reverence for human life. (Before you take that at face value, does she smoke?)

    If you're serious about refusing to learn things you're not certain to need to know, I’ve got bad news for you: it’s too late.

    An executive makes fewer decisions than a potato-sorter does, so it isn't the number of quick decisions that explains the difference in pay. It's the fact that a potato-sorter has no subordinates charged with disguising his or her blunders as brilliant innovations. (Concealing this fact is one of the reasons executives prefer that machines do the potato-sorting.)

    Why do executives make more money than other people? Goodness, what an easy question to answer. It's because they are stuck with the hardest job of all: setting salaries.

    Mr. Bleat, opposing what he calls the "frills" in the modern school, wrote me, "In .99% of the caises, they don't learn the kids plane old 'reeding, 'righting and 'rythmatic as good as they done when we was young." It’s a very serious charge.

    Gertrude Stein was partly right, but she should have added that a thorn is a thorn is a thorn.

    Only an adult will allow for the possibility that the case in hand may constitute an exception to the rule. A child will suppose that the rule is infallible, and a teenager that because there may be exceptions, therefore each case that actually arises is — what else? — an exception.

    “Let sleeping dogs lie," will only become popular philosophy when people notice how much they can learn by noticing which lies the sleeping dogs tell.

    When a person says "Such-and-such is a fact," the real meaning is "It is my opinion that such-and such is a fact." When a person says "Such-and-such is not merely my opinion; it is an actual and absolute fact," the meaning is "It is my opinion that such-and-such is a fact."

    Since I have a very simple and effective filing system, I discard almost nothing. I'm now hunting for a good locating system. (I used to have one, but I filed it.)

    One trouble with rags-to-riches stories is that details get left out. They typically run more or less like this: "He arrived in this country with only seven cents in his pocket. At once he bought a hamburger stand in downtown Manhattan, which he expanded within two years to a chain of supermarkets covering the East." Notice any missing links?

    Guess why Theodore Roosevelt didn’t put it this way: "Speak softly and carry a big shield."

    "Least said, soonest mended." Does that mean that people so angry they refuse to speak to each other are trying to make up?

    The thing I like about wishy-washy people is that people with very strong opinions are usually wrong.

    Leslie was dismayed at the prospect of going to a college where, it was said, half the members of the opposite sex are below the median in looks. But Leslie came home beaming to report that, on the contrary, half are above the median.

    The great orators of the Old South were so marvelous (we are told) that they could have persuaded us white is black and black is white. (But wait a second: did they or didn't they?)

    A solipsist friend of mine turned down a chance to climb Everest. His reason? "Because it's not there."

    There's no maxim too sure to re-examine. (Why not start with this one?)

    The only time it ever bothers me to do work is now.

    Well, yeah, I did say all politicians cheat and lie. But of course now that I am one, I can admit that there are exceptions. For example I don’t. I was just cheating and lying when I said that.

    Term limits for politicians are a tool for making sure people in other parts of the country can’t keep on re-electing a person I've decided shouldn't represent them.

    Congressional votes should be kept secret, because if we happen to like the way our representative votes, it would give the incumbent an unfair advantage.

    It's really weird that a God powerful enough to enlighten the rest of us — through the televangelists we tune to on Sundays — about how our national officers should vote should be too feeble to speak to our representatives after they’re elected.

    Lots of folks tell us the end of the world is scheduled exactly for some date they know about. The year 2000 A.D. was one of those, for example. Bible quotations are usually at the root of the assertion, so I guess folks suppose that when it says we won't know when the end comes until it gets here, God was just kidding. So golly, then: what if he was kidding about some of the rest, too. Now what are we supposed to do?

    Two views of the same philosophical blunder:
            1. because a procedure has sometimes succeeded, therefore it is powerful.
            2. because a method has limitations, therefore it can’t ever succeed.

    What do you mean that’s not clear? Why, it's as clear as èr èr dé sì!

    The closest artists come to tolerating science is to tolerate an artist who comes close to tolerating science. As for scientists tolerating art, they could probably do that. Provided they learn to know it when they see it.


    Unfortunately the time of life when I was sure of my opinions has already ended, and I still haven’t figured out what’s really going on.