| 22 March, 2009 |
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I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy next to me. Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. How could I lose to such an idiot? One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious. Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open. The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around. Nothing in our culture, not even home computers, is more overrated than the epidermal felicity of two featherless bipeds in desperate congress. The art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of the citizens to give to the other. I admire the serene assurance of those who have religious faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces. Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh. There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbors will say. A liberal is a man who leaves the room when the fight begins. Memory feeds imagination. The only "ism" Hollywood believes in is plagiarism. There are times when parenthood seems nothing but feeding the mouth that bites you. I saw that all things I feared, and which feared me, had nothing good or bad in them save insofar as the mind was affected by them. People and things do not upset us, rather we upset ourselves by believing that they can upset us. Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. We become what we think about all day long. There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. Change your thoughts and you change your world. There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way. If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. Our truest life is when we are in our dreams awake. And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. Noah must have taken into the Ark two taxes, one male and one female. And did they multiply bountifully! Next to guinea pigs, taxes must have been the most prolific animals. Man is not like other animals in the ways that are really significant: Animals have instincts, we have taxes. Why does a small tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and s substantial tax cut save you thirty cents? The point to remember is what the government gives it must first take away. The avoidance of taxes is the only pursuit that carries any reward. An income tax form is like a laundry list -- either way you lose your shirt. There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program: your dollar will go further. The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest amount of hissing. Fashions are the only induced epidemics, proving that epidemics can be induced by tradesmen. Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better. At age 50, every man has the face he deserves. I wonder how so insupportable a thing as a bookseller was ever permitted to grow up in the Commonwealth. Many of our modern booksellers are but needless excrements, or rather vermin. It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help. Good taste is the worst vice ever invented. I am firm. You are obstinate. He is a pig-headed fool. There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people. Hurting people is my business. My toughest fight was with my first wife. The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own. A novel is a piece of prose of a certain length with something wrong with it. In every fat book there is a thin book trying to get out. A big book is a big bore. This book fills a much needed gap. |
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