| 31 March, 2009 |
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The charms of a passing woman are usually in direct relation to the speed of her passing. In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true. Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else. The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people. Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time. Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. This world is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things. Our lives improve only when we take chances - and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves. A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. Now is the time for all good men to come to. I am not an Economist. I am an honest man! The cosmos is a gigantic flywheel making 10,000 revolutions per minute. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. One reason the human race has such a low opinion of itself is that it gets so much of its wisdom from writers. The Puritans gave thanks for being preserved from the Indians, and we give thanks for being preserved from the Puritans. The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another. Victory belongs to the most persevering. In Hollywood a starlet is the name for any woman under thirty who is not actively employed in a brothel. Candy The Pig, if I am not mistaken, Getting kicked out of the American Bar Association is like getting kicked out of the Book-of-the-Month-Club. It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose. Men are born with two eyes, but only one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say. If you stay in Beverly Hills too long you become a Mercedes. Americans are the only people in the world known to me whose status anxiety prompts them to advertise their college and university affiliations in the rear window of their automobiles. University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small. Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre but they are more deadly in the long run. Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine. Teach children to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when he grows up, he will never be able to edge his car onto a freeway. How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read. Human war has been the most successful of our cultural traditions. A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer. If God were suddenly condemned to live the life which He has inflicted upon men, He would kill Himself. When you leave New York, you are astonished at how clean the rest of the world is. Clean is not enough. Awards are merely the badges of mediocrity. Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope. Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily this is not difficult. It is well, when judging a friend, to remember that he is judging you with the same godlike and superior imapartiality. The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore. A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck. It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place. Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I speak the truth, and they never believe me. |
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