| 7 April, 2009 |
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Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad. Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. Americans detest all lies except lies spoken in public or printed lies. It is often pleasant to stone a martyr, no matter how much we admire him. I think, therefore Descartes exists. The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. The trouble with this country is that there are too many people going about saying, "The trouble with this country is...." Most vegetarians look so much like the food they eat that they can be classified as cannibals. Make money and the whole nation will conspire to call you a gentleman. There are three intolerable things in life - cold coffee, lukewarm champagne, and overexcited women. If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee. The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me. Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the universe together. Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good. Reason and Justice tell me that there is more love of man in electricity and steam, than in chastity and refusal to eat meat. The strongest man in the world is the man who stands alone. There is no passion like that of a functionary for his function. Courtly love-poetry may first have been written during long periods of abstinence on the Crusades, but it would not have flourished in the cold of northern Europe without some help from the chimney. Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry. National Health Insurance: To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost. Popularity is the one insult I have never suffered. Never lie when the truth is more profitable. Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm. You should not live one way in private, another in public. Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to make it complex and wonderful. Melpomene was a substantial girl, thick of bosom, ankle, and forearm, rosy of cheek, and clear of eye. She seemed somehow incomplete without her hockey stick. It was not their irritating assumption of equality that annoyed Nicholai so much as their cultural confusions. The Americans seemed to confuse standard of living with quality of life, equal opportunity with institutionalized mediocrity, bravery with courage, machismo with manhood, liberty with freedom, wordiness with articulation, fun with pleasure - in short, all of the misconceptions common to those who assume that justice implies equality for all, rather than equality for equals. Mr. Gates is up to his eyeballs in his knowledge of this stuff. Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. I was much distressed by next door people who had twin babies and played the violin; but one of the twins died, and the other has eaten the fiddle - so all is peace. When solving a "panic" you must first ask yourself what you were doing that could possibly frighten an operating system. We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give. I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly. The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists - that is why they invented hell. I like to keep a bottle of stimulant handy in case I see a snake, which I also keep handy. Higher emotions are what separate us from the lower orders of life... Success is a great deodorant. What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance. Everyone realized that Computervision stock was the golden goose. But one grabbed the leg, another grabbed a wing, another got the neck, all pulling hard, and they realize now they could kill the goose if they keep this up. Civilization is the distance man has placed between himself and his excreta. Be a good listener. Your ears will never get you in trouble. The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated. Gentility is what is left over from rich ancestors after the money is gone. No one can earn a million dollars honestly. An Irishman is the only man in the world who will step over the bodies of a dozen naked women to get to a bottle of stout. Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person. The higher the buildings, the lower the morals. Write down the advice of him who loves you, though you like it not at present. Coincidences are spiritual puns. |
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