| 8 March, 2009 |
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My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated, but not signed. The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. I would like to take you seriously but to do so would affront your intelligence. Understand that legal and illegal are political, and often arbitrary, categorizations; use and abuse are medical, or clinical, distinctions. Abstract art: a product of the untalented sold by the unprincipled to the utterly bewildered. It is human nature to think wisely and act foolishly. The only really happy folk are married women and single men. A government is the only known vessel that leaks from the top. Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter. Virtue is insufficient temptation. Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. Philosophy teaches us to bear with equanimity the misfortunes of others. I have given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself. Golf is a good walk spoiled. You can fool too many of the people too much of the time. Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast. Wit is so shining a quality that everybody admires it; most people aim at it, all people fear it, and few love it unless in themselves. Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. It may not be that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong - but that is the way to bet. California is the only state in the union where you can fall asleep under a rose bush in full bloom and freeze to death. Start every day with a smile and get it over with. Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same. The husband who wants a happy marriage should learn to keep his mouth shut and his checkbook open. No good deed goes unpunished. It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar. A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child. Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit. The more one is hated, I find, the happier one is. Brevity is the soul of lingerie. ...Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded... I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly. You never realize how short a month is until you pay alimony. The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race. Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable. Happiness is the perpetual possession of being well deceived. Dinner theater is anti-culture. Virtue has never been as respectable as money. Sex: the thing that takes up the least amount of time and causes the most amount of trouble. Hope in reality is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man. Humanity is not a gift of nature, it is a spiritual achievement to be earned. There is nothing wrong with sobriety in moderation. Posterity is as likely to be wrong as anybody else. The history of ideas is the history of the grudges of solitary men. Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can. A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents. One of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity. Children should neither be seen nor heard from - ever again. Television is for appearing on - not for looking at. The country has charms only for those not obliged to stay there. The basis of optimism is sheer terror. |
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