CLIFF'S APHORISMS
FROM THE NOTEBOOKS OF A CHILD OF THE 20TH CENTURY
By C.N.Carrington
These aphorisms are collected from the margins of my notebooks covering twenty years, from 1972-1992. They are my idle musings I thought enough of to write down. I would like to think they are all original thoughts. However, not only is there nothing new under the sun, but some of the sayings may be unconscious plagiarisms. Sorry about that! The sayings were not dated nor were sources, if any, noted. They follow a general chronological order as the notebooks were dated by the year. Also, except for the first and last, I have not edited them in any way, they are as they were written and in the order given.
A person can change greatly in twenty years, these aphorisms may indicate what my changes were. Some of the aphorisms might seem to be contradictory to others, but, I do not subscribe to the error that contradiction negates value. Repetition there may be, I often dwell on a thought for several years and have varying views to express. That is enough apology for now, I will apologize further to my critics in the next edition.
My only hopes are that the reader is entertained, and that perhaps some of the aphorisms will generate thoughts worth meditating upon. They have been collected because many of my friends over the years have asked for them.
Well, friends, here they are in all their naked glory. 2. When something is hard to do, do it easily. 3. Philosophy is immaterial if oriented other than towards the Universal Reality. 4. Western thought is too fragmented, we do not concentrate on one thought long enough. 5. Qualities are dubious when actually applied; one man's good is another's indifference. 6. A release from cultural filters can only come from within. 7. See things as they ARE not as we want them to be. 8. It is pretty hard to slow down from a dead stop. 9. The only time people need to get High is when they are Down. 10. Philosophy is a logical argument for the illogical. 11. I cannot change the world, only myself. 12. Work is pleasure to the body when the mind is in harmony. 13. Alter wants to be more in line with needs. 14. I am a political atheist and a religious anarchist. 15. Does man's responsibility to the state over-ride his responsibility to himself? 16. No government is interested in anything other than getting into, and staying in power. 17. The mind knows forms; the eye matches objects to those forms. 18. Mourn not for the dead, but for the living. 19. A law is useful only when broken. 20. The perceptions of a disturbed mind are as real as any other. 21. Even to show the way to unprepared travellers is to err. 22. I suspect a man who never has doubts. 23. Religion is the only answer if you do not question. 24. All teachings are inadequate, they entice but do not fulfil. 25. The pen is mightier than the sword, even for self-inflicted wounds. 26. A normal child will become what society tells him to become. 27. We only perceive what is on the same wave-length as our thought. 28. If children were born rational, they would never come out. 29. Humour is more convincing than argument. 30. To solve a short term problem by creating a long term problem is stupid. 31. Am I who I think I am, or as others think I am? 32. What predicates consistency as a virtue? As compared to what? 33. A Philosophical question should be answered well enough to be understood by a child. 34. Only a man free from guilt can afford to be an atheist. 35. The universe is not geo-centric nor helio-centric but ego-centric. 36. I know a lot of answers, but not the questions. 37. Farm fields of literature for the fruits of wisdom. 38. All movement is Push. 39. Space exists only where there is matter. 40. Pain and strain are mainly in the brain. 41. The occult is secret because you cannot know if you do not know? 42. A selective memory is the curse of mankind. 43. Does order need the existence of man or God? 44. Matter is slow energy; energy is fast matter. E=MC2 45. We see what we look for. 46. Judge not now, the jury of time will give a true verdict. 47. People have opinions according to how they feel. 48. A baby is a Buddha with a bottle, so am I. 49. I give you nonsense, you pay twice as much for more, truth, you want your money back. 50. The question is WHY? To everything. 51. Modern social thought is only as good as the historical examples they draw upon. 52. My philosophy is complete at this time, but is growing towards a future in no time. 53. If you do not write your first book by 40, you probably won't. 54. Too many prayers distract the Gods. 55. Philosophers are children who have not stopped asking Why? 56. Though the succession of day and night is a truth, there is no explanation of Why. 57. Experience can be accounted for by more than one rational proof. 58. If a man cannot choose between two 'goods', how can he choose between 'good and bad'? 59. Man can find freedom when he accepts death as living. 60. Philosophy reflects attitudes, it does not create them. 61. I live in shameless luxury, but not mindlessly. 62. Do not fight passion, you give it strength. 63. Desire is the principle of the material universe and the barrier of the spiritual. 64. To reach Good Bad must be passed through. 65. Plato is the father of the Humanities. 66. My best friends died over two thousand years ago. 67. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but what if the law is made in ignorance? 68. The good man who envies the bad deserves to suffer. 69. To the Greeks the atom was un-splittable, they had good sense, not ignorance. 70. No desire fulfilled is enough. 71. I could stomach the rich if they did not waste what many need to survive. 72. There should be two dollars, one for bread and another for speculation and luxuries. 73. If I think something out and a friend points out where I am wrong, I am twice blest. 74. When the wise speak to the people they do so through Art. 75. Matter is nothing else than solid light. 76. Theft was the first labour saving device. 77. Instead of finding a place in nature we dis-place nature. 78. I use literature to verify my thoughts. 79. I am ignorant, not stupid, therefore a philosopher. 80. Abstinence makes the mind grow fonder. 81. If any man thinks a thought it has been thought by mankind. 82. What is the difference between 'I' and 'ME'? 83. A trustworthy child is a free being. 84. When I die it is not to sleep but to a wake I go. 85. God allows evil so we will remember Him. 86. There is worse than dying, living unaware. 87. How does the doctrine of 'free will' regard worrying? 88. Are virtue and vice mutually exclusive? 89. Bureaucrats are like sleeping dogs. 90. Let lying dogs sleep. 91. There is no one true path. 92. Through periodic fasts one can defeat desire. 93. God is the mother of all creation. 94. The 'mystical experience' is the spark plug of all religions. 95. The mystic's light is the dark between the stars. 96. Dreams and wishes are non-spatial. 97. Man is the mean between atom and stars. 98. To overcome desire No thyself. 99. How many layers of mind have I? 100. The truth is not in contention but in compassion. 101. Where are you when I hurt? 102. Was not Christ the last human sacrifice needed? 103. My thoughts cannot be inconsistent. They are all mine. 104. The finite divided infinitely is a little less than nothing. 105. History is the same, everywhere, all the time. 106. Is the will of life non-life? 107. To understand, look not at life and matter, look at the dynamic. 108. To be able to realise the circumference is to know the centre. 109. When there is free will it is God's will. 110. Fame is a fickle fate. 111. I know it will be all right in eternity, but what about now? 112. In great stress time itself slows down. 113. Our relationship to nature is to admire it for God. 114. In the Trinity of proton, neutron, and electron is there a metaphysic of materialism? 115. Honey, vinegar and water make a poor man's sherry. 116. Of all life only man questions. Why? 117. The Good transcends good and evil. 118. The way is not unknowable. It does not need to be known. 119. The visible manifestations of a psychic problem are seldom, if ever, its cause. 120. The hardest fight to win is with oneself, an even match. 121. A winter drought is beautiful in its hidden evil. 122. What, other than pretensions, am I? 123. Polytheists are non-sexist, God is called Him, but the Gods are called Them. 124. Is the speed of light exceeded by thought? 125. The ultimate cure for poverty is the neutron bomb. 126. Fear is a term to denote the existence of something to be feared. 127. Faith without knowledge is weak. Faith with knowledge is strong. 128. The mind adapts to familiar pain, a new pain hurts. 129. It is not what you read, but what you think of it. 130. Life is a sexually transmitted disease. The prognosis is always death. 131. Man likes to do anything but just be. 132. Accidents usually aren't. 133. The scholar is the Bodhisattva of literature. 134. Ecclesiastes is very Greek to me. 135. Light is the mediator between matter and energy. 136. The Forms are the harmonious ratios on the scale of existence. 137. To know the beginning of the universe is to know one's being at birth. 138. In the beginning I am, in the end I am, I think I am. 139. Learn, Understand, Awe. 140. The moderns pollute the rational and abuse the irrational. 141. Resurrection is insurrection in Hades. 142. Wittgenstein knew when to shut up. 143. A baby is a Buddha with a bottle, so am I. 144. The eye needs both light and darkness to see. 145. The trouble with intelligence officers is that they aren't. 146. Blinking is a quick escape from illusion to reality. 147. Ego is the stumbling block for the holy. 148. The mystical tradition is universal not traditional. 149. We know where Sodomy is from, but what is Gomorrahy? 150. Silence is golden. It pays to listen. 151. A word in time forgoing three, is that what makes poetry? 152. What causes colour? 153. Life is embodied desire. 154. I will use the Ego as long as it is useful to God. 155. What assumption makes a martyr good? 156. The classics are not complicated for the public. 157. The secret of the ancients was they did not have one. 158. There is no God in politics nor king in religion. 159. All love songs are songs to God. 160. Who heard the 'Big Bang'? 161. The mirror of the universe is the mind. 162. After reading all that I have, I think between the lines. 163. I had to go through that to get to this, and this to get to that. 164. The moderns mistake the Why of happening for the How. 165. It is not the system that is wrong, it is what it is used for. 166. The magic of man is to know himself. 167. Man, the irrational animal, always asks for more. 168. The more I learn the less I know, the more I know the less I learn. 169. 'O' to make the ineffable effable. 170. Beggars ignore insults for sustenance. 171. God is the unpredictable in the future. 172. I have read thousands of books and only understand what I knew. 173. There is a drug for every personality or purpose, except reality. 174. Trying to express the ineffable gave birth to literature, it didn't work. 175. If man is the measure it is a crooked scale. 176. Marx only reconciled man to the world, a job half done. 177. If you can't do what you are told, think for yourself. 178. Who thinks when I don't? 179. The rain in Australia is mainly a failure. 180. It is easy to be sceptical about that which you know nothing. 181. Plutarch is the logical outcome of Plato's ethics. 182. The world is the best of all possible pains. 183. Hail to thee fair gravity. 184. To write a poem one must slow mental energy enough to capture its form. 185. If one thinks of God all the time, what use Tarot, Astrology, etc. 186. All movement is from high pressure to low pressure. 187. All religions consider mystics as dangerous to order. 188. What need the plague, we have the motor car. 189. Did the ancients know the gut-wrenching loneliness of modern man? 190. The stars were a story book for the mind, a Holy book. 191. Today we are all exiles from the past. 192. Oppression is worse than the grave. It is better to die for a cause than die a slave. 193. How does the mind pronounce? 194. The Gnostic system of Astrology is psychology not cosmology. 195. The Greeks came, the Romans came, they both went. 196. Do gnats get hit by rain drops? 197. Riding Buridan's ass gets you nowhere. 198. God is not found in the stable but in the dynamic. 199. An anti-neutron bomb destroys property and leaves people safe. 200. The mind is the hardware, the computer the software. 201. Bodily resurrection is the greatest blaspheme, separation from God even in death. 202. The earthly paradise is for everyone to have sufficiency. 203. We come from 1, we return to 1. There are no 2 ways about it. 204. Mary Magdalene was the first to proclaim the Resurrection. 205. Ancient philosophers speaking of the physical meant the mystical. 206. Know thyself, but know others. 207. The moon attended by her handmaidens, the stars. 208. An Anti-Pygmalion turns a nagging wife into a statue. 209. Copying notes from one book to another is like shifting a compost heap. 210. All my best plans failed. Accidents have gotten me here. 211. As above, so below. What? 212. There is no evil in nature. 213. For a quality to be absolute it must not contain any opposites. 214. God is a perpetual emotion. 215. A weakness in imagination requires realism in Art. 216. It is not for history or philosophy sacred writing is saved. 217. Social values often over-ride rational thought. 218. The philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways, but have not changed it. 219. Darkness is a predominate condition for light. 220. Why is the popular equated to the good? 221. Is mass delusion a criterion for quality? 222. The gong is the sound of the experience of God. 223. Pythagoras - "Review the day before sleep". 224. Philosophical speculation is masturbation instead of union. 225. Atomic bomb morality = I want it all and right now, there is no later. 226. Immortal Night, good mother, of the Gods supreme. 227. Nothing is as good or bad as it seems. 228. Whoever goes up must come down again, and again. 229. The new religion of the moderns, Petrol Worship. 230. What do you see when your eyes are closed? 231. A good state has no enemies, internal or external. 232. Myth is the envelope of truth handed through the ages. 233. Sunday, listening to Bach with lawn mower continuo. 234. The mind that looks for God creates God. 235. Pythagoras was right, numbers rule the world. Damn computers. 236. Jesus was a young Palestinian in 'occupied territories'. 237. The 7 modern sins; boredom, triviality, frustration, greed, anger, confusion, violence. 238. Today machines have right-of-way over people. 239. Memory is the fabric of life upon which experience is embroidered. 240. The flaming arrow of prayer shot into the dark night sky reaches God. 241. An expert is one who has made all the mistakes in his field, and learned from them. 242. Only disinterested prayers work quickly. 243. Concentrating welfare on the poor assumes the rich have no problems. 244. People think about others as they think about themselves. 245. Understanding the unity of the world is the first step to the return. 246. Unpleasantness and one's reaction is something to meditate on. 247. Infinity + 1 is the sum of the universe. 248. The cave of Plato is like TV., a soap opera of the real world. 249. Art is like rearing children, you don't do it for the money. 250. What was God doing before He created the world? Worrying. 251. I find it very hard to find a fault in others unless I have found it in myself. 252. For every opinion there is an equal and contrary opinion. 253. Money runs the show, pays the performers, reaps the benefits. 254. Two things that cannot be argued, facts and a closed mind. 255. When the ignorant are leading the stupid, the wise watch in silence. 256. There is no truth like an old truth. Like the old truth that there is no truth. 257. To be praised by the ignorant is to lack the criticism of the wise. 258. What God has joined together let no man put asunder. The atom? 259. A word can change the course of history, not so silence. 260. War is mostly a bore. 261. A disciple must be like a good child. 262. Am I a human being or a human becoming? 263. One's attitude to life has a lot to do with one's attitude to life. 264. When one asks oneself something, who asks, who listens, who answers? 265. When asked, "where did you study?" I reply, "at my desk." 266. Life is a continuous process of which living is but a part. 267. Souls desiring to unite are held apart by matter. 268. By day we see far on earth, by night the far heavens. 269. The only thing I really own is my body, since I got out of the Navy. 270. For today's news turn to the 23rd chapter of the Apocalypse. 271. The Planets are the 'Ghost Riders in the Sky'. 272. The hard driving hammer of pain beats upon the anvil of my brain. 273. Allow error, as that is the way of growth. 274. Why is education available for those who can afford it and not to those who need it? 275. Do not condemn the authors, understand them. 276. I know nothing, therefore I am a safe teacher. 277. What is beyond the stars is beyond the consciousness of the mind. 278. OOZ-ZOE = From mud to life. 279. It is not the fixed we need to know, but the variable. 280. What is the sound of one hand clapping? The mind laughing. 281. Nobody has more or less problems, just different ones. 282. Child, do not be afraid of being afraid. 283. Don't let the flowers obscure the Buddha. 284. Ignorant condemnation is neither better nor worse than ignorant praise. 285. Judaism was the first rejection of God, more followed. 286. Show me a monotheistic religion without angels. 287. To write the with pen is to have 'hands on interface with hard copy'. 288. Passion is an expendable commodity. 289. To err is human, to learn from it Godly. 290. Great problems usually have small solutions. 291. Children are a necessary evil for the continuation of the species. 292. My ignorance would fill many volumes. 293. Blest the artist who can see the work complete before the first stroke of the brush. 294. No, I don't use double negatives. 295. How can one feel unity with God, if not with humanity first? 296. Much learning may not make one wise, but it passes the time. 297. The late worm is caught by the early bird. 298. The only value of censors is that they might preserve some trees. 299. Satellites adulterate the night sky. 300. When there is nowhere else to go you find God. 301. The oracles do not tell the future they only tell you where you are. 302. There is a point within which connects us all. 303. Death has lost its sting, but has life found sweetness? 304. Many only experience life when they are dying. 305. The codex was a powerful weapon for the Christians when quick references were needed. 306. Time was invented to keep everything from happening at once. 307. I survived austerity to succumb to prosperity. 308. What good is there being in existence if you don't know it. 309. Is there a necessary connection between being and mind, can being be mindless? 310. I have been too ill to go to the doctor. 311. In the land of the near-sighted the far-sighted man is king. 312. I have it on the highest authority that we should not worry. God. 313. Aristotle said, "Friends are two bodies sharing one soul". 314. All love is the love of God loving Himself. 315. The true test of a civilisation is how they care for the poor. 316. Folk singers say 'listen to the song', pop singers say 'listen to me'. 317. Symbolism is found in all cultures in all times. 318. The dead never complain, their lot must be a happy one. 319. Man makes a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven. 320. The stone, the perfect, patient servant of God. 321. The good die well, the bad live badly. 322. I can't believe Jesus got away with cleansing the Temple. 323. Run towards danger. Flee from pleasure. 324. The ignorant can learn, the stupid cannot. 325. You do not have to go East for enlightenment. 326. Paper is worth more before it is written upon. 327. He who does no wrong needs no laws. 328. Nature is organising, man destroying. 329. I would rather listen to Bach than Black & Decker at dawn. 330. Art = Works of mankind which contain spiritual content. 331. I have learned when to stop drinking, now I need to learn when to not start. 332. If love is forever and bodies are not, what do you love? 333. There is no freedom in poverty, nor in luxury. 334. A leader needing bodyguards is the first sign of tyranny. 335. To lie in defence of freedom is to defend a lie. 336. If you do not think you are a modern slave, try living without money. 337. If you get rid of the bomb I will quit smoking. 338. The thoughts in my mind go beyond time. 339. How would you like to die naked, half blind, in pain and defenceless? As you were born. 340. If it is or isn't, why do we discuss such. 341. The deluge of the Flood as birth from the womb. 342. A carpenter makes a table, but creates a child. 343. The worry of the world ending in our lifetime. Nonsense. 344. Free will is God's will in the end. 345. Learn the way of men, but obey the way of God. 346. Search the limit of the senses to find the mind. 347. To a warrior, 'home is where you clang your helmet'. 348. The difference between archaeology and history is the between things and feeling. 349. "What do you think about abortion?" My own or somebody else's. 350. What did Jesus write in the sand? 351. How would we understand Socrates as a husband today? 352. How can Buddha be clean shaven? 353. What does woman want, what man? 354. Its about time, I think, all is time. 355. There is a time when they will despise wisdom, then you must go among them as a fool. 356. "All modern philosophies are but footnotes to Plato". (A.N.Whitehead) 357. One will climb mountains, swim seas for love, anything but be patient. 358. I have influence over anyone, if I listen to them. 359. Crime does not pay anyone but police, lawyers and judges. 360. Technology must be guided by the Humanities, otherwise we get power without ethics. 361. Wait till they find out the aboriginals built Ayer's Rock. 362. When you are up they all want to drag you down, a tall poppy. 363. I believe in Religion, not religions. 364. Art is not so much a stimulus to sex as sex is to Art. 365. An autobiography is a work of fiction based on personal experience. 366. Proof of discipleship is in the performance. 367. There are love stories in every language. 368. Magic is a misunderstanding of the Mystical. 369. When I hear you say these things of others, I fear what may you say of me to others. 370. I will give you my works, but please pay for the paper. 371. Magic is not power, but being in tune. 372. Sometimes words look abstract and without meaning. 373. Are we the Buddha or waiting for the Buddha. 374. Don't say I eat your taxes, I fought for your right to pay taxes. 375. Marijuana has done wonders for the private practice of horticulture. 376. We establish hierarchies to justify our place in society. 377. Is thought something like the thing thought of. 378. Life is the elemental struggle of man desiring the immortal. 379. Aboriginals are ideal Platonists. 380. I cannot be a disciple, I am not disciplined enough. 381. Anything told humorously is remembered easily. 382. One cannot give a gift if can be paid back, that's merely trading. 383. Laws made on lies are not laws at all. 384. For every thesis there must be an anti-thesis. 385. I have no quarrel with the advancement of science, except that ethics have not kept up. 386. All we see around us is but a reflection of something greater. 387. Who paid for the loss of those Gadarene swine? 388. Worry is my worst connection to the body. 389. Do not condemn the present because we do not know the future. 390. The dark night of the soul is the knowledge of ignorance. 391. A soldier is the ultimate prostitute, he sells both body and soul. 392. Is gravity a cumulative effect of molecular attraction? 393. The truth is not changed, whoever says it. 394. People like what they are used to. 395. The law is an ass, carrying a heavy burden very slowly. 396. A mystic is a junkie with a habit for God. 397. Doesn't it disturb you that Ronald Regan hasn't made a will? 398. Maybe God is digital, he starts from 0 and goes to 1. 399. Where is the Church when we really need it? 400. One cannot ignore what one disagrees with, it is there. 401. Every belief may be right, but not exclusively. 402. When trees grow old their branches fall off, men are lucky. 403. Understand the world by contemplation not by manipulation. 404. Philosophy - a lot of statements dealing on various levels of the same subject. 405. Eternity may be nothing more than a good night's sleep. 406. People worship what is given, but seldom the giver. 407. Those who have sinned are more likely to forgive. 408. Is suspension of belief the same as faith? 409. Censors - Sex is necessary to the world, violence is not. 410. Successors rarely maintain the teachings. Why not? 411. It is easy to criticise but it is hard to justify criticism. 412. Theological doctrine and dogma are for the un-religious. 413. Pay the sound of the coin for the smell of the meat. 414. As long as there is a past there is a future for historians. 415. We live in an age of second hand knowledge discovered by others. 416. Ignorant questions breed ignorant replies. 417. All the logical cleverness in the world cannot explain a Saint. 418. If there are abuses in the system, destroy the abuses not the system. 419. There is nothing wrong in being paranoid, if they really are after you. 420. An adequate explanation of observed data is sufficient. 421. All the rationalists in the world cannot change natural orders. 422. Every generation must return to its sources. 423. Christ, another sacrificed prophet, twice dead, sacrificed again by his followers. 424. Sex - only a moment for the male, a lifetime for the mother. 425. God does still talk to man, we are too busy talking to ourselves to listen. 426. Pearls form in still water, thought in still minds. 427. What every Greek school boy did, is today a post-graduate study, Greek. 428. No living man is my true teacher, only the ancients teach truth. 429. The Platonic irony is that one knows the many are one. 430. Handle money only as a necessary medium of exchange for necessities. 431. Allowing the rich to frame the tax laws is like letting the wolf guard the sheep. 432. Plato does not drink hemlock. 433. What good is one end of a thermometer without the other? 434. My work is to make hamburgers from sacred cows. 435. What is true is true forever, not for a day. 436. What see of me is the worst you will get. 437. It is time for all religions to unite. 438. Every generation has a prophet, but Plato is for all time. 439. The good is preserved, even by the bad. 440. You won't get strong without lifting weights. 441. The ignorance of the law is no excuse for punishing the innocent. 442. One God and as many ways as there are minds. 443. Man's place in the world should be moral first, physical second. 444. Dollars are not known by God in Judgement. 445. The strength of a nation can turn into madness. 446. Modern art has destroyed craftsmanship.
447. In modern wars the men hide in bunkers and women and children are on the front line. 448. You can only learn as much as you know. 449. If I were rich I could work harder. 450. There is nothing as boring as someone else's I Ching. 451. Wisdom built herself a house with seven pillars. 452. Happy the man who knows the end results of his actions. 453. In times of change, trust those who are still. 454. Avoiding evil is only half of justice. 455. Confusion is being in a certain state of uncertainty. 456. Mankind has not changed either before or after the 'age of reason'. 457. If we did not have a capacity to learn, we wouldn't. 458. Newton reasoned from the apple to the universe, Plato from the universe to the apple. 459. I don't distinguish between the Gods. 460. Do computers worry about the competition? 461. Truth stands alone or not at all. 462. An immediate cause rarely completely explains a subsequent event. 463. The bounds of the universe are the limits of the imagination. 464. All worries come to nothing, from nothing comes all worries. 465. I live amongst the moderns, but think amongst the ancients. 466. It is through diversity that all grows, each to its own. 467. A person does not find religion, religion finds the person. 468. Drugs should be in the hands of doctors and priests. 469. No single mistake dissolves the whole truth. 470. A well paid public service doesn't lower corruption, it raises the cost. 471. Schools are training-wheels for careering down the road of life. 472. The work of the artist contains a part of the artist. 473. No matter who you vote for a politician always gets elected. 474. Jails are for the bad, monasteries for the good. 475. Would you die for God? Can you avoid dying for politicians? 476. The Classics are the antidote for modern madness. 477. You cannot become alienated from society if you know yourself. 478. All generations before ours saw the same stars. 479. The Everlasting has a beginning and end, the eternal not necessarily so. 480. Evil is the product of the ego and opinion of man. 481. Ritual is good only so long as it is useful. 482. Politicians win confidence by answering unasked questions. 483. A journey starts from knowing where you are at. 484. Critics - some condemn, some speculate, some encourage. 485. Grieve not, we are only a heart beat away from the dead. 486. Science without Humanities results in power without ethics. 487. The idle mind is the devil's television. 488. Experience is a poetical metaphor. 489. Some play 'trivial pursuit', many pursue the trivial. 490. Everything on earth IS solar powered. 491. Animals have self-consciousness, they know who is hungry. 492. Greek ideals have survived almost 3000 years, will ours? 493. Hypocrisy = hip-pocket-cries-he. 494. In every idea there is precedent and potential. 495. Society is dying of consumption, or over consumption to be exact. 496. It is easier to edit a work than to start it. 497. Transmute the lead of the body into the gold of the spirit. 498. No matter how justified, anger is not justifiable. 499. Politicians pump-prime popular prejudice. 500. Science took 2000 years to rediscover the atom, when will they do the same for soul? 501. The university doesn't create study, study creates the university. 502. Look to the results of the Guru, not at the Guru. 503. Life is like making custard, stir it fast and its hard, stir it slowly and its smooth. 504. Instead of 'birds & bees' tell the youth about 'satyrs & nymphs'. 505. Rome was not built in a day, very little of it stands today. 506. Art is the human approach to the ideal Forms. 507. Children hear the words, but the mind is still at play. 508. I don't loan things, I give them and hope they will be given back. 509. At sea you cannot stand still. 510. Would you like to get caught smuggling cigarettes into a cancer ward? 511. As an author you are not a pimple on a critic's ass. 512. In learning, as in sex, sometimes the professional becomes tired and jaded. 513. Take care of the universal and the particular will take care of itself. 514. Only those without a sense of history believe there is something new. 515. Do not give your all, only as much as is accepted. 516. The mystic sees the futility of worry in the world. 517. No one can be trusted to go beyond their own self interest. 518. I am not a martyr, just a victim. 519. A real artist will survive, even thrive, in adversity. 520. Many teach what they were taught, few teach what they have experienced. 521. Those who see only when their eyes are open are half blind. 522. Most condemn everything but themselves. 523. Thoughts of vengeance are long, of gratitude short. 524. The only difference between a hero and a war criminal depends on which side wins. 525. Politics - you don't have to fool all the people all the time, just 51%. 526. A circle of infinite circumference is indistinguishable from a straight line 527. Things taken in isolation are distorted by a lack of comparison. 528. The truth, as usual, lies between the extremes. 529. Evil in man is usually a mistake for a short-term-good. 530. I stand on the shoulders of giants, and pick their brains. 531. There is not a succession of, but an enrichment of, ideas. 532. Schools should teach learning, not things. 533. You know you are rich when you can play monopoly with real money. 534. We are two persons, the one we are and the one we want to be. 535. Mystics may break the laws of man, but not those of God. 536. A cunnilinguist speaks only to women. 537. What is an interrogative pronoun asking for a selection from an indefinite number. 538. A fool trades a short term gain for a long term loss. 539. What is a young man's pain of love is an old man's chuckle. 540. What is a thought without a thing to think it? 541. Reading modern literature is like wallowing in mud to find pearls. 542. The measure of the musician is the ear. 543. He who gives himself to a doctor gives himself up to God. 544. The college can teach method, but you must learn for yourself. 545. You go up to the country, but down to the city. 546. It is not how many times you fill your glass, but how many times you empty it. 547. Education is the system of trying to understand what we don't know. 548. All want to repent, the day before we die. 549. I was born, in the red-neck south, but I got over it. 550. I must express my experience in other's terms. 551. All wars are ultimately for money. 552. More laws, less justice. How true. 553. Work in a vacuum is hard to evaluate. 554. If all the laws were revoked a true philosopher would not change his lifestyle. 555. Birds worship at sunrise, baboons at noon, dogs at the full moon. 556. What use is an empty ivory tower? 557. When you don't know the question how can you expect a correct answer. 558. When all the mice are eaten, the cats eat each other. Power Politics? 559. Do the difficult today, the impossible tomorrow. 560. Because generals don't read Classics, a Pyrrhic victory is meaningless. 561. a minute for 1986 arms sales world wide. No comment. 562. Hot and cold running wars. 563. The fundamentals must not be assumed, but examined. 564. The mystery of music lies in the anticipation of the listener. 565. If a religion has a book it risks becoming bureaucratic. 566. The jackboot fits any foot. 567. Talking to a tree is talking to yourself. 568. One values one's life more as one grows older, only the young are sent to war. 569. Drugs are a maintenance dose of eternity. 570. Logic is an artificial construct at odds with reality. 571. Life is the seed of consciousness. 572. 'God' is a pronoun used in place of an unknown proper noun. 573. Religion is like a joke, you either get the point or you don't. 574. Every soul goes through the 7 days of creation. 575. Sometimes I feel like an optometrist in the land of the blind. 576. People create their own luck through their attitude. 577. If you have high blood pressure, visit a blood bank or marry a vampire. 578. History judges jailers of Saints. 579. Cast your fate to the winds, but know which way the winds are blowing. 580. Justice should be like mathematics, example; share 4 amongst 3 equally = 3/4 each. 581. We live in a world of choices between lesser evils. 582. Some explanations are evocative but not explanatory. 583. Violence shows an inadequacy on the part of the violent. 584. Distil the liquor of learning from bunches of books. 585. The father of history was the child of epic. 586. Hermetic philosophers work in a vacuum. 587. The only thing that separates me from Christ is Christianity. 588. I may not know everything, but its fun finding out what I don't. 589. Wear fame lightly, infamy heavily. 590. Should people be punished for petty vices which harm no one? 591. We may be a blank page at birth, but it has God's watermark. 592. God being ineffable any description of Him is contradictory. 593. Plato and Paul are ghost writers in the sky. 594. Homo Quibblist = one who always makes trivial objections in argument. 595. Money doesn't grow on trees, though sometimes like grass. 596. A crowd is a potential wild animal. 597. Those against the legalization of pot are either ignorant or involved. 598. War is a reversal of human morality between short periods of peace. 599. Bad editors rape content and bugger context. 600. Join your local 'Neighbourhood Witch'. 601. Anyone can justify themselves by condemning others. 602. History may not repeat itself, but the mistakes do. 603. Is hypocrisy and ignorance justified by faith? 604. How much is a soul, what price heaven? 605. Man is the divine reciprocal. 606. A priest is a holy goat amongst sacred sheep. 607. Is the price of a human life less than that of a condom? 608. The ancients could read all of their laws in a few hours. 609. An old dog can appreciate new tricks even if he can't do them. 610. History - all we know of ourselves is the past. 611. Recalling modern history is like remembering where the minute hand was. 612. The rubbish tip is a future archaeologist's time-capsule. 613. Prostitutes have 'whorganized' to form a union. 614. If the wealthiest's sons were on the front line, we would have few wars. 615. The mystic works to clean the 'tabula rasa'. 616. At what age was Adam created? 617. Jails are designed by sadists and maintained by psychopaths. 618. We look down on the errors of others from the high tower of our own folly. 619. God hates sin but loves the sinners? 620. Hindsight is the view of an ass. 621. On growing up old people get younger. 622. Nothing happens by chance, everything is rooted in the past. 623. Teachers are between those who know and those who don't. 624. Life is a series of mistakes, the last of which may kill us. 625. If I am blamed for speaking out, let it be for not speaking enough. 626. Authorities respond to situations from their preconceptions. 627. Fate, like faith, guarantees nothing. 628. Leave no turn unstoned. 629. Death for a martyr is only a starter. 630. How do you handle a public serpent? 631. Australia was founded by iron-collar criminals, it is now run by white-collar ones. 632. To suffer is necessary, but not all suffering is necessary. 633. I prefer to drink by myself, that way I keep good company. 634. If you haven't a skeleton in the closet you're a nobody. 635. Have you stopped hating your life? 636. When you get older you know the answers, but have forgotten the questions. 637. Open the universities, what we need are more free-range scholars. 638. Amnesia is suffering from permanent after-thoughts. 639. Psychological warfare produces psychological casualties, wounded cold-warriors. 640. A person with a heart of stone is taken for granite. 641. "In a melting pot the scum rises to the top." (An American Indian saying.) 642. Frozen will is the dark night of accomplishment. 643. Either give the kids something to live for, or drugs. 644. Will the generals bask in the light of a nuclear blast? 645. While I was prepared for the worst, it was worse than I prepared for. 646. The problem with being a yuppie is that there is always someone more yuppie than you. 647. I want all of yesterday, and I want it forever. 648. What can the table know of the carpenter? 649. The world may not owe me a living, but why does it try to kill me? 650. Those who deny the universe mind deny mind in themselves. 651. To a drug addict money ceases to have real meaning. 652. If Jesus really cared to cure the blind, why not all of them? 653. The Goddess of migraine must be Athene. 654. Plato hints at our own understanding. 655. Faith is what one hopes to know. 656. What is the natural state of man, awake or asleep? 657. Do the blind dream? 658. Drug takers are slow suicides. 659. Worship the message not the envelope. 660. Am I lazy because I do not serve the rich? 661. A rebel without a cause is a discontented rebel. 662. To worship something is to acknowledge its worth. 663. All the money in the world will not buy us another planet. 664. When young one is in a hurry, there is plenty of time, when old one takes one's time. 665. What is the effect of A.I.D.S. on vampires? 666. Learning cures ignorance, nothing cures stupidity. 667. My ignorance is exceeded only by my desire to know. 668. Time always tells the truth. 669. Taxes are the rent we pay for civilisation, until the lease runs out. 670. They will destroy the planet when it is economically feasible. 671. A mercenary is paid enough to kill for you, but not enough to die. 672. Flying saucers? - The inexplicable cannot be used to explain the unexplained. 673. Anything I hope to write has probably already been written. 674. Thinking replaces dead brain cells. 675. As a picture is worth 1000 words, experience is worth 1000 pictures. 676. If I did only what I should do, my life would be a bore to me and, I to others. 677. The Russians rewrote the past, the Americans rewrite the future. 678. An honest man is easily trapped by lawyers. 679. Sex is an addiction old age eases and death cures. 680. is a matter of life and death, so is pregnancy. 681. Cents are 100ths of a dollar, sense is how we spend them. 682. Anything is possible, but not everything. 683. Weather is the most discussed topic, one we can do nothing about. 684. All constitutions are good on paper, but never in reality. 685. The tongue is the hardest voluntary muscle to control. 686. Are there moral laws as invariable as natural laws? 687. A bug is a small animal we have been taught to fear, though few are dangerous. 688. Research a problem, then forget it for a while, and the answer will come. 689. Buy below, sell above. 690. Electronics is so cheap soon you won't be able to buy a wind-up clock. (1979) 691. I could rule the world, if I could put up with it. 692. Don't worry about what you are thinking, and vice versa. 693. The past is our guide, but not our ruler. 694. The world is a myth which tries to be explained. 695. When man is good he is very good, when bad ungodly. 696. The only reason space exists is to separate things. 697. A good man doesn't trouble his God very much. 698. Any selection of facts biases any subsequent statement. 699. Good taste needs no excuses. 700. Advertising is to art as fart is to music. 701. All good things come to an end, so do the bad ones.
1. My father said, "Kid you were born stupid and have been losing ground every since."