Some recent quotes.

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-Ten words can fill a lifetime with thought and these words can never be uttered, as one can say them only to oneself.

-There are many ways to hell, but even more philosophies.

-I asked my wife: "Are you asleep?". She answered: "No I'm awake. Not there's a big difference."

-A woman is a man without a dick, a man is a woman without brains.

-Thinking is sometimes hampered by modesty, insight is always hampered by pride.

-Respect is always expressed by sincerity, disrespect often by courtesy. Yet there is some higher courtesy in which they all merge.

-One must not ask for the meaning of life, one must ask why we ask that question.

-Why must we think so deeply to realize how much we can never understand?

-The mistake of most philosophies is to suppose that wisdom can only be serious.

-Each beginning is continuation that ignores itself.

-The smiles of today are the tears of tomorrow.

-To speak means to be what one says. Using only words is just silence.

-Madness is the dialogue of the lonely.

Now are these indeed original? Are these real experiences or just the echo of some bookish "wisdom"? Catcha once wrote in the blog of a very dear friend, who had given her personal selection of phrases:

"What has librarianship in common with philosophy? Maybe a conditioned reflex of taking a "meta-position", of adding meta-data and transcending the original information. So what's the worth of aphorisms? Reading these above I remembered one of the best quotations I ever heard (Byron? Shakespeare?):

"Words, words, words, words!
Words, words, words, words!"

Trying to verify this quotation, I found this:

http://www1.bbiq.jp/quotations/words.htm

As it is said in the Bible: "Of making books there is no ending". There will never be a book that will end all books, that will contain them all, that will be the last that is written. There is no ultimate aphorism either, no definitive wise-cracker, no absolute synthesis. Maybe that would be silence? Or is silence death? Is it the fate of man to keep on babbling forever while the Gods are laughing in his face? Another aphorism that has always stayed with me: "Les mots sont faits pour cacher nos pens?es" ("Words are made to hide our thoughts": Talleyrand). Though being a librarian I was never really fond of words and certainly not of "bon-mots" (aphorisms). They have something conceited about them, the flavour of a closed mind, as if enjoying their one-sidedness and their all too rash generalization. Haiku's have also few words, yet they can capture Infinity:

On snow, snow falling,
In this silence -
I am.

Taneda Santooka

Everything being said by what is not said. From the closed world to the infinite uni-verse...."

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@Catchabula,

Preachers in pulpits talked about what a great message is in the book. No matter what you do, somebody always imputes meaning into your books.

- Seuss

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@Joe,

Still about the aura that surrounds aphorisms. We easily suspect some sharp mind behind this kind of expressions and we usually think this is realism, even when many of these statements are completely false and as unreal as a fairy-tale. How much is just due to "effect" here, to the cheap surprise of a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat? Aphorisms are the ultimate rhetoric, their form blinding us for their content, their heavily-loaded shortness feeling like a guarantee for their quality. Blinding us also for their context as they suggest there is no context, the sentence containing all significance in itself (there may be some difference between quotations and aphorisms here, quotations still supposing a context that is consciously erased). Now there is always a context, each phrase being provoked by another phrase, each word being explained by other words, isolation being the mind-killer. Would that be the reason why so many aphorisms are so cynical? Because they are produced by those sad and lonely people called cynics? Cynics are not humorous, they are unhappy and egocentric and they have a distorted worldview. No fun with these guys, they even cry when they laugh and when they are drunk they just cry, and it's only about their wounded ego. Don't confuse scepticism with cynicism, the first requiring a sense for the objective that cynics are obviously lacking. Cynics do not contribute to knowledge, they only seek to be convincing, even at the cost of veracity. And they seem so playful and brilliant while many philosophers seem so dull. Some cynics would sell their soul for an aphorism, and the devil delivers them abundantly. Yes yes, Ambrose Beirce. Why did I need to say?

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@Catchabula,

"In the mountains the shortest route is from peak to peak, but for that you must have long legs. Aphorisms should be peaks: and those to whom they are spoken should be big and tall of stature." -N

Somehow I like the the idea of disassociation and judgment of aphorisms. Story's have titles and if you've read the material, you understand the title. But as all things, they are not meant as a end all. In fact i think that in most cases, they are a greeting at the door. Each doorway has a greeting mat. Some dusty and hard to see, others vibrant and bold.

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@Joe,

An aphorism is also a gateway. The potential and productivity of an aphorism is revealed at best by its denial, the iconoclast feeling obliged to explain himself for his sacrilege. One must dare to pull down the pants of an aphorism and expose its various weaknesses. An aphorism may feel like a law but it's just a hypothesis with the back of a hedgehog. "Everything is true and that is false, everything is false and that is true", and that is also bull. Hey Joe, want a few hundred more for Christmas? You can always pass them on to your mother-in-law. ;-)

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@Catchabula,

-Words capture the masses and free the individual.

-Words capture the individual and free the masses.

-When you inverse an aphorism and it remains an aphorism, it can never be true.

-Silence can never be contradicted.

-If you speak without listening you don't say anything at all.

-We have to think for ourselves, or we do not think at all.

-When there's no room for mistakes, there's no room for the truth.

-If you produce just one good aphorism, your life has been worth living.

-Everything is vanity, aphorisms being the most vain of all.

-Life is an aphorism, death is a statement.

-The chance there is one good aphorism increases when their number approaches infinity.

(Thrown out by Security)

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@Catchabula,

(Sneaking in through the window again, to deliver my payload. D..., it's the toilet!)

-Don't fool yourself, you never had a good heart if you end up a cynic.

-Discussion is like replacing the bad lense of a telescope by another bad lense. Your vision remains blurred but you always see a few things you didn't notice before.

-It's not easy to be a flea in the fur of the bear when you're just a fat moth.

-Holy cows have the tastiest meat.

-The sea is not overcome by building a lighthouse.

-Reading an author means to discover him in yourself. Texts are not read but recognized.

-Mixing up notions is the chemistry of thought.

-Good ideas explode and annihilate themselves, bad ideas stay around and get covered with rust.

-The old make the same mistakes as the young, the young having more time left to make them.

-The difference between philosophy and poetry is that poets at least do some effort to understand themselves.

-Benny Hill was a philosopher, he messed up things and ran away in the end.

-Philosophers barely read each other, the world does not read them at all.

-There is more philosophy in concentration camps than at universities.

-We easily forget that we have a bad memory.

-The truth can only be lied.

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@Catchabula,

Omg, they breed like gremlins! Is there a flame-thrower in the house (meaning a philosopher)?

-Critique -even from ignorants- will save the world.

-You only accept a master when you criticize him. He knows that too.

-It is social to have idols, it is wise to reject them.

-If you never make a mistake you are definitely an idiot.

-Man is an animal on two legs, bereft of reason.

-Words are a curse for poets and a blessing for hypocrites.

-Give a man a good meal, and he'll long for hunger.

-Philosophy is poison, killing your old self.

-Ambiguity is the only true expression of our humanity.

-Be proud of what you do, not of what you can.

-Some admire the square and condemn the circle.

-Free thinking needs discipline.

-Silence always has the last word.

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@Catchabula,

(Draws his sword)

I couldn't wait for success, so I went ahead without it.

A man who trusts nobody is apt to be the kind of man nobody trusts.

- A Journalist and a Politician

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@Joe,

The gladiator awakes (though he has seen every battle)

-God may be far when you die in the trenches. But there is always another there dying with you.

-We speak. Reality sings for itself.

(Ten for ten, ok? ;-) )

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@Catchabula,

(A Follower who leads the next)

The meaning of what I say is the false reflection of what I know.

How far can the light reflect, if there are walls to trap it.

(I will gain momentum, in every way possible):dont-pushit:

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@Joe,

And I forgive you for it.

-Philosophers always cheat.

- ....

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@Catchabula,

Now children, I talked. What is the lesson here? You're human, ma'am! You're a vain idiot, ma'am!

-Good soldiers fear victory. It makes them forget how to fight.

-When opportunities are limited hopes become infinite.

-There's no defeat except by accepting it. This is called victory.

-Winning the world means loosing ourselves.

-When I win somebody else looses. And that's me.

-Refuse to fight and you'll conquer the world.

-The truth only has street value when it's mixed with lies.

-Trying to be an arbiter when you fight is confusing for both.

-If we knew the truth we would all be dead.

Let's rock!

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@Catchabula,

This place is becoming a dump. And this waste is not even radio-active.

-Act only when you feel unsure. Feeling too sure of yourself is always a good reason to hesitate.

-A metaphor is a hypothesis. Poets are philosophers, philosophers are poets without guts.

-Why do guys with a high IQ don't skip thinking? They ought to do some good.

-If the truth was not jealously hidden it would show to be just another opinion.

-The truth only needs hearing, lies always need convincing. Simplification being most helpful to convince.

-Poetry is often just philosophy, philosophy is often just politics.

-An opinion is the truth when you're prepared to die for it. To fight and to die meaning two different things.

-Socrates' last drink was his best reply.

-The dying quit philosophy for the truth.

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@Catchabula,

I Stand among you, with nothing in mind.

- Writing everything you think, lets others know

- Philosophy rubs me the wrong way, until I choose a fetish

- The Enemy of my Enemy is cornered

- Post Thread, Reply to Thread, Post Thread, Reply to Thread...................

Give me Information, Stupid!

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@Joe,

You're obsoletely right!

-Let me say "sand", and then I'll bow for the wise.

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@Catchabula,

lol, Are you being coy my friend?

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@Joe,

I'm only afraid we would understand each other.

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@Catchabula,

Catchabula wrote:

I'm only afraid we would understand each other.

Well said sir, and very well.

1 Reply

@Joe,

Huh.. you said? Aa-a-aaa-tchoom!! Pfrruuu--eeuttt! Hagh, bad cold...

-Many speak by fear to be understood.

-Vanity rules the world because too many people are modest.

-I speak because I live, I think because I die.

-In silence humility overcomes itself.

-Those who can't stop laughing were once guilty of talking.

-Laughter is the sound of silence.

-In silence we remember what words made us forget.

-God is silent because that's the only way for Him to speak.

-There must be some hell for professors.

-The wise will tolerate words.

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