What He Say? - (Quareness Series 57th "Lecture").
Ladies & Gentlemen - this time may I lay before you some more "words of wisdom" -
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
Ignorance is the mother of admiration.
Good questions outrank easy answers.
I think, therefore I'm single.
Wear the old coat and buy the new book.
Conversation is the enemy of good wine and food.
Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
History never looks like history when you are living through it.
Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.
Promote yourself, but do not demote another.
Dying is easy. Comedy is difficult.
Civilization is the distance man has placed between himself and his excreta.
The unspoken word never does harm.
There is a good side to every situation.
Prejudice is the child of ignorance.
To philosophize is to doubt.
Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting.
We simply rob ourselves when we make presents to the dead.
Mistakes are the portals of discovery.
Nothing fails like success.
Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.
The greatest homage we can pay truth is to use it.
No one finds life worth living; he must make it worth living.
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
The best counselors are the dead.
Between two evils, always pick the one you never tried before.
Divorces are made in heaven.
Marriage is like paying an endless visit in your worst clothes.
Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.
A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.
You can't ever be really free if you admire somebody too much.
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.
Philosophy teaches us to bear with equanimity the misfortunes of others.
The wages of sin are unreported.
Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.
There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.
Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.
Awards are merely the badges of mediocrity.
Talent develops in tranquillity, character in the full current of human life.
He who ceases to learn cannot adequately teach.
When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.
Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
Scribbler: a professional writer whose views are antagonistic to one's own.
There ought to be a room in every house to swear in.
Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.
When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody.
If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.
Housework can't kill you, but why take a chance?
When money talks, nobody notices what grammar it uses.
If I've done anything I'm sorry for, I'm willing to be forgiven.
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going.
Don't be humble, you're not that great.
It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
His ignorance is encyclopedic.
In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.
The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows.
Grove giveth and Gates taketh away.
We have art to save ourselves from the truth.
In any contest between power and patience, bet on patience.
You can widen your life by yourself, but to deepen it you need a friend.
The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free.
First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, they finish by loading honors on your head.
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation.
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.
Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories.
The mistakes are all waiting to be made.
I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.
A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.
Thank you for sending me a copy of your book - I'll waste no time reading it.
Books are the shoes with which we tread the footsteps of great minds.
A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
Those who are willing to sacrifice essential liberties for a little order, will lose both and deserve neither.
Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.
Solitude, if rightly used, becomes not only a privilege but a necessity.
Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
I discovered I always have choices and sometimes it's only a choice of attitude.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
The game of life is not so much in holding a good hand as playing a poor hand well.
The only time you run out of chances is when you stop taking them.
True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.
Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours.
Luck is the residue of design.
If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars.
Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.
If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere.
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her.
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.
Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.
Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it's their fault.
Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.
Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.
Black holes are where God divided by zero.
The great thing about television is that if something important happens anywhere in the world, day or night, you can always change the channel.
I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.
He who has a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.
The man who says I told you so is making an excuse for not expressing his position clearly in the first place.
Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.
The great thing about a computer notebook is that no matter how much you stuff into it, it doesn't get bigger or heavier.
You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline.
To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites.
The best proof of love is trust.
A positive attitude will not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
What the world really needs is more love and less paper work.
Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you....not because they are nice, but because you are.
The problem with some people is that when they aren't drunk, they're sober.
Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
Yesterday is a dream, tomorrow but a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Hope is like a road in the country: there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.
There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom.
Hatch a dream and then believe it.
Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.
Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.
Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
When solving problems, dig at the roots instead of just hacking at the leaves.
I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day.
Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves.
Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.
Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things.
When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.
I would like to believe when I die that I have given myself away like a tree that sows seed every spring and never counts the loss, because it is not loss, it is adding to future life. It is the tree's way of being. Strongly rooted perhaps, but spilling out its treasure on the wind.
Of cheerfulness, or a good temper - the more it is spent, the more of it remains.
The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind.
Why is it drug addicts and computer afficionados are both called users?
What lies behind us and what lies before us, are only small matters compared to what lies within us.
Love takes up where knowledge leaves off.
Folly loves the martyrdom of fame.
There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.
True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked.
It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.
A hard fall means a high bounce... if you're made of the right material.
Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.
The fact that logic cannot satisfy us awakens an almost insatiable hunger for the irrational.
The battle that never ends is the battle of belief against unbelief.
Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.
Economy is too late when you are at the bottom of your purse.
Happiness is a how, not a what: a talent, not an object.
There are two kinds of books. Those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.
Getting older is no problem. You just have to live long enough.
Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it by the handle of anxiety, or by the handle of faith.
Speak well of your enemies... you made them.
Half the things that people do not succeed in are through fear of making the attempt.
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents.
The control of the palate is a valuable aid for the control of the mind.
I hasten to laugh at everything, for fear of being obliged to weep.
The difference between failure and success is doing a thing nearly right and doing it exactly right.
Ease and honor are seldom bedfellows.
We are all serving a life sentence, and good behavior is our only hope for a pardon.
The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
Become a student of change. It is the only thing that will remain constant.
f you do not believe in yourself... chances are nobody else will.
Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretence of keeping it alive.
Sarcasm spoils reproof.
When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
Live poor so you can die rich.
If we did not flatter ourselves the flattery from others would not harm us.
Habit is a great deadener.
Exaggeration is a blood relation to falsehood and nearly as blamable.
Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.
To a wise man every day is a new life.
The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
Those who forget their friends to follow those of a higher status are truly snobs.
Egotist: a person more interested in himself than in me.
When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by fighting back.
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
While we are postponing, life speeds by.
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.
If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.
Only a superficial soul fears to fraternize with itself.
We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time.
The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it.
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
Wit is educated insolence.
The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.
Specialization is for insects.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
That's all folks! (for now).
Sean.
Dean of Quareness.
August, 2015.