OUT OF CONTEXT
Mark A.R. Kleiman
David Chu-wen Hsia
October 31, 2000
This document instantiates that old-fashioned and nearly-forgotten genre, the commonplace-book. Two centuries ago, keeping such a book formed part of the routine of every tolerably educated person. Why and how the commonplace-book fell out of favor perhaps deserves some inquiry, but the project of reviving it seems more pressing right now.
While few or no of the contents of a commonplace-book are original with its keeper, neither are its borrowings precise as to form. It consists, not of quotations, but of thoughts the keeper desires to remember, in what seems to him their most memorable form: often not the form chosen by their originator. The world does not lack for books of quotations. This is something else.
An eighteenth-century commonplace-book often included long extracts from its keeper’s reading. The tastes of the compilers running strongly towards the aphoristic, the items below rarely exceed twenty-five words.
Masculine pronouns, and "man" for "human being," occur throughout. English needs neuter personal pronouns, but currently lacks them. We can’t do much about that now without great loss of force. (Those who doubt this sad fact are urged to try their hands at gender-neutralizing "Greater love hath no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.") Our apologies to those offended.
The sayings below often clash with one another. But then all truths expressed in words are at best partial truths, and even falsehoods deserve their best expression.
OUTLINE
THE HUMAN COMEDY
A4 Character, Manner, and Emotion
PRACTICAL REASON
Ethics
B5 Justice (Natural, Divine, and Poetic)
War, Politics and other Games
C3 Winning, Losing, and the Contest
C6 The Polis, Politics, and Statecraft
C8 Localities, Tribes, and Nations
Economics
D4 Investment, Spectulation, and Gambling
D6 Work, Management, and Business
Professions, Disciplines, and Roles
E1 Disease, Health, and Medicine
PURE REASON
Metaphysics and Epistemology
F4 Knowledge, Faith, and Certainty
The Sciences
SPECIAL CATEGORIES
H2 Nonsense, Paradox, and Oxymoron
H3 Maxims and Operating Instructions
H7 Boasts, Mottoes, and Slogans
H8 Catch-Phrases, Graffiti, and Refrains
A1 LIFE AND DEATH
Love life
and fear not death.
A living dog
is better than a dead lion.
Better to be alive,
and the slave of a pauper,
than the king of all the dead.
Apologies are useless to a dead man.
Everything a man has
he will give for his life.
Greater love has no man than this:
that he lay down his life for his friends.
Heroism is the choice
of a short and glorious life
over a long, obscure one.
Death is nature's way
of telling us to slow down.
Let the living look to the living
and let the dead past
bury its dead.
Life is unbearable,
but death isn't so pleasant either.
A hero must know when to die.
The unexamined life
is not worth living.
But then the unlived life
is not worth examining.
Life is too short to be small.
A2 HAPPINESS AND SUFFERING
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Happiness cannot be pursued directly.
It comes only as a by-product.
Adversity introduces a man to himself.
Many a man would have been worse
had his fortune been better.
Whoever makes himself a beast
avoids the pain of being a man.
The two keys to a comfortable life
are a good digestion
and a hard heart.
The best antidote
to mental suffering
is physical pain.
Call no man happy
until the day of his death.
Living well is the best revenge.
Living badly is just dying slowly.
A3 EXPERIENCE
Experience is the name
people give their mistakes.
Only slow learners get burned twice.
Good judgement comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgement.
Experience keeps a hard school,
but some fools will learn at no other.
Anyone can learn from his mistakes;
it takes a genius
to learn from success.
It’s much cheaper to learn
from someone else’s mistakes.
That’s called "history."
Science is a way of getting experience
without paying the full price.
We make our theories die in our stead.
A ship on the beach
is a lighthouse to the sea.
Experience isn't what happens to you;
it's what you do with what happens to you.
There’s a big difference
Between twenty years’ experience
and one year’s experience
repeated nineteen times.
Life can only be understood backwards,
but it must be lived forwards.
Whatever does not kill me
makes me stronger.
When winter comes,
you know which trees are evergreens.
A4 CHARACTER, MANNER, AND EMOTION
Desire and wrath
are good sevants,
bad masters,
and no man's friends.
Hope is a good breakfast,
but a bad supper.
Hope is good company
but a bad guide.
Hope has a better memory
than gratitude.
As we hate
those whom we owe
more than we can comfortably pay,
so we hate
those we have wronged
more than we can comfortably repair.
Fear is a bad counselor,
and anger a worse,
but pity is the worst of all.
A man can no more live
whose desires are at an end
than whose vital motion is at a stand.
One passion never cures another.
You can’t overcome a temptation
by submitting to it.
Some people can resist anything
except temptation.
The best protection
against temptation
is fear.
It is not possible
to seduce someone into virtue.
Great charm
and triviality of purpose
go hand in hand.
Grimness
is neither a sign of seriousness
nor a substitute for it.
A man is most benevolent
when he has been highly honored
and eaten a good meal.
Boredom is hostility
without enthusiasm.
A bore is someone
who can't change his mind
and won't change the subject.
A fanatic will never admit
that someone who disagrees
might be both well-intentioned
and well-informed.
Fanaticism consists
in redoubling your efforts
when you have lost sight of your aim.
When one has no character,
one must employ a method.
Give a man a mask
and he will tell the truth.
Character is destiny.
A5 LUCK AND SKILL
It's bad luck to be superstitious.
No amount of planning
will ever replace dumb luck.
All skill is useless
if an angel pisses in your matchlock.
Success is a matter of luck.
The harder you work,
the luckier you get.
Success is an accident:
ask any failure.
Formula for success:
Attempts – failures = 1.
In the expression
"the law of averages,"
the operative word
is not "law" but "averages."
Fortune is the name
historians give
to their ignorance of causes.
A man is called fortunate
whose style of action
accords with his times.
Fortune, being a woman,
prefers young men.
What is obtained by luck
takes great skill to hold.
Eminence is obtained in two ways:
by luck and the power of others
or by virtue and one's own power.
Nothing is truly or securely yours
that is not achieved
by your own virtue,
your own effort,
and your own power.
Nothing fails like success.
A6 AGES, SEXES AND FAMILIES
Marriage has many pains,
but celibacy has no pleasures.
I and my brother against my cousin;
I and my cousin against my tribesman;
I and my tribesman against the world.
An innkeeper loves a drunkard,
but not for a son-in-law.
Confucian ancestor worship?
What do you think
a debutante ball is?
Youth and skill
are no match
for age and treachery.
Youth is wasted
if spent in preparation
for being old.
Youth is wasted on the young.
The difference between
the men and the boys
is the price of their toys.
Youth is a condition,
not a virtue.
To love, a woman gives her whole being.
She receives in return a baby
and some lessons in cooking.
If love is judged
by its visible effects,
it looks more like hatred
than like friendship.
A second marriage
is the triumph of hope
over experience.
Never trust a man
who lies in bed.
Nothing is more sincere
than a woman telling a lie.
Gray hair is hereditary:
you get it from your children.
Familiarity breeds contempt,
but without a certain amount of familiarity
it is difficult to breed anything at all.
Man is an eternal disappointment
to God and Woman.
It's a poor lover
who blames his tool.
All happy families are alike;
each unhappy family
is unhappy in its own way.
A man with a wife and children
has given hostages to fortune.
A7 GODS AND MORTALS
Who hears the gods
Is heard by them.
The gods in anger grant
the foolish prayers of men.
Whom the gods would destroy,
they first make mad.
If God had forbidden the serpent,
Adam would have eaten the serpent.
One who lives alone
must be a god or a wild beast;
he is not a man.
Trying to become
more than man,
we become less.
God is subtle, but not malicious.
If you meet the Buddha
on the road,
kill him.
If you meet the Buddha
on the information superhighway,
killfile him.
All prayers are answered,
counting "No" as an answer.
A8 SOUND ADVICE
Tomorrow isn't another day.
Tomorrow is today all over again.
He who will not when he may,
he shall not when he would.
If not you, who?
If not now, when?
All good things come
to him who waits.
The wonderful thing
about beating your head
against a brick wall
is that it feels so good when you stop.
A wise man makes
more opportunities than he finds.
Genius is 1% inspiration
and 99% perspiration.
An honor is not without profit.
Nothing is more practical
than a good theory.
No one ever gets enough
of what he doesn't really want.
Worry is the interest
paid by those who borrow trouble.
Never give advice
about matrimony or religion
unless you are prepared
to be responsible
for another's torments
in this world or the next.
A journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step:
and a road map.
If you don't know where you're going,
any road will take you there.
The long way around
is the short way home.
You can't drive straight
on a crooked road.
The steeper the climb,
the finer the view.
All departures are alike;
it's the landfall that makes the journey.
Both ends against the middle
is always a winning game.
Whoever dances must pay the piper.
Better to light a candle
than to curse the darkness.
Who laughs best will also laugh last.
He who knows how to tickle himself
can laugh when he pleases.
Even if the cow is black,
the milk is white.
Any cat is a good cat
if it catches mice.
The tallest tree
first feels the axe.
Anything that's any fun
is illegal, immoral, or fattening.
Eat it for a moment,
wear it for a lifetime.
A man who presses his own suit
has a fool for a tailor.
In a disaster,
presence of mind is good,
but absence of body is better.
When the water is over the gunwhales,
follow the rats.
You pays your money
and you takes your choice.
When you have to kill a man,
it costs nothing to be polite.
If you stare too long into the abyss,
the abyss will begin to stare back.
Whoever neglects things as they are
to study things as they should be
learns only to destroy himself.
Speak only when you can improve on silence.
To everything
there is a season,
and a time
to every purpose
under heaven.
A9 SAD CONCLUSIONS
Ninety-five percent of everything is crap.
Everyone is his own worst enemy.
Since nothing is free,
to each his price.
There's no point complaining
That the air is bad
when there's nothing else to breathe.
In the country of the blind,
the one-eyed man
is mighty unpopular.
Conscience is the still, small voice
that tells you someone may be watching.
Sic transit gloria mundi:
and Tuesday is usually worse.
The early worm gets the bird.
Where there's a will,
there's a won't.
Whoever lets a smile be his umbrella
must expect to get wet.
Most men would rather
die for their principles
than live up to them.
Everything is funny
as long as it is happening
to somebody else.
You catch more flies with honey
than you want to.
A pencil with no point
needs no eraser.
Blood is thicker than water.
So is whitewash.
Some people kick
even if they're hanged
with a new rope.
It is easy to break eggs
and never make an omlet.
When it comes to evils,
familiarity breeds content.
It's hard to stay drunk long
on the smell of another man's cork.
We are all as God made us,
and some of us
a good deal worse.
The longest distance
between two points
is a short cut.
When Odin sacrificed his right eye
for the secret of victory,
the secret turned out to be:
Watch with both eyes.
God must have loved the poor.
He made so many of them.
Poverty is no disgrace,
but it’s no great honor, either.
More people like to eat
than like to cook.
Blessed are the troublemakers,
for they shall receive
the undivided attention
of the peacemakers.
No good deed goes unpunished.
If you take a dog out of the gutter
and feed him,
he will not bite you.
That is the principal difference
between a dog and a man.
Man is the only animal
that blushes.
Or needs to.
I could pick a better century out of a hat.
B1 GOOD AND EVIL
It is better to suffer evil than to do evil.
The wicked are always surprised
to find that the good can be clever.
The worst sin of the modern age
is its belief that evil is liberating.
Fair-mindedness
does not require impartiality
between the firefighters
and the fire.
Fighting monsters,
one becomes a monster.
By wicked means
one may obtain power,
but not glory.
There is no glory
and no profit
in doing evil badly.
Newness as such
has no moral content:
a new suit is an asset,
a new disease is not.
A ruler must know
how to be able not to be good,
and use that knowledge or not
as the occasion demands.
Anyone unwilling to get his hands dirty
is unfit to rule.
If the ends
do not justify the means,
what will?
B2 VIRTUE AND VICE
Virtue is the faculty
of conferring benefits.
The deed is honorable,
not the glory.
Vice is an acquired taste.
A nation is destroyed
by an excess of virtue
as well as vice.
Hypocrisy is the tribute
vice pays to virtue.
Ancient virtue
is always more admired
than imitated.
We are not punished
for our sins,
but by them.
A man without enemies
is a man without substance.
If virtue were not its own reward
it would be much more popular.
A hundred fools
do not make one wise man,
and a hundred cowards
will not do a brave thing.
Self-discipline
is the capacity to remember
what you really want.
Too much is never enough.
You know a man is worthless
when his friends criticize him
and his enemies don't.
A nation is in trouble
when many citizens praise virtue
but few practice it.
Quench arrogance
Before a wildfire.
B3 COURAGE
Courage is the knowledge of what to fear.
Courage is grace under pressure.
Courage is virtue for high stakes.
Absence of fear
in the face of danger
is not courage, but madness.
Courage is right action while afraid.
Every virtue needs courage to make it real.
Pilate was merciful until the chips were down.
The greatest coward
bears without flinching
the pain of another.
Fear has big eyes.
He who runs counts each foeman twice.
Cowardice is the only vice
with no admixture of pleasure.
Cowards die a thousand times
before their deaths;
the valiant never taste of death but once.
A coward can never experience love.
Cooperating with the inevitable
means rolling with the punch,
not stooling for the guards.
A ship in the harbor
is safe from the sea,
but that is not what ships are built for.
B4 THE GREAT AND THE SMALL
No great thing is accomplished
with small men.
Great empires
and small men
go ill together.
Great men
do great mischief
only for great ends.
The difference between a murderer
and a national hero
is the number of victims.
Humor is what the powerful get
in addition to power
and the weak get
instead of power.
The great desire to oppress;
the small desire only
not to be oppressed.
When the warden dies,
the prisoners don't mourn.
Whoever takes credit
for sunshine and rain
will be blamed for flood and drought.
A great man can take a joke,
but whoever mocks a small man
makes a mortal enemy.
No one who cannot fail cheerfully
will ever accomplish anything great.
Start small,
stay small:
today Paramus,
tomorrow Hoboken.
The reward of military or civil greatness
is the knowledge that,
long after your demise,
pigeons will shit on your head.
The tallest tree
is easy to measure
once it's cut down.
Better the head of a mule
than the tail of a horse.
Even an ordinary horse
can be outstanding in his own field.
The higher a monkey climbs
the better you can see his ass.
When the strong imitate the weak,
expect evil times.
Weak men believe
that evil lends strength.
The moths will orbit a light,
no matter how dim.
The servant is not greater
than the master,
nor the weapon than the cause,
nor the dancer than the dance.
A good servant is always a servant,
and honest poverty stays poor.
B5 JUSTICE:
Life is unfair.
Divine justice, like the Peace of God,
passeth all understanding.
Divine justice is to justice
as church history is to history.
Be not deceived; God is not mocked.
Whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap.
The mills of God grind slowly
but they grind exceeding fine.
To him that hath, more shall be given.
From him that hath not shall be taken
even that little which he hath.
He that causes dissension
in his own house
shall inherit the wind,
and the fool shall be a slave to the wise at heart.
What goes around, comes around.
Who sheds man’s blood,
by man shall his blood be shed.
B6 LIES AND SECRETS
Whoever said that a lie cannot live
didn't know how to tell one.
The principal difference
between a cat and a lie
is that the cat has only nine lives.
Some people have such great respect
for the truth
that they refuse to use it
on ordinary occasions.
You can fool some of the people
all of the time,
and you can fool all of the people
some of the time.
That should be enough.
Ain’t we got all the fools on our side?
And ain’t that a majority in any town?
Lies are the religion
of slaves and slavemasters
Whoever wishes to deceive
can always find another
who wishes to be deceived.
Fool me once,
shame on you!
Fool me twice,
shame on me.
I'd rather be the man
that bought the Brooklyn Bridge
than the man that sold it.
He who tells a plain lie
is hiding the truth.
He who tells half a lie
has forgotten where he hid it.
If you're telling the truth,
there's no need to shout.
A liar's face tells the truth.
Rumor travels faster than truth,
but it doesn't stay put as long.
Three can keep secrets
if two be away.
If you tell your friends,
they’ll tell theirs.
I can keep a secret.
It's the people I tell that blab.
If I thought my hat knew my secrets,
I would throw it into the fire.
The only safe secrets
are the ones you have forgotten yourself.
In some places,
secrets are told
only to a few friends
and are generally known
within the week.
Other places,
secrets are shared
with the whole countryside
and remain involate
for a generation.
What is absent cannot be hidden.
Nothing is more obvious
than that which is hidden;
a gentleman therefore
keeps watch over his thoughts
even when he is alone.
A truth that’s told
with ill intent
beats all the lies
you can invent.
C1 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY
Whoever will not rule himself
will be ruled by another.
Freedom isn't free.
Doing what you like
isn't the same as getting what you want.
Freedom is not a gift given
but a choice made.
When you're buying freedom,
don't count your change.
A hungry man is not a free man.
Whoever would be no slave
must consent to have no slave.
Whenever I hear an orator
extolling the virtues of slavery,
I feel a strong urge to see the system
tried out on him personally.
Whoever becomes master of a free people
and does not destroy it
must expect to be destroyed by it.
All laws favorable to liberty
arise from dissension.
Man is born free,
and everywhere he is in chains.
C2 WAR AND PEACE
The first law of nature
is to seek peace,
and follow it.
There never was a good war
or a bad peace.
Victory! Above all, victory!
For without victory
there is no survival.
In war, you must win.
War offers no prize for the runner-up.
War is never avoided,
only postponed
to your enemy's advantage.
War is diplomacy on horseback.
God fights with the big battalions.
And how many divisions
does the Pope have?
In war, force and fraud
are the two cardinal virtues.
In war, the truth is so precious
that it must be protected
by a bodyguard of lies.
Money is the sinew of war.
An army marches on its stomach.
In war,
the moral is to the material
as three is to one.
You cannot always strengthen yourself
but you can always weaken the enemy.
War is too important
to be left to the generals.
Never choose a general
without a reputation for blind luck..
The English find it expedient
to hang an adimiral from time to time
to encourage the others.
A general must not confuse
the white horse of victory
with the pale horse of death.
Divide command and court disaster.
Strategy is the way generals lose battles.
Military intelligence
is a contradiction in terms.
Military justice is to justice
as military music is to music.
Counterinsurgency warfare,
like eating soup with a knife,
is a long and messy affair.
A fat enemy
is less dangerous
than a hungry enemy.
Nothing is so exhilarating
as being shot at without effect.
The only thing nearly as sad
as a battle lost
is a battle won.
It is fortunate that war is so terrible.
Otherwise we should grow to love it.
All armed prophets succeed;
all unarmed prophets are destroyed.
Live by the sword,
die by the sword.
C3 WINNING, LOSING, AND THE CONTEST
Show me a good loser,
and I’ll show you a loser.
There is no substitute for victory.
Justice is a fugitive
from the camp of victory.
One cannot guarantee success,
only deserve it.
Never risk your whole fortune
using only part of your forces.
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
When a clever enemy
makes an obvious blunder,
watch out for the trap.
Every time you lose,
you die a little.
It doesn't matter
whether you win or lose,
until you lose.
Congratulate the winner
with all the sincerity
you can realistically fake.
In any argument,
the victor is always right.
Coalitions are built by victories,
not by defeats.
Every victory's
gonna bring another.
The race is not to the swift,
nor the battle to the strong,
but that's the way to bet.
Success has a thousand fathers.
Failure is an orphan.
Choose your enemy carefully;
you will come to resemble him.
C4 POWER
Power is present means
for obtaining some apparent future good.
The reputation of power is power.
The desire of the powerful is for power.
A general fights, not for a bigger tent,
but for a bigger command.
Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
Power without responsibility
is the prerogative of the harlot.
Abuse of power
is in the nature of power.
Goodness with power is corrupted;
goodness without power is destroyed.
All power corrupts,
and absolute power
corrupts absolutely.
The only thing
more corrupting than power
is impotence.
Power means shaping the world
to your beliefs.
Learning means shaping your beliefs
to the world.
Power, therefore, means
not learning from your mistakes.
C5 THE FORMS OF GOVERNMENT
Socialism is like Prohibition.
It's a good idea,
but it won't work.
Socialism would take too many evenings.
Bureaucracy is rule by no one.
Fascism is the exploitation
of man by man.
Communism is just the reverse.
It is essential to totalitarian rule
that the future should be immutable
and the past subject to change.
To a dictator,
a relatively free press
means a press run by his relatives.
No form of government
works nearly as well in practice
as it does in speeches.
Whatever the form of government,
twenty or thirty truly rule.
No Bishop, no King.
Better newspapers without a government
than a government without newspapers.
Democracy is the worst form of government
except for all the others
that have been tried from time to time.
In a republic,
the citizens rule and are ruled in turn.
It is not the task of a republic
to keep its citizens from error;
it is the task of the citizens
to keep the republic from error.
If the public good
is ever attended to,
it’s only in a republic.
C6 THE POLIS, POLITICS, AND STATECRAFT
In a world without government,
the life of man
is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Taxes are the price
We pay for civilization.
But who will guard the guardians?
No regime survives
unless it gives scope
to youth and talent.
A change in the modes of music
always portends a change
in the forms of government.
Let me make the songs of a nation
and let who will make its laws.
Let me make the superstitions of a nation
and I don't care who makes its laws,
or its songs either.
A crop failure is an act of God,
but a famine is a political choice:
There has never been a famine
in a country with a free press.
One murder
is a tragedy.
A million murders
is a statistic.
No one is fit for citizenship
who does not resent a fallacy
more than an insult.
In a democracy,
the people get what they want.
They deserve no better.
Don’t vote;
it only encourages them.
If voting could change anything important,
it would be illegal.
If you have all the fools on your side,
you’ll never lose an election.
There is no free government
without party division.
Party is the madness of many
for the gain of a few.
Liberty is to faction
as air is to fire;
fire is dangerous,
but air is indispensable.
Fascism is the politics
of a barroom brawl.
Rebellion to tyrants
is obedience to God.
The tree of liberty
must be watered from time to time
with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
A sick nation gets
from a revolution
the same relief
a sick man gets
from turning over in bed.
Treason is merely a matter of dates.
Facts are subversive.
Facts are counterrevolutionary.
Whoever wins a civil war,
the facts go to the wall.
Ruling a large country
is like cooking a small fish.
Don’t overdo it.
C7 HUMAN JUSTICE
Justice is the constant will
to give to each what is his own.
Justice is treating equals alike
and unequals differently
in proportion to their inequality.
One law
for the lion and the ox
is oppression.
Justice is among equals;
as between unequals,
the strong do what they will
and the weak suffer what they must.
Justice is the interest of the stronger.
Justice means securing
the greatest good
of the greatest number.
"The greatest good of the greatest number"
contains one "greatest" too many
to be a rule of action.
Even a gang of thieves
needs rules of justice
to hold it together.
The rain raineth alike
on the just and the unjust,
but the rich have better umbrellas.
When there is an income tax,
the just pay more than their share
and the unjust less.
"An eye for an eye"
will leave us all blind.
It is folly to expect mercy
from those that will not do justice.
C8 NATIONS, TRIBES AND LOCALITIES
French justice is to justice
as French music is to music.
How can one rule a country
with a hundred and forty-three varieties
of cheese?
France is such a beautiful country!
What a pity the French live there.
Man is a creature of the middle:
a little below the angels,
but above the French.
In Brazil,
President is the rank
above lieutenant-general.
God made the world,
but the Dutch made Holland.
England is a nation of shopkeepers.
A Hungarian can enter a revolving door
behind you
and leave it ahead of you.
A Cantonese will eat anything on four legs
except the table,
and anything with wings
except an airplane.
Swiss virtue is like Swiss cocoa:
nothing to fight for,
just a part of a comfortable life.
In three centuries of blood and tyranny,
the Italians reinvented architecture and painting.
In six centuries of peace and freedom,
the Swiss invented the cuckoo clock.
Russian average:
not as good as last year,
but better than next year.
Adam and Eve must have been Russian:
they had no clothes,
no place to live,
nothing to eat but one apple for the two of them;
and they were supposed to believe
they were in Paradise.
Dallas is centrally located:
equidistant from everyplace
you'd ever want to be.
Chicago ain’t ready for reform.
It's easy to tell
when spring comes to Seattle.
The rain gets warmer.
In Houston you can wake up
to the sound of birds coughing.
Boston is the only city in the world
where any two parallel streets
intersect at a right angle.
D1 POLITICAL ECONOMY
One man gathers what another man spills.
Every middleman fills a need.
If everyone stands on tiptoe,
no one sees any better.
There ain't no such thing
as a free lunch.
Capitalism without bankruptcy
would be like Christianity without Hell.
Growth for growth's sake
is the ideology of a cancer cell.
Increased means and increased leisure
are the two civilizers of man.
The difference
between a rich country
and the Third World
is maintenance.
The rich get richer
while the poor get children.
Population tends to increase geometrically,
food supply arithmetically.
Alternative energy sources are cute,
but you can't run an industrial economy
on chickenshit and moonbeams.
No policy will change the fact
that 20% of the population
is in the poorest fifth.
D2 DOMESTIC ECONOMY
Better go hungry
than eat your seed corn.
Poverty doesn't scare me.
I've been rich, and I've been poor.
Rich is better.
Don't underestimate the value
of a comfortable income
until you've tried to live without one.
Poverty is no disgrace,
but it's no great honor either.
Nouveau riche
is better than no riche at all.
You get what you pay for.
Frequently less.
Whatever you get for free
winds up costing more than it's worth.
Cheap is cheap.
Reducing outlays
is easier than increasing income.
The superfluous is the enemy of the necessary.
D3 MONEY
Money is a medium of exchange
and a store of value.
"Money" is the current obligaton
of a bank.
Money is its own reward.
Whether you're rich or poor,
it's good to have money.
Money can't buy true love
or homegrown tomatoes.
Sometimes money costs too much.
Behind every great fortune
lies a great crime.
Robbing a bank is a petty crime
compared to owning a bank.
Them as has, gits.
The first million is the hardest.
Save your money.
Some day it may be valuable again.
Bad money drives out good.
A bad penny keeps turning up.
The Golden Rule is that the gold rules.
The golden hammer breaks the iron door.
D4 INVESTMENT, SPECULATION, AND GAMBLING
Consider the short run.
In the long run, we are all dead.
The only sure thing
in the stock market
is that it will fluctuate.
Bulls make money.
Bears make money.
Hogs get slaughtered.
You can't go broke taking a profit.
Every fool who buys stocks
hopes for a greater fool
to whom he can sell at a profit.
To make a small fortune
in the stock market,
start with a large fortune
and follow your broker’s advice.
Taking stock tips
from your broker
is like taking horse tips
from your bookie.
An unfailing supply of amateur speculators
is guaranteed by Barnum's Law.
The stock doesn't know you own it.
It's not the return on your money
that counts.
It's the return of your money.
Whoever wishes to enjoy wealth
without suffering labor
must study poker
or securities analysis.
Poker is less boring.
For work I’m too lazy,
Investment’s too slow.
Train robbing’s too risky,
So gambling I’ll go.
The money you put in the pot
isn't yours anymore.
My son,
if you draw to inside straights,
you will die in jail.
A Smith & Wesson beats 4 aces.
The winners tell jokes,
and the losers pound on the table
and yell, "Deal, dammit! Deal!"
The house will take either end
of any bet.
The odds are not reciprocal.
Nobody is rich enough
or smart enough
to break his own rules.
D5 SYSTEMS AND PROJECTS
Adding manpower
to a mismanaged project
makes it later.
Adding resources
to a misconceived system
makes it fail worse.
The way to get back on schedule
is to make a new schedule.
Producing a baby takes nine months
no matter how many mothers are assigned.
A project is making progress
as long as accumulated slippage
is growing more slowly
than elapsed time.
Any construction project
larger than a doghouse
involves a finite probability
of loss of life.
Garbage in, garbage out.
No system becomes operational
before it becomes obsolete.
The one language
all programmers speak
is profanity.
Most cost-benefit analysis
isn't worth the price.
The last nine-tenths
of any cost-effectiveness study
isn't cost-effective.
Every problem has two stages:
early, it is hard to spot but easy to fix;
later, it is easy to spot but hard to fix.
The first step in fixing something
is showing that it's broken.
Any idea which is accepted at once
is probably wrong and certainly trivial.
No cure is popular
until the disease has passed away.
Problems tend to expand geometrically,
solutions arithmetically.
The main cause of problems
is solutions.
Some problems
don't have solutions,
only outcomes.
The best is the enemy of the good.
Whatever can go wrong, will.
Every possible disaster
will happen at the worst possible time.
Nothing scales up.
Everything takes longer and costs more.
The probability of a computer crash
is directly proportional
to the value of the data.
Tasks expand
to exhaust the available resources.
Any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic.
D6 WORK, MANAGEMENT, AND BUSINESS
Nobody ever drowned in sweat.
The guilty secret of business
is that it's more fun than leisure.
Working hard is easier than starving.
Industry is no substitute for talent.
The world may be divided
into those who do the work
and those who get the credit.
A good man is always hard to find.
It's hard to soar with eagles
when you work with turkeys.
First-rate people
hire first-rate people;
second-rate people
hire third-rate people.
People are more than personnel;
you can't shake hands
with a man-year.
If you can't be replaced,
you can't be promoted.
Or fired.
The boss isn't always right,
but he's always the boss.
A good manager
is the servant of the workers.
The job of the chief executive
is to get the whole herd
moving roughly west.
Anyone who believes
that managing is harder than working
should spend one day with a pick & shovel.
The only difference
between running a plumbing business
and running GM
is the last six zeroes.
Flat surfaces attract paper.
A camel is a horse
designed by a committee.
Two heads
are only more numerous
than one.
Not to decide is to decide.
No convoy is faster
than its slowest ship.
No chain is stronger
than its weakest link.
No work group is smarter
than its dumbest member.
When knaves fall out,
honest folk get their goods.
A corporation
has no soul to damn and
no body to kick.
A corporation
has no conscience.
But then again,
neither do most of the people in it.
A corporation doesn't care
who makes the laws of a country
as long as it can make the profits.
Nine-tenths of all maritime disasters
occur on the watch of the third officer.
Any decision
made by committee
receives attention
in inverse proportion
to its importance.
Every employee in a bureaucracy
will continue to be promoted
until he obtains a job
for which he is incompetent.
At any given moment,
no one is minding the store.
E1 MEDICINE AND DISEASE
God cures,
and the doctor takes the fee.
Untreated, a cold will last a week;
but medical science can cure it
within seven days.
Nature, time, and patience
are the three great physicians.
Primitive man had more diseases,
but fewer doctors.
It comes out about even.
No one falsely believes
that he suffers from hypochondria.
A heart attack
is God's way of reminding you
about estate planning.
One night with Venus,
ten years with Mercury.
A patient with a negative wallet biopsy
is beyond the reach of modern medicine.
All successful doctors specialize
in diseases of the rich.
All bleeding stops eventually.
Time heals all non-fatal wounds.
E2 THE LAW
The law is an ass
The law is impartial:
it forbids rich and poor alike
to sleep under bridges,
to beg,
and to steal bread.
Any idiot can file a lawsuit.
The law is whatever you can convince a judge
to say it is.
Legal reasoning
is to reasoning
as legal prose is to prose.
Everything depends
on whose ox is gored.
The rules of evidence
are a series of epistemological blunders.
Circumstantial evidence
can be rather convincing,
as when you find a trout in the milk.
What is precedent
but hearsay evidence
about the meaning of the law?
The silenced witness speaks the loudest.
Hard cases make bad law.
Bad law makes hard cases.
Legislatures make more bad law
than all the hard cases ever heard.
Dumb judges make more bad law
even than legislatures.
A jury is twelve good men and true
chosen to decide
which party has the better lawyer.
Whoever represents himself in court
has a fool for a lawyer
and an ass for a client.
Law school is where you learn
to turn a bribe into a fee.
When a lawyer swims safely
through shark-infested waters,
it's not a miracle:
just professional courtesy.
Where there's a will,
there's a lawyer.
A law degree
is a license to steal.
Give a courthouse hack a black nightgown
and suddenly he thinks he's Learned Hand.
E3 RELIGION
That which alone is wise and good
consents and does not consent
to be called
[your god’s name here].
Anything with a name
is a god or devil somewhere.
If oxen worshipped,
their gods would have hooves.
To know a god,
do not ask his name,
but what sacrifice he accepts.
Man created God in his own image.
If horses worshipped,
their gods would have hooves.
God improves as man advances.
Religion heightens guilt
without preventing sin.
Even a Black Mass needs a real priest.
Better to burn a heretic
than to curse the darkness.
Saints should always be judged guilty
until proven innocent.
Now that patriotism
has become the first refuge
of a scoundrel,
religion has become the last.
Most modern literature
is a substitute for religion.
So is most modern reliaion.
E4 PHILOSOPHY
There is no theory so absurd
that some philosopher reputed wise
has not seriously maintained it.
"Urgent" and "important"
are synonyms to the man of affairs
and antonyms to the philosopher.
Wisdom comes down to earth
as a raven,
drawn by the smell of carrion.
Philosophy comes with decadence.
The owl of Athena spreads her wings
only with the coming of the dusk.
All philosphy is preparation
for a serene dying.
There never was a philosopher
who could endure a toothache patiently.
The great weakness of pragmatism
is that it is of no use to anybody.
Marxism is the opiate of the intelligentsia.
Stoicism is the fallacy that
whatever we can do once,
we can do always.
A cynic, smelling flowers,
looks for the coffin.
An optimist, smelling manure,
looks for a horse.
An optimist is someone
that hasn't had much experience.
Some principles are so absolutely general
that they admit of no application at all.
E5 LITERATURE AND THE ARTS
A book is a mirror:
if an ass peers into it,
he won't see a sage.
A classic is a book
everybody wants to have read
and nobody wants to read.
Just because books are made from trees
doesn't mean that their leaves
have to turn yellow and drop off.
Without music, life would be an error.
"Folk music" runs heavy on the fiddle,
heavy on the sentiment,
and light on the rehearsal time.
Sculpture is art.
Statues are merely dead politicians.
Nowadays any jackass
with a blowtorch and astigmatism
calls himself a sculptor.
The secret of success in acting is honesty.
Once you can fake that, you've got it made.
Satire is what closes on Saturday night.
Opera in English
is like baseball in Italian.
Poetry is what gets lost in translation.
Writing free verse
is like playing tennis without the net.
Dying? Hard?
No, dying isn't hard.
Dying is easy.
Comedy is hard.
E6 HISTORY
History is bunk.
The very ink
in which history is written
is fluid prejudice.
History is written by the winners.
When a man writes an autobiography,
a certain modesty is expected.
When a nation does the same,
there is no limit
to its boasting and vainglory.
Whoever does not study history
is condemned to repeat it.
History is a farce without a laugh.
The dullest history
is the best to live through.
History is a comedy
to those who think,
a tragedy
to those who feel.
History is played twice:
first as tragedy,
again as farce.
History is philosophy
teaching by examples.
Never try to hurry history.
E7 ECONOMICS
An economist knows the price of everything
and the value of nothing.
Modern macroeconomics
is so powerful
that it correctly predicted
seven of the last four recessions.
An equilibrium is not an optimum;
a hanged man is in equilibrium
once he stops swinging.
Econometrics
is the mathematical form
of the post hoc fallacy.
You can’t take the con
out of econometrics.
Econometrics is what you have to do
when you didn’t take the time
to design a good experiment.
E8 TEACHING AND RESEARCH
Accuracy is not validity.
Is there any sight so sad
as a beautiful and noble theory
slain by a gang
of brutal, vulgar, ugly facts?
Scientific hypotheses
are torture chambers for fact.
Basic research
is when you don't know what you're doing.
If we knew the answers in advance,
it wouldn't be research.
Science is a bunch of guys
in bad suits
cutting up frogs
on foundation grants.
A true teacher sees everything
only in relation to his students:
even himself.
The first time a teacher gives a lecture,
the teacher learns.
The second time, the students learn.
The third time, nobody learns.
Long live pure mathematics!
May it never be of use to anybody.
All mathematicians
are isomorphic.
A dissertation shouldn't be a career:
the purpose of graduate school
is to graduate.
Of course academic politics is vicious:
the stakes are so low.
The university brings out all talents,
including stupidity.
The real world is open-book.
E9 THE POLITICAL LIFE
The first mistake in a political career
is going into politics.
When a man fixes his mind on office
a rottenness enters into his behavior.
A bad cause will always be supported
by bad means and bad men.
The average politician
will risk his country's future
on a proposition he wouldn't back
with five dollars of his own money.
An honest politician will not succeed
unless he is stupid enough
to share the prejudices of the majority.
Looking for honesty in politics
is like asking for fish at a fruit stand.
An honest politician
is one who stays bought.
The best man isn't elected,
because the best man won't run.
Whoever thinks himself
too good for politics
will be ruled by his inferiors.
A reformer is someone
who wants to take the politics
out of politics.
Success in politics
requires an ounce of talent
and a pound of gold.
Money is the mother's milk of politics
The few are always
the friends of the few.
The enemy of my enemy
is my friend.
Where you stand
depends on where you sit.
It is far easier to bring a crowd to its feet
than to bring it to its senses.
The vulgar judge entirely by results,
and the world consists
of nothing but the vulgar.
Politics is the art of the possible.
All politics is local.
A week is a long time in politics.
No permanent reform lasts as long
as a temporary emergency regulation.
A politician needs a good memory
and a strong forgettery.
Whatever their names,
the two great parties
are the party of hope
and the party of memory.
The courtier
is always more royalist
than the king.
The job of the mayor
is to pick up the garbage.
A legislator who wants to be re-elected
will never vote against an appropriation
or for a tax.
The suitor wants his petition heard
as well as granted.
Every time you give a job
or grant a favor
you make nine enemies
and one ingrate.
Politics is an arena
where organized appetites
clash by day and night.
Whoever likes law or sausage
should not watch it being made.
Lofty principles may veil petty causes.
A great politician knows
when to rise above principle.
In war and politics,
take the high ground.
In politics and comedy,
timing is everything.
E10 PROPHECY
It does not pay a prophet
to be too specific.
Foretelling wars and famines
is no great trick;
there is always a war
and usually a famine somewhere.
Prophecy is insight, not foresight.
A prophet is not without honor,
save in his own country.
A prophet is not without honor
who predicts what is already so.
E11 OTHER CALLINGS
A consultant is a man
who knows two hundred positions
and no women.
A consultant is someone
who borrows your watch
to tell you what time it is
and then walks off with your watch.
An international banker is not a bandit:
there are limits to a bandit's rapacity.
An auditor is the man
who roams the battlefield
after the battle
to shoot the wounded.
A critic is a eunuch
describing an orgy.
An investment adviser
is someone who manages your money
until you don't have any left.
Diplomacy is like breeding elephants:
It takes place at a high level.
It involves great thrashing and trumpeting.
And it takes two years to produce results.
F1 THINKING
Thinking is an out-of-body experience
Evil is the consequence
of narrow thoughts.
Most people believe they are thinking
when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices.
Minds, like parachutes,
function only when open.
Whoever looks well into himself
will thereby know all mankind.
Being awake,
I know I dream not,
though dreaming
I often think myself awake.
He that reasons aright in words
he understands
can never conclude an error.
More minds are changed
by observation
than by argument.
Reason is not so democratic
that the truth is elected
by a majority of facts.
What must be proven
is of little value.
Just because it works in practice
doesn't mean you can do it in theory.
We think in generalities
but we live in detail.
F2 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Finding the right answer is easy.
Asking the right question is hard.
Nothing is more useless
than the right answer
to the wrong question.
Ask a silly question,
get a silly answer.
A profound question
is its own answer.
There are no simple answers,
only simple minds.
Whoever asks a question
he has no right to ask
is begging to be lied to.
A fool can ask more questions in a day
than a sage can answer in a lifetime.
Charm is the ability to get the answer "yes"
without asking any particular question.
"No" is also an answer.
F3 WISDOM AND FOLLY
Men and nations
guard their ignorance
as their greatest treasure.
Against stupidity,
the gods themselves
contend in vain.
Nothing in the world is more frightening
than ignorance in action.
When ignorance gets started,
it knows no bounds.
Knowledge is expensive,
but no one can afford ignorance.
No nation can remain both ignorant and free.
To know that one is ignorant
is the beginning of wisdom.
Half of being smart
is knowing what you're dumb about.
It's not what you don't know that hurts you.
It's what you know that ain’t so.
We are all ignorant,
only about different things.
Ignorance cannot be pardoned;
it can only be cured.
The appropriate punishment for ignorance
is instruction by the wise.
Everything new
is demonstrably impossible
until some ignorant son-of-a-bitch
does it anyway.
The greatest fool knows afterwards
exactly what someone else
should have done.
In the country of the blind,
the one-eyed man is mighty unpopular.
Small things please light minds.
Stupidity exacts its own penalty.
F4 KNOWLEDGE, FAITH, AND CERTAINTY
Certainty is generally an illusion.
Often wrong, never in doubt.
To have doubted one's own first principles
is the mark of a civilized mind.
The less evidence there is to support a belief
the more passionately it will be held.
The world is full of vagrant opinions,
existing with no visible means of support.
Doubt is the chastity of the mind.
Solipsism is the frigidity of the intellect.
Faith is like slippers,
Not like climbing boots.
It's a choice between comfort and the ascent.
Faith is the evidence of things unseen.
Faith is believing what you know ain't so.
I believe because it is incredible.
Faith seeks treasure with a dowsing rod,
reason with a pick and shovel.
To expose error
is not always to reveal truth.
F5 WORDS AND THINGS
The word is not the thing.
The intention is not the deed.
The map is not the terrain.
A paradox exists only in words:
one fact does not contradict another.
Words are wise men's counters,
but they are the money of fools.
One man calls wisdom
what another calls fear.
Every man calls what he loves "good,"
and what he hates he calls "evil."
Those who know do not speak;
those who speak do not know.
Eloquence is seeming wisdom.
The end of logic is truth;
that of rhetoric, victory.
What makes no sense in English
makes no more in Latin.
Talk is cheap;
whiskey costs money.
Talkers are no great doers.
When all is said and done,
there's a lot more said than done
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
An injury is forgiven before an insult.
An insult or an accusation hurts
in proportion to its truth.
A really vicious argument
is generally about something else.
Whereof one cannot speak,
Thereupon one must remain silent.
All truth is said first in jest.
Language is politics.
F6 PERCEPTION AND REALITY
Even the hawk's majestic flight
is not beautiful to the mouse.
If you want to know about fox-hunting,
ask a fox.
Beauty is only skin deep.
Ugly goes clear to the bone.
When all you have is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail.
What you see
depends on where you stand.
A weed is any plant
growing where it's not wanted.
It's hard to see the picture
when you're inside the frame.
No one knows his own face
or his own voice.
Whoever does not look for the unexpected
will never see it.
Against a diseased imagination
demonstration goes for nothing.
You can't depend on your eyes
if your soul is out of focus.
Naked is the best disguise.
In the dark, all cats are black.
Everything is similar to,
and different from,
everything else,
and in an infinite number of ways.
A sketch tells as much about the artist
as about the subject.
News is what's printed in the newspaper.
One man killed is a tragedy.
A million men killed is a statistic.
Among the vulgar,
the midwife passes for the mother.
There is no light so lovely
as a candle burning at both ends.
Nothing in nature is absurd,
though much is deplorable.
The mill wheel
does not make the water run.
Thunder is impressive,
but it's the lightning that gets the job done.
If the doors of perception
were swept clean,
we should see all things
as they are,
infinite.
F7 PROCESS AND OBJECT
Change is the only unchanging reality.
Process is fire;
the object its ash.
Fire exchanges for all things,
As wares for gold
And gold for wares.
A proton is a process.
A mountain is as much a process
as a flame.
No one steps twice
into the same river.
The way up is the way down
and the way forward is the way back.
An axe remains the same axe
though it get five new hafts
and two new heads.
God invented time
so that everything wouldn't happen at once.
The torrent and the glacier
both get where they are going.
In a world which operates
almost entirely at random,
coincidence is inevitable.
Eternity is the time required
for every possible event
to happen once.
The ignorant believe
that a mountain is a mountain
and a river is a river.
The sophisticated see
that a mountain is a river
and a river is a mountain.
The wise know
that a mountain is really a mountain
and a river truly a river.
G1 MATHEMATICS
Every sufficiently complex axiom system
is either incomplete or inconsistent.
A circle is the set of all points
equidistant from a given point.
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
No number is its own successor,
and zero is not the successor of any number.
Every game has an optimal strategy.
The probabilities always sum to one.
Not all operators are commutative:
a horse-chestnut is not a chestnut horse.
A proposition is necessarily true
if and only if
its negation cannot be held
without self-contradiction.
G2 PHYSICS
THE LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS:
First law:
You can t win.
Second law:
You can't break even.
Third law:
You can't get out of the game.
Uncertainty Principle:
You don't even know the score.
All measurement is approximate.
To measure is to alter.
Give me a place to stand
and a lever long enough,
and I will break my lever.
Every body moves suddenly
to its place
and slowly in its place.
Like charges repel.
In a closed system,
entropy always increases.
Current always follows
the path of least resistance.
A body at rest remains at rest,
and a body in motion remains in motion
in a straight line,
unless acted upon by an outside force.
F= MA
Gravitational attraction
is directly proportional
to the product of the masses
and inversely proportional
to the square of the distance.
A river cannot rise above its source.
G3 BIOLOGY
Life is motion.
Life is a metastable state
whose stable state is being dead.
Every organism on earth
is descended from a single prokaryote
which never died.
By salivating at the sound of a bell,
a dog can train a behaviorist to bring it food.
Under controlled environmental conditions,
an organism of known genotype
will do just as it pleases.
Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.
A chicken is an egg's way
of making another egg.
Every ecological niche will be filled.
Only one species can occupy a given niche.
Predators don't travel in herds.
No hares, no lynxes.
The wolves keep the caribou strong.
H1 AMERICAN FOLK WISDOM
Nice guys finish last.
Anything worth winning is worth cheating for
You can't cheat an honest man.
Never give a sucker an even break.
Honesty is a mighty expensive policy.
There's a sucker born every minute.
Nobody ever went broke
underestimating the intelligence
of the American people.
If a man's word is no good,
his oath is no better.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Loose lips sink ships.
Nothing you never say
will ever harm you.
What can't be cured
must be endured.
You can’t be too rich or too thin.
"Close" only counts
in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Lie down with dogs,
get up with fleas.
A good landing
is any landing
you walk away from.
Better a live chicken
than a dead duck.
Better to be tried by twelve
than carried by six.
Success means striking out
with a better class of women.
A man's
"standing in the community"
is what people say about him
behind his back.
What's candor to your face
is slander behind your back.
You can't eat prestige.
Fingers were made before forks.
One good turn
gets most of the blanket.
It ain't the meat
it's the motion.
Even paranoids
have real enemies.
Even real persecution
is no excuse for paranoia.
Everyone has 20/20 hindsight.
Now and then an innocent man
gets sent to the legislature.
No man's life, liberty, or property is safe
while the legislature is in session.
The United States
has the best Congress
that money can buy.
"Congress" is the opposite of "progress."
Congress is the only insane asylum in the world
where the inmates make the rules.
A Congress is the only animal on earth
with 535 mouths and no brain.
Whether or not the Constitution follows the flag,
the Supreme Court follows the election returns.
The Vice-Presidency
isn't worth a pitcher of warm spit.
In America, the press is free.
And no bargain at the price.
Money talks.
Bullshit walks.
No pain, no gain.
No guts, no glory.
An automobile
is an ideological statement
on four wheels.
No one ever went broke
underestimating the intelligence
of the American people.
Better to have a skunk inside the tent
pissing out
than outside the tent
pissing in.
Any man
who hates women, children, and dogs
can't be all bad.
Even a blind squirrel
finds an acorn
every once in a while.
Reality is a crutch
for people who can't deal with fantasy.
Half a lethal dose of anything
should be a good high.
Cocaine is God's way
of telling you
you need to make more money.
Never eat at a place called "Mom's,"
or play poker with a man named "Doc,"
or sleep with anyone crazier than you are.
Never volunteer for an assignment
or turn down a promotion.
Never get into a pissing contest
with a skunk.
Never draw to an inside straight.
Never give your horse a name:
you don't know how soon
you might have to eat it.
When you're only #2,
you have to try harder.
When you lose your mind,
It’s nice to have a body to fall back on.
When you're up to your ass in alligators,
it's hard to concentrate on draining the swamp.
When you've got them by the balls,
their hearts and minds will follow.
If it's worth doing,
it's worth overdoing.
If some is good,
more is better.
If brute force fails,
you're not using enough.
If it won't fit, force it.
If it moves, salute it.
If it doesn't move,
scrape it down
and paint it green.
If life hands you a lemon,
make lemonade.
If you can't stand the heat,
get out of the kitchen.
If you can't do the time,
don't do the crime.
If you can't beat
what you can see,
fold.
If it ain't broke,
don’t fix it.
If you can't beat ’em,
join ’em.
If you can't join em,
beat 'em.
Don't knock it if you ain't tried it.
Don't mess with the inevitable.
Don’t piss into the wind.
Don’t bet the rent.
Don't get mad,
get even.
Don’t mess with success.
Don’t fuck with your luck.
Don't break up a winning team.
Don’t piss in the soup;
everybody has to eat.
Never change horses in midstream.
Between your friend and your enemy,
back your friend.
Between your enemy and a rattlesnake,
back your enemy.
Anybody that says he was et by a lion
is a damn liar.
Trust in God,
but keep your powder dry.
Pay the $2.
Don’t fight City Hall.
Least said, soonest mended.
Love your neighbor,
but build a fence.
Trust your fellow man,
but cut the cards.
Take what you need
and leave the rest.
Dance with who brung ya.
Use it up,
wear it out,
make it do,
or do without.
Tell the truth, or trump.
But take the trick.
H2
Allgeneral statements are false.
Sometimes you can see a lot just by looking.
Predictions are dangerous,
especially about the future.
Strictly off the record:
no comment.
I won't even dignify that
by refusing to comment.
We won't even ignore the bastards.
When they're not coming,
you can't stop them.
While he is a poor fielder,
he is also a very weak hitter.
Include me out.
Nobody;goes there anymore.
It’s too crowded.
An oral contract
isn't worth the paper it's written on.
The opera ain’t over ’till the fat lady sings.
It ain't over till it's over.
H3 MAXIMS AND OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS
Know thyself.
Nothing too much.
Anything for a friend.
First, do no harm.
Consider that you may be wrong.
Return from battle
with your shield
or on it.
Thou shalt not follow a multitude
to do evil.
Thou shalt not follow a multitude,
even to do good.
Thou shalt not idly stand
by the blood of thy neighbor.
Before you hear the Sirens,
be sure you're really tied to the mast.
Keep your eye on the ball.
Pass to the open man.
Hit the ground running.
Go for the target of opportunity.
Buy from fear and sell to greed.
Cut your losses, and let your profits run.
Buy low, sell high.
Put all your eggs in one basket,
and watch that basket.
Keep your eye on the main chance.
Don’t make no waves.
Don’t back no losers.
Do nothing
for nobody
nobody sent.
Take the cash, and let the credit go.
Always be sure brain is engaged
before putting mouth in gear.
Measure seven times
rather than cut twice.
Flirt with your homely co-workers
and let the cute ones be.
Don’t get your meat
where you get your bread.
Keep your pecker
off the payroll.
Whatever your grief,
don’t tear you hair out.
Baldness is no cure for sorrow.
Above all:
Not too much zeal.
First step in making rabbit stew:
catch a rabbit.
Do not increase your means,
curb your desires.
First rule in handling
a small boat in a gale:
Never take a small boat
out in a gale.
Divide and rule.
Make hay while the sun shines.
You get far more cooperation
with a kind word and a gun
than with a kind word alone.
Strike while the iron is hot.
Nothing too much.
Quit while you're ahead.
Never apologize, never explain.
Never offer to do anything in public
unless you can do it well.
Never threaten a fish with drowning.
Never try to teach a pig to sing.
It wastes your time
and annoys the pig.
Never give an order
that will not be obeyed.
Never embark on a journey
unless you want to arrive at your destination.
Never make an extemporaneous remark
without careful preparation.
Never ask a hostile witness a question
unless you already know the answer.
Never argue with a fool.
People might not be able to tell the difference.
Never climb a mountain
you can't climb down.
Never say anything on the telephone
you wouldn't want to see in the newspaper
or hear in court.
Never steal small.
Never add to a losing position.
Never take anything you don't want.
Never complain.
Half the people won't care
and the rest will figure you had it coming.
Never send a boy to do a man's job.
Never look back.
Never say never.
Never argue with Santa Claus.
When you bet on a sure thing,
keep carfare home.
When in doubt,
take the trick.
When all else fails,
read the instructions.
When angry, count to ten.
When very angry, swear.
When telling a story,
start at the beginning,
proceed to the end,
and stop.
When seeking revenge,
dig two graves.
When baiting a mousetrap,
leave room for the mouse.
When you're up to your chin in sewage,
don't make waves.
When you do business with friends,
put Vaseline in your ear.
That way it won't hurt so much.
When all else fails,
read the instructions.
If you can't prove it,
at least make the bastards deny it.
When you don't know what you're doing,
do it carefully.
When you don't have a good play,
drop back three yards and punt.
Don't strike the rock;
talk to the rock.
Don't confuse genius with a bull market.
Don't send good money after bad.
Don't be too proud to quit while you're behind.
Do not bind the mouths
of the cattle
that tread the grain.
Do not plough
with an ox and an ass
yoked together.
Don’t say more than is likely to be heard.
Don’t write it if you can say it;
don’t say it if you can grunt and nod;
don’t even grunt and nod
if you can just sit there and smile.
Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
No matter how great your talent
for music, painting, or comedy,
don't quit your daytime job.
Always add concentrated acid to water,
never water to concentrate acid.
Read the fine print.
Present a moving target.
Always be sincere,
whether you mean it or not.
Always spit over the side
before tossing the garbage.
Be ready to put your money
where your mouth is.
Always do right.
This will gratify some people
and astonish the rest.
If you don't like the answer,
ask again.
If you can't prove what you want,
prove something else
and pretend they're the same.
If you have to share a room
with an elephant,
make sure you get up first.
If at first you don't succeed,
ask yourself why.
If at first you do succeed,
try not to look surprised.
If a thing is worth doing,
it's worth doing badly.
If a horse throws you,
get back up and ride.
If you can't be good, be careful.
Give to every proposition
that degree of assent
warranted by evidence and argument:
and no more.
Optimize forward,
not back.
H4 RULES OF THE GAME
No harm, no foul.
Play the hand you're dealt.
Yon have to pay to see.
Play it as it lies.
One foot must remain on the floor at all times.
If she says no, it's rape.
Silence gives assent.
Everyone packs his own parachute.
H5 INSULTS
Who died and left you boss?
That isn't even wrong.
Yes I do, but not with you.
Don't go away mad.
Just go away.
Would you be terribly offended
if I asked you to take
your silly-assed problem
down the hall?
What matchbook law school
did you go to?
If you didn't have bad taste,
you wouldn't have any taste at all.
Is that my problem,
your problem,
or God's problem?
The gentleman draws on his memory
for his jests
and on his imagination
for his facts.
H6 SLANDERS
He'd have to improve a lot to be worthless.
He’s got a size 9 ego and a size 5 soul.
He's got a great future behind him.
He's got solutions no one else
even has problems for.
He'd be a has-been,
except he never was.
He has all of the characteristics of a dog
except fidelity.
He’d steal a hot stove.
His hearing's all right,
but he's uncommonly hard of listening.
He's a man of few words,
but he uses them over and over.
All his taste is in his mouth.
Trade him for a dog
and shoot the dog.
He isn’t skilled at speaking,
just incapable of shutting up.
If he were as tall
as he is dumb
the sun would burn a hole
in his head.
They have learned nothing
and forgotten nothing.
H7 BOASTS, MOTTOES, AND SLOGANS
My country is the world
and my religion is to do good.
I am a man of simple tastes:
I prefer the best.
I may not be perfect,
but parts of me are excellent.
I'm the best there is.
But I'm not available.
I seen my opportunities
and I took ’em.
When I make a mistake,
it's a beaut.
I don't care
what the papers print about me
as long as they spell my name right.
As long as I count the votes,
what are you going to do about it?
The Old Guard dies,
but never surrenders.
Don't give up the ship.
Damn the torpedoes!
Full speed ahead!
There is some shit
I will not eat.
H8 CATCH-PHRASES AND GRAFFITI
If you believe that,
I'll tell you another.
Take two aspirin
and call me in the morning.
If you have to ask,
you can't afford it.
Not tonight, dear.
I have a headache.
Fuck ‘em if they can't take a joke.
We'll burn that bridge
when we're on it.
Things being how they are,
the back of the police station
is out.
What is your need to know?
Being a split personality isn't so bad.
At least we have each other.
Heisenberg might have been here.
Round up the usual suspects.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
If you don’t pay your exorcists’ bill,
do you get repossessed?
In God we trust.
All others pay cash.
We have a deal with the bank:
they don't sell groceries
and we don't give credit.
Free the Carbon 14!
3 x 1010 cm/sec.:
it’s not just a good idea,
it’s the Law.
Simultaneity died for our sins.
The sun is a gas.
There is no gravity; the Earth sucks.
One man's mean is another's Poisson.
Water? Never touch the stuff.
Fish fuck in it, you know.
My God, how the money rolls in!
H9 FRAGMENTS AND SIMILIES
Calling untrustworthy witnesses
to implausible facts.
Like curing a headache
by cutting off your head.
Like swatting a fly
with a sledge-hammer.
Like untying your shoelaces
with a buzzsaw.
Food to make a sword-swallower gag.
That’s a good problem.
H10 PUNCHLINES
I’m still equally confused,
but on a much higher level.
…in an odd number of places.
We know how much,
but not what of.
Four.
Calling a tail a leg
doesn’t make it one.
I’m a sex maniac?
Who’s got all the dirty pictures?
The court will return $5000
to counsel for the plaintiff,
and we’ll try this thing on its merits.
Yes, but I'll be sober in the morning.
If you were my wife,
I'd drink it.
I was misinformed.
What you mean we, paleface?
We already know that.
Now we're haggling about price.
Relax, Father.
The smartest man
in the entire world
just jumped out of the plane
with my knapsack.
Madam, you flatter yourself.
It is hanging out.
Seven ayes, one no.
The noes have it.
If it weren't for the honor of the thing,
I'd just as soon walk.
That isn't such a shaggy dog.
You mean life isn't a fountain?
Three years for insulting the Party Secretary,
and twenty for revealing a state secret.
What God wants, He takes.
You're going to do it over,
and over, and over again
until you get it right.
They make it up on volume.
That's where the money is.
Yeah, but I'm not lost.
But I never asked anyone how.
Not if you keep your thumbs
out of the way.
... just a stubborn asshole.
Assume a can opener.
Compared to what?
... thus reducing it
to a previously solved problem.
Sure there is, buddy.
But that's the first time
anybody asked me for it
in the pluperfect subjunctive.
Give him a nickel
and tell him to vote Republican.
... the pleasure is fleeting,
the position ridiculous,
and the expense damnable.
... and tell you
to put the black ten
on the red jack.
Seven to four?
Comrades!
Seven to four
is mathematics,
not politics.
How do you pick up peanuts
with that little thing?
So how do you cause a flood?
They're not eating sardines,
they're selling sardines.
Sell? To whom?
Start with a large fortune
and follow your broker's advice.
What's posterity ever done for me?
No, it don't conflict with my interest.
I’m shocked – shocked! –
to find out
that gambling has been going on
in this establishment.
It might lead to dancing.
It mattered to that one.